Time Mag Warns 'Climate Change Lengthens Allergy Season,' Ignores Benefit of Longer Growing Season
Climate alarmists always want to point out the downside of a warming planet while never informing the public of the benefits.
Take for example Time magazine's Tuesday piece bemoaning global warming's impact on allergy sufferers but never once mentioning that a longer growing season for the dastardly pollinating plants means a commensurate rise in the growing season of things we eat:
A new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows a link between warming temperatures and a longer ragweed pollen season. According to researchers led by Lewis Ziska of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the ragweed season is now 27 days longer in the northernmost areas of North America, largely because winters starts later and ends earlier, extending the time for pollen-bearing plants to thrive. [...]
The PNAS researchers examined ragweed and daily temperature data from Canada and the U.S. at 10 different latitudes. In eight of those areas—and in all seven spots north of 40 degrees latitude, around Philadelphia—the ragweed season increased between 1995 and 2009.
To be sure, this is not at all surprising even to climate realists. After all, no one is arguing that global temperatures haven't risen since the end of the Little Ice Age in 1850. At issue are the amount of the increase and the causes.
Also not being debated is that with such increases in temperature, growing seasons around the world are going to lengthen, including for plants that people are unfortunately allergic to.
The Nature Center in the Netherlands reported earlier this month that the growing season there has increased by about 26 days in the past ten years. Throughout Europe the growing season has also expanded.
NASA's lengthy report on global warming states, "The growing season in parts of the Northern Hemisphere became two weeks longer in the second half of the 20th century. Spring is coming earlier in both hemispheres."
With commodity prices on the rise all across the world, aren't longer growing seasons a good thing? Mightn't Canadians, Chinese and Russians be better able to feed their populations with longer springs and summers?
Regardless of the cause of the roughly one degree Celsius rise in global temperatures since 1850, there are indeed benefits to a warming planet that climate alarmists in the media choose to always ignore as they prophecize the end being nigh.
Ironically, the best example is that far more people die each year in winter than in summer.
So cheer up, allergy sufferers. As long as the pollen doesn't kill you, you'd much rather be sneezing than freezing.
- Noel Sheppard's blog
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Comments
Sorry for the Off Topic...
Submitted by Ashrak on Tue, 02/22/2011 - 3:02pm.
....but Don Rumsfeld is slapping Andrea Mitchell up one side and down the other on MSNBC right now.
To the article - I am left to wonder how it can be that, when climate changes several times every year, folks take issue with those seasons themselves changing over longer time frames. If changes over time are so bad, then why aren't changes over a shorter time bad also? And what about the longer seasons providing for more crop production? That is also a point so often ignored.
I have always framed it this way. And it is, to be sure, a Rumsfeld thing. Here we have a known unknown. We know that we do not know nearly enough about Earth's long term history to declare that we know everything there is to know about climate and weather, much less enough to be able to control the weather and the climate.
The whole "climate change" - "global warming" garbage is exactly that. It is the progressive attitude run amok, the thinking that everything under the sun is, and should be, controllable by government via taxation.
I will cede the notion that taxation itself is necessary in order for government to function. I subscribe to the notion that governments are instituted among men to secure the blessings of Liberty, so goverment being necessary means it must be funded. On the equality front, everyone should pay those taxes.
I draw the line, as I am sure our founders did, at the point where taxation is employed as a penalty, or a reward, for certain actions or behaviors. This is not the purpose of government. There is a profound difference between securing the blessings of Liberty and micromanaging the exercise of them.
allergy seasons
Submitted by Agnostic on Tue, 02/22/2011 - 3:03pm.
longer allergy seasons must be why so few people have moved to Florida over the past 30 years.
Agnostic, we have seasons too!
Submitted by Blonde on Tue, 02/22/2011 - 3:05pm.
Albeit nicer seasons. Including allergy season, I might add.
Handy Reference Guide to Obama's Gaffes and Goofs ~ Currently Numbering 200 (and Counting)
You forgot my favorite, Sea Lice Season
Submitted by SickofLibs on Tue, 02/22/2011 - 3:09pm.
Every time I'm there.
;)
Too true, SoL
Submitted by Blonde on Tue, 02/22/2011 - 3:17pm.
Horrible creatures!
We also have man-o-war seasonally.
Handy Reference Guide to Obama's Gaffes and Goofs ~ Currently Numbering 200 (and Counting)
FL's four seasons
Submitted by Agnostic on Tue, 02/22/2011 - 3:23pm.
Allergy Season
Mosquito Season
Rum Runner Season
No-see-um Season
Somewhere in there
Submitted by GW on Tue, 02/22/2011 - 4:13pm.
is hurricane season
OMO! How could I have forgotten Hurricane Season?
Submitted by Blonde on Tue, 02/22/2011 - 4:21pm.
After b****-slapping our newest planted troll on NS's Globull Warming Thread about Al Gore's "backward" hurricanes?
Handy Reference Guide to Obama's Gaffes and Goofs ~ Currently Numbering 200 (and Counting)
Football season!!!
Submitted by Beukeboom on Tue, 02/22/2011 - 5:14pm.
Football season!!!
No-see-um and gnats
Submitted by Rukus on Tue, 02/22/2011 - 7:37pm.
Pin a dryer sheet (Downy is best) to your shirt or hat. They hate it! Learned this working on a golf course.
Great tip, thanks Gary!
Submitted by Blonde on Tue, 02/22/2011 - 7:41pm.
I knew about Skin-So-Soft, but Downey? Who knew.
Handy Reference Guide to Obama's Gaffes and Goofs ~ Currently Numbering 200 (and Counting)
Thanks,
Submitted by Agnostic on Tue, 02/22/2011 - 8:41pm.
That is probably a better idea than drinking until you can't feel them any more.
Cool
Submitted by GW on Wed, 02/23/2011 - 9:47am.
Does that work for mosquitoes, too?
Yep
Submitted by Rukus on Wed, 02/23/2011 - 3:28pm.
They got built in straws too. Just keep them away from the Tequila, they get real fiesty! : )
LOL!
Submitted by Rukus on Wed, 02/23/2011 - 3:27pm.
That works too and lots mo' fun! ; )
Hope and Change
Submitted by JakeMo on Tue, 02/22/2011 - 3:03pm.
Every time I argue with a lib about Global Warming I finish up my list of arguments with the question, "Even if all the dubious claims you make about Global Warming were proven true, how do we know Global Warming will result in a net change for the worse?"
That argument sends them into the stratosphere. They go apoplectic.
Libs like to claim conservatives are scared of "change." But the fact is, libs HATE change that they do not control.
Global Warming Endangers Food Safety, Too!
Submitted by Blonde on Tue, 02/22/2011 - 3:10pm.
OMO!
I revisited this guys blog after searching for Al Gore's backward hurricanes. What a great site!
Handy Reference Guide to Obama's Gaffes and Goofs ~ Currently Numbering 200 (and Counting)
Speaking Of Globull Warming
Submitted by stratman on Wed, 02/23/2011 - 12:02am.
From Sysco, a major food buyer and distributor fo America, comes the following alert:
Even shade house product was hit by the extremely cold temps. It will take 7-10 days to have a clearer picture from growers and field supervisors, but these growing regions haven’t had cold like this in over a half century.
This time of year, Mexico supplies a significant percent of North America’s row crop vegetables such as green beans, eggplant, cucumbers, squash, peppers, asparagus, and round and roma tomatoes.
Florida normally is a major supplier for these items as well but they have already been struck with severe freeze damage in December and January and up until now have had to purchase product out of Mexico to fill their commitments; that is no longer an option.
With the series of weather disasters that have occurred in both of these major growing areas, we will experience immediate volatile prices, expected limited availability, and mediocre quality at best.
This will not only have an immediate impact on supplies, but because of very strong blossom drops, this will also impact supplies 30 – 60 days from now.
The produce man at my local supermarket expects tomatoes to be the first hit hard in his stores. Central and South American crops are not affected as far as he knew.
Just for the sake of argument.....
Submitted by almostacowboy on Tue, 02/22/2011 - 3:13pm.
Let's say the earth is getting warmer and CO2 is going up, isn't that good for plants? I mean plants love warmth, they love humidity, and they love CO2! DUH! That's why it's called a "greenhouse gas". And, since most food comes from plants (even meat starts out as grass), wouldn't increased CO2 levels mean more food?
And now, the hook - (Econ 101) if there is more of something, its price goes down. Cheaper food. So much for the food "crisis".
I've got one word - Zyrtec.
Submitted by Miss_Me_Yet on Tue, 02/22/2011 - 3:14pm.
I've got one word - Zyrtec.
Liberals ... we can't live with them, they couldn't survive without us ...
cheap water will solve global warming
Submitted by papadon on Tue, 02/22/2011 - 3:39pm.
I'm not a scientist but I think our law makers should do everything in their power to supply us with abundant, cheap water. Since healthy lawns and plants are terrific at absorbing CO2 gases and emiting oxygen, we could easily make a major contribution to reversing global warming.
don't forget "green energy"
Submitted by mom_rox on Tue, 02/22/2011 - 3:44pm.
More non-freezing days will allow wind turbines to work longer.
Of course, that means more dead birds. *sigh*
Learn something every day
Submitted by GW on Tue, 02/22/2011 - 4:19pm.
Are you saying that wind turbines don't work below freezing? If that's not what you're saying, I'm sorry for misunderstanding you. If that is, do you mind explaining it because I'm a little slow understanding why.
They don't work very well
Submitted by CobraMan on Tue, 02/22/2011 - 5:37pm.
Those wind power turbans don't work very well when temps fall below freezing. You see, the colder it gets, the less effective lubrication and hydraulic fluids becomes. It can get to the point where the turbines seize up and stop working altogether.
Here in Minnesota, a whole bunch of them stopped working because of the cold. They're still trying to rectify that problem.
The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States. The US Constitution
Unless you're a fetus. The US Supreme Court
Or Anwar al-Awlaki.
Awesome
Submitted by GW on Tue, 02/22/2011 - 5:51pm.
Thanks for the explanation. I was approaching the question from an aero point of view instead of from a tribology point of view. So if they had an oil heater or magnetic bearings or some other kind of lubricant, the blades could still turn. But then you'd be sucking out energy to power the magnetic bearings or heat the oil, which would defeat the purpose of the wind turbines.
Exactly
Submitted by CobraMan on Tue, 02/22/2011 - 6:20pm.
"But then you'd be sucking out energy to power the magnetic bearings or heat the oil, which would defeat the purpose of the wind turbines."
Exactly.
You know, if the manufacturers would have just accessed the Army's data on cold weather effects on men and machinery, which has been available since WWII ended, they would have know about that little problem. The Army did extensive research into this and they determined that the only reliable method to keep equipment moving was to keep the components warm, ether though running them continuously or by keeping them in a warm, enclosed structure. Ether way, it takes a lot of energy to keep the equipment functional in below freezing temperatures.
I look at it this way: Old Man Winter doesn't care of your "green" or not. Things need to be warm to continue moving, that's just the way it is.
The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States. The US Constitution
Unless you're a fetus. The US Supreme Court
Or Anwar al-Awlaki.
So where's Harry and his lib
Submitted by Beukeboom on Tue, 02/22/2011 - 4:03pm.
So where's Harry and his lib lies?
No wonder he likes Al Gore
Submitted by dbo on Tue, 02/22/2011 - 4:37pm.
He's probably down at the beach enjoying all that global warming in "Winterpeg".
Winnipeg is experiences record high temperatures as we speak.
-Harry Braun, Feruaury 22, 2011
Current weather in Winnepeg...-12C and blowing snow.
Normal high for this day...-7C
The troll even lies about his own weather. Why would anyone believe anything he says?
Nailed.
Submitted by Blonde on Tue, 02/22/2011 - 4:56pm.
That's hilarious.
Handy Reference Guide to Obama's Gaffes and Goofs ~ Currently Numbering 200 (and Counting)
Yet another liberal that
Submitted by dbo on Tue, 02/22/2011 - 6:08pm.
Yet another liberal that imploded on the basics. The gift that keeps on giving. I can't tell you how often I have to listen to his kind of crap up here. I wonder where Dave is? I usually don't like reading foul language but a few of Dave's colorful phrases would hit the spot right about now.