Hi,

What do pesticides + fertilizer etc have to do with global warming? I have never attended a lecture on Global Warming and gardening, so I don't know.

I mow my lawn with a very nice reel mower(Scott Classic), won't use a rototiller (I prefer no-till) and refuse to look at those horrible leaf blowers. I compost and I grow my own seedlings. So I do my part.

But what good is it to bug your neighbor about the way they do things? All those 2 stroke engines: there has to be a big serious public campaign against them. I was thinking today about smoking. The campaign against that has been pretty successful. We need a campaign like that. We won't get it until the government takes global warming seriously.

There is an article in the NYTimes now about how GW is affecting gardeners, focusing on the South.

I also don't see the connection between ferts & Global Warming. But, ignoring that...yes, we are concerned & it is part of our everyday vocabulary. I foresee New England's climate changing considerably. I expect great volitivity not just the normal to every area, "Oh, wait ten minutes & the weather will change". It seems, from my weather here on CT's SE coast that spring is getting much cooler & fall is lasting longer & is much warmer. That's going to change what I plant, where I plant, & how I winterize.

What we are most concerned about with regards to Global Warming & agricultural/horticulture is our food crops. I expect to see large scale crop failures become the norm from corn in Iowa to watermelon in Texas. California had record freezes this winter...even along the SoCA coast. California provides nearly a quarter of the food this country consumes. Large scale crop failures in CA will be felt around the world.

We need to be developing strains of food crops that will survive the climate changes. It seems almost impossible since we're not yet sure exactly what next year will bring. But more droughts, more severe storms both winter & summer, higher rainfall in some locales, & a change in planting times seems inevitable. I have already written to our Cooperative Extension expressing concern & asking if anything was being done in CT towards experimenting with different strains of corn, for example. I've received nary a response from them.

I do speak with friends/neighbors about Global Warming. For some, it sparks political outrage but most have a cavalier, "what can I do" attitude. Or, they fail to see any ramifications other than if the skiing is good, or not, on President's Day weekend.

People in America are so removed from the food source many, if not most, do not understand that this thing called Global Warming can affect them.

I expect to lose our sugar maples (too warm); I expect we'll also lose the white birch for the same reason. I expect in ten years lilacs will not bloom well in southern New England nor will peonies be reliable. I expect overwintering lavender, succulents, & things such as high desert plants will be even more difficult because of increased late winter/early spring heavy cold rains which leads to rot. I expect to lose more plants due to lack of snow cover. I expect to see more ice where the snow should have been. I expect to have my home flooded out either from Nor'easter or Hurricane as each new, successive storm becomes a bit stronger & erodes our coastline. I anticipate getting trees like 'Butterflies' magnolia to bloom will be almost impossible due to late spring hard, killing frosts that destroy the early blooming buds.

Yes, I think things are changing.

Tricia

Thought I would pop back in and clarify before we got off topic. Like many things and as quoted from the NY Times Article Paula mentioned products like organic fertilizer, which requires less energy to produce than conventional fertilizer  and thus results in fewer emissions of heat-trapping gases. Consider as well what pesticides and fertilizers are doing to the aquifer and how that directly relates to warming. One sad example in a neighboring town there is a small fresh water pond that has sat not three hundred feet from the Atlantic Ocean and managed until five years ago to remain a healthy thriving fresh water pond. What changed you ask, the funky cottage that sits not twenty five feet from the pond was bought up by someone who loves the game of golf and turned his native grass lawn into a brilliant green manicured putting green. He worked so diligently on this project that even the newspaper wrote a lifestyle piece on his successful putting green. At the time a running buddy was trying to put together a pond advisory committee and since the poor fellow couldnÂt out run me he was trapped into hearing my pleaÂs to ask the neighbor to stop using fertilizers. Sadly today the pond is shrinking and abutting this cottage it is crystal clear the quick damage fertilizers can do. As a matter of fact I will see about getting some photoÂs to illustrate. But I digressÂI suppose the earth wouldnÂt be any worse off with one less pondÂor would it?

Here is a link that might be useful: Feeling Warmth Subtropical Plants Move North

The term climate change much more accurately describes what's going on with global weather patterns than global warming does; some areas will be warmer, some much colder, and extremes in general will be more pronounced; but even the NYT sometimes uses GW when they mean CC, so I guess the term is here to stay.

I agree that blowers and mowers are more directly connected to climate change than pesticides and fertilizers.

The main environmental problem with fertilizers is the runoff into estuaries, which contributes to higher algae growth, choking out shellfish and andromonous fish (like herring) and the native marine plants they rely on. Whether this also warms the water, I don't really know - I don't think this has been studied. As far as I've read, the main problem with insecticides is the long term effect on birds, fish, beneficial insects, and mammals from pesticides that are nominally "safe" - called safe by the USDA because there isn't necessarily an immediate visible impact on wildlife. To me, the USDA labeling of chemicals is a great example of the wolf guarding the hen house - the USDA not only controls agricultural chemicals, it is charged with protecting the business of farming. How they can adequately do both of these is a mystery to me.

The article in the Times was a little disappointing, wasn't it? Not sure if everyone can get to the link or if you need to be a member (which is free).

Here is a link that might be useful: NYT:Feeling Warmth, Subtropical Plants Move North

Of course the climate is on a warming trend, but I believe it is unknown whether humans have had as much an effect as some claim. The climate has been constantly changing, from hot to cold and back again, since the earth was formed. For us to expect the climate to remain the same is ridiculous. Thousands of animal species have become extinct over the past several million years due to climate change, and others have migrated or adapted, before humans ever made any impact on the earth.

I do my best at energy conservation, as far as keeping my fuel and electricity use to a minimum. I don't think there are many aspects to gardening that have an effect on over-use of fossil fuels, except having a vegetable garden to grow one's own food vs. purchasing fruit/vegetables trucked in from thousands of miles away.

Then again, we're having one of the coldest springs on record here.

> I believe it is unknown whether humans have had as much an effect as some claim.

Not to beat a dead horse, but the serious scientific community is unanimous on this subject. The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change made it official a few days ago, but in their previous report, back in February, they "concluded with near certainty that most warming since 1950 has been driven by the rising concentrations in the atmosphere of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases."

Even the president mentioned the crisis a few months ago, a first for him.

The only hold-out "scientists" who keep claiming that the cause of the current changes in climate are unknown are a few political appointees, working to protect the interests of the oil and coal companies. They are the cousins of the old Tobacco Institute scientists, who claimed to doubt that smoking caused cancer right up to the end.

Maybe the most interesting info that came out of this issue was a study about mass media; I'll link it here.

Here is a link that might be useful: Creating controversy where science finds consensus

It is interesting how for quite a long time, the media and the public were way "behind" the science. Now, with all of the attention being paid to global climate change, I sense that the media and public are making claims that go beyond the science. At any rate, the scientific community does not yet have a good grasp on how climate change will affect local areas, for example southern New England. So, we must be very careful not to place to much value on recent weather patterns as indicators of long term trends. In fact, our memories are so short, that we may think a pattern exists where non exists at all. In particular, there is no data that supports the idea that spring in the northeast is on some kind of long term cooling trajectory. In fact, the data for the northeast suggests exactly the opposite when viewed through the lens of 100 years worth of data. Again, a few recent chilly wet springs dominate our garden-driven memories and we may, as a consequence, dream up patterns where non exist. For those of you who are interested, the link I have provided can be used to construct long term graphs of temperature and precipitation for the northeast. You can analyse individual months or seasons. You can rank the results in table form or view the results graphically. The graphical output also provides long term averages and a long term statistical trend. Interestingly, the month with the biggest change over the last 100 years appears to be December. The long term trend for December is +0.2 degees/decade, meaning that December has warmed on average by 2 degrees over the last century--and that is a big difference. Have fun!

Here is a link that might be useful: Climate Data