Bill T wrote:
<This year we had a prolonged wet rainy cold spell right after a long warm spell. It knocked down the brown tail moth <population from burgeoning to near zero in only two weeks.
<
<The weather has been getting colder over the past several years. Recent speculation has us going into a prolonged (10-<40 year) cold period.

We had a similar spring here - burst of warm/hot weather, then cold and rainy (but nice now).  I think that, at least locally (whether that is county, state, region-scale I do not know), is a cause that makes sense.

As for warming and cooling, in the late 70's when I was an undergrad working on my marine science degree, all the climate talk/research indicated we were overdue for the next Ice Age, which, I think, based strictly upon geological time, is still true.  In the early-mid 80's when I was working on my graduate degree in biology (night school, while working full time, so it took four years), there was not much change.  Then, in the late 80s-early 90s, when I was working on my MBA, again at night, (still taking science courses as electives when possible), suddenly, at least it seemed to me, all the talk had flipped 180 degrees (pun intended) and we were about to melt the planet.  Today, it is an amazingly polarized issue, comparable to abortion IMO (each side is right, the other is damned).  I am an ADT (Agnostic Doubting Thomas - my own term), a result of a Catholic upbringing and a hard grounding in the sciences, from which the one take-away I have used in just about all areas of my life to this day is to challenge everything, at least intellectually (I do have an aversion to jail).  So, who's right?  I don't know.  I think both sides have good arguments, but I also know that all data and the hypotheses derived therefrom are flawed to some degree.  I have seen valid arguments and stupid arguments in both 'An Inconvenient Truth' and 'The Great Global Warming Swindle' to name two vehicles that disseminated a lot of information to the general population.  The same goes for websites and other 'sources' of information.  My summary:

1. The earth's processes ARE cyclic, from the micro to the macro.  Some we understand pretty well, some, we are only just beginning to unravel, and some, I am sure, we have not yet even discovered.  That I believe.

2. Man pollutes.  A lot.  That pollution has an effect on SOME of the earth's cycles.  That I also believe.  Does the scale of our pollution rise to a level sufficient to affect a macro cycle, like climate, or is it a projection of man's hubris?  That I do not know.

3. The sun is the major influence on earth and its processes, and the sun has its own cycles.  That I also believe.  Do the sun and its cycles trump all causative agents in their impact on earth's global systems? That I do not know (but, I suspect it is a matter of timescale - ultimately, sun trumps all, but on a scale that matters to humans, it may not).


The first point is, I think, a given.  That the second and third points are true or false, I think, are the cruxes of each side's arguments (but I could be wrong).

If it is an either/or situation, then why do we see the fluctuations we see today - why are there cold dips and warm blips, each one being another 'proof' for one side or the other?  For one thing, cycles are not smooth.  If you zoom in far enough, all lines become jagged, as anyone knows, who has ever viewed a graph with a bizarre scale used by someone to prove their point.   For another, the scale of some of these cycles is vast and not to be defined by a few days/weeks/months/years/decades of data.  For another, the two competing causative agents in my above simplistic overview - sun and man's pollution - may still be 'duking it out' in the climatological ring.  Points two and three probably are only variants on point one.  Anyway, I give the following analogy:

Have you ever stood in a field/yard/driveway, when a weather frontal boundary is working its way through, and felt a blast of warmer air, and then one of colder air or vice versa?  Personally, I love it when that happens, especially in late winter, when the warmer air is working north.  It just means that the two areas of air, one warmer (or colder) than the other, are still mixing.  If it gets warmer for a moment, it doesn't change the fact that the cold front is still coming through, or vice versa.  There are all manner of eddies and swirls along the boundary front.  Could we not still be in a climatological 'mixing zone' where the front could still be coming, regardless of whatever pocket of climate we happen to be in at the moment?  If so, then which front is approaching, a warm front or a cold front?  Ay, there's the rub.

Personally, I think we may be in that mixing stage, and it might go either way.  Five years ago, I believed the global warming argument was so much bad or incomplete science.  So, I made my pollution and pollution control decisions for other reasons -  it is a good idea not to pollute, so that we leave something for future generations (even though I do not have any children).  That was (and still is) a good enough reason for me.  Today, I still think there is a lot of flawed science involved, money to be made with that particular Golden Goose, and political agendas afoot.  But, as I get older, I find myself thinking that, perhaps, it is better to err on the side of caution.  To a certain extent.  By that I mean there must be some measure of reasonableness.  I do not have a problem with higher fuel prices as a mechanism to redirect to alternative energy sources, having long been a proponent of solar energy.  If petroleum reserves really are becoming limited (are they?), then I'd rather see them preserved for the petrochemical industry, until substitutes are developed there.  Otherwise, where will I get my plastic foundation???  But, I do not believe that, if I do not have a zero carbon footprint (is that a double negative?), then the world as we know it will end.  I am not convinced that disrupting economies on a global scale will achieve the desired goal (if that goal truly is a cleaner environment).

Of course, if future data 'proves' that we are, indeed, heading into a new ice age, then I am taking all of the pollution control equipment off of my F-150.  In fairness, if data 'proves' the other extreme, then I will take to riding my bicycle to New Jersey with my dog on the handlebars.  But, I doubt we will have that clear of an answer in my lifetime, what remains of it.

Sorry for the rant.  In general, I have tried to stay out of the global climate change discussions, since the topic is so polarized, and I really am on the fence, but figured I might as well add my two cents and let people tear me up.  In the end I still have my bees.  And, yes, I am guilty of at least one of Br. Roger Bacon's Four Stumbling Blocks to Truth (IV), probably more (III? All?).  For those, who may not have read them:

The IV Stumbling Blocks to Truth

I.	The influence of fragile or unworthy authority

II.	Custom

III.	The imperfection of undisciplined senses

IV.	Concealment of ignorance by ostentation of seeming wisdom


Enough typing.  It is a drop-dead beautiful day out, and I am going to work my bees for a change.

p.s. I changed the Subject of this post, since it clearly has moved off of the original topic.  But, I have never done that before, so do not know where it will show up.  My apologies, if I did it wrong.

###################################
Bill 
Claremont, NH
+43° 21’ 25”  -72° 23’ 01”
+43.35687     -72.3835
CWOP: D5065
Weather Underground: KNHCLARE3
HonetBeeNet: NH001

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