I am all for a horticultural zone #5 for the Twin Cities. The central cities are almost there, but I live near Hopkins west of the cities and alas the horticultural zone where I live is more like zone 4.5.
There are quite a number of Japanese Maples which can grow in zone 5.
I like to read reports of yesteryear’s climates. I know that the North Sea froze over sometime around the 17th Century and that Greenland was very green during the earlier years of Viking plunder.
Vikings were not known for automobile traffic in those days to cause much extra CO2. Leftiy charlatons in the Global Warmng fraud industry don’t like climate hitotry….or geologic history either for that matter.
Actually, Marxists aren’t interested in history of any kind.
John Hinderaker at PowerLine let it slip that he likes a bit more warmth around his Twin City residence as well.
He wrote:
This Reuters article and the study on which it is based may qualify as this year’s coyest news story. Once again, we are warned against the dangers of “climate change.” Yet, if you read between the lines, the message is not what a casual reader might think:
Climate change seems a factor in the rise and fall of the Roman empire, according to a study of ancient tree growth that urges greater awareness of the risks of global warming in the 21st century.
A skeptical reader might ask, really? So, what sort of climate was associated with the rise of the Empire, and what climate was associated with its fall?
Good growth by oak and pine trees in central Europe in the past 2,500 years signaled warm and wet summers and coincided with periods of wealth among farming societies, for instance around the height of the Roman empire or in medieval times.
Periods of climate instability overlapped with political turmoil, such as during the decline of the Roman empire, and might even have made Europeans vulnerable to the Black Death or help explain migration to America during the chill 17th century.
Reuters implicitly acknowledges one of the points that global warming skeptics have been making for a very long time–that is, that warm periods in human history have generally been good for people, while cold periods have been bad. The Roman Empire flourished during a warm period; the climate cooled, and the result was the Dark Ages. When the Earth warmed up again, in “medieval times,” as Reuters says–this is the Medieval Warm Period–civilization once again leaped ahead. When Reuters refers to “climate instability,” what it really means is “cooling temperatures.” Black Death, anyone?
The study said the evidence, helping back up written records that are sparse in Europe more than 500 years ago, “may challenge recent political and fiscal reluctance” to slow projected climate change in the 21st century.
Why? Shouldn’t we rather conclude that a little global warming would be a terrific thing for humanity? Currently, the Earth’s temperatures are colder than they have been for roughly 98% of the time, during the last 10,000 years. Let’s hope they get a little warmer.
Filed under: American Culture, Climate Change, National Politics |
MN Prager Discussion Group 
Glen,
Even the Sahara was fertile during the holocene maximum. http://www.jstor.org/pss/2997337
I think that we are in the grip of the biggest and most insane hoax in history, and unless the public get wise to it soon, we will all be parted from what wealth we have.
I think David Shearman and his friends at the IPCC have just about got us by the short hairs, ready to seperate us from what wealth we have at the very least.
Lets take a simple economic view of what is likely to happen.
In the absence of sufficient alternative solutions/technologies, the only way western countries can ever attain the IPCC demands of CO2 emissions reduced to 40% below 1990 levels, (thats about 60% below todays) is to machine restrictions on the use of fossil fuels. Emission Trading schemes are an example.
As the use of fossil fuels is roughly linear with anthropogenic CO2 emissions, to attain a 60% reduction of emissions , means about the same proportion of reduction of fossil fuel usage, including petrol, diesel, heating oil, not to mention coal and other types including propane etc.
No matter how a restriction on the use of these is implemented, even a 10% decrease will make the price of petrol go sky high. In otherwords, (and petrol is just one example) we can expect, if the IPCC has its way, a price rise on petrol of greater than 500%.
First of all, for all normal people, this will make the family car impossible to use. Worse than that though, the transport industry will also have to deal with this as well and they will need to pass the cost on to the consumer. Simple things like food will get prohibitively expensive. Manufacturers who need fossil energy to produce will either pass the cost on to the consumer or go out of business. If you live further than walking distance from work, you will be in trouble.
All this leads to an economic crash of terrible proportions as unemployment rises and poverty spreads.
I believe that this will be the effect of bowing to the IPCC and the AGW lobby. AND as AGW is a hoax it will be all in vain. The world will continue to do what it has always done while normal people starve and others at the top (including energy/oil companies and emission traders) will enjoy the high prices.
Neither this scenario nor any analysis of the cost of CO2 emission reductions is included in IPCC literature, and the Stern report which claims economic expansion is simply not obeying economic logic as it is known in todays academic world.
The fact that the emission reduction cost issue is not discussed, leads me to believe that there is a deliberate cover up of this issue. Fairly obviously the possibility of starvation will hardly appeal to the masses.
AGW is baloney anyway!
Cheers
Roger
http://www.rogerfromnewzealand.wordpress.com
PS we will all be ice fishing year round on Lake Wobegon the rate things are going anyway.:)