# Weather is going crazy for you aswell?



## Freemann (Mar 19, 2004)

I write this while a fly is buzzing around my head, how can that be? They should be dead 2 months ago! (I have never seen this in the part of my life I remember). It is her that made me write this actually. It is nearing the middle of January, outside it is like spring and it was all along, we have just burned (having a 6 months old baby) 1 ton of wood in our 2 stoves, other years 3 tons would have been minimum by now. Trees were shedding leaves even 15 days ago; there have been really few rains. Do you see real weather weirdness as well these days? Can it be accelerating? The last years they have been talking of logarithmic behaviour in weather change depended phenomena after reaching critical weather turning points. I wonder do you "smell" things going wrong?
Freemann


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## Burks (May 25, 2006)

Global warming? No

El Nino? Yes

Odd weather here? Of course. We finally got enough snow to cover the ground. Lasted less than 24 hours though.


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## Bert H (Mar 2, 2004)

Yeah, weird winter. Here in North Florida we get a break from the heat and humidity for 2-3 months usually December through Feb. Not this year. It was in the 80's last weekend. I won't go into global warming vs El nino, but something is definitely strange.


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## Paul S (Jul 13, 2005)

It is -28 deg. C here right now. No flies, no mosquitos. Enough snow for the year allready, got a 6' high pile of it on my front lawn. What happened to global warming? Mind you I'm in Alberta, Canada eh!


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## fish_lover0591 (Jan 11, 2007)

Yup the weather is very odd lately we are in the 40's and 50's when we should be in the 20's and 30's . I don't mind this weather at the moment but i actually want snow lol while other people are getting tons of it and hate it


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## General Tso (Aug 7, 2006)

I live near Buffalo, NY which is famous for its snow. We finally received our first snow of the winter yesterday. The ski resorts in the southern part of the state were shut down because of lack of snow. Our local weather man, says that the reason is a combination of el nino and the current in the North Atlantic. 2006 was the warmest year ever for this area. The people around here love it, but it makes me very nervous. Its creepy for me to have 50 degree temperatures in December.


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## JanS (Apr 14, 2004)

Here in northern Minnesota it's been very odd too. We had our first snow-less Christmas that I ever remember, and it's been way above normal for temps. I've even been hearing crows outside and that's unheard of in the winter around here.

They've had to close all of the ski hills around here too because they can't even make snow and get it to stay.

Of course the ice on the lakes is very thin compared to normal, but we still have idiots who think they can drive their truck out there anyway. I've seen many of them sticking out of a big hole in the ice in the past couple of weeks....

That whole pattern is supposed to do an abrupt about-face starting tonight though, and it's supposed to get bitterly cold.


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## the-single-pringle (Jan 8, 2007)

Definitely odd here. It has not even been below freezing more than once or twice this winter so far. I have been able to wear short-sleeved shirts, and sometimes even shorts! I hope this summer isn't blazing hot.


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## Laith (Sep 4, 2004)

Paul S said:


> It is -28 deg. C here right now. ...


OMG! -28C??

You know, I've never understood why over the centuries people who lived in places that get that cold haven't migrated south...  

But then again, perhaps some people like cold weather... it's the only explanation I can think of!  Don't freeze anything off!

Here in Switzerland it has also been warm and one has to go to higher elevations to find decent snow for skiing. Today in Geneva was 15 C... almost spring like.


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## Kelley (Aug 27, 2006)

It has been freakishly warm in Iowa, too. We have not had any snow, yet! On New Year's day, I took my dog for a walk wearing a corduroy jacket only. No hat or gloves. There are snow drops blooming. The robins have not migrated. 


This weekend we are getting rain. Weird.


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## cs_gardener (Apr 28, 2006)

We've had more extreme weather here than is usual. While the weather in the Willamette Valley is known as being very changeable, it usually stays mild and winter weather just varies between rain, drizzle, clouds, patches of sun, sometimes fog, MAYBE snow once or twice. After an unusually long dry summer, fall was extremely rainy causing flooding. More recently we've had a severe windstorm knocking down trees and now its snowing with temperatures that are colder than normal. Its just weird. And wrong. If I could, I'd happily export the really cold stuff to those of you missing it.


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## T-Bone (Nov 23, 2005)

Vancouver and other parts of the west coast are being pounded. By windstorm after windstorm. The city has never seen so many frequent power outages. It's mayhem, all you see as you drive down any street is knocked over trees, and debree. Stanley park probably lost 20% of its old growth forest. Not to mention the unfortunate people that had trees fall through there houses. I count myself lucky That no Damage has been done to anyone I know personally. But I feel bad for the folks who have. Other then a couple days off of work due to lost power. Ive been lucky so far. But man this wather is disgusting. I belive it has been something in the tune of over 10 major wind storms in the past couple months. I read somewhere that one of the storms winds were of hurricane force.

CTV.ca | B.C.'s Stanley Park loses 1,000 trees after storm

CBC.ca News - Photo Gallery

Tens of thousands still in dark after massive B.C. storm

Today is nice though, I think today is the first day the sun has shined in a few weeks.


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## trenac (Jul 16, 2004)

It's been a very warm winter here in North Carolina. We have had only one or two days of very cold weather. For the last few days it has been in the 40's for highs and beginning this weekend back into the 60's-70's again.


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## SkinniMini (Mar 26, 2006)

Laith said:


> OMG! -28C??
> 
> You know, I've never understood why over the centuries people who lived in places that get that cold haven't migrated south...


Maybe they visited Florida in August! 
I live in Central Florida, & although we've had a few cold fronts move thru, we haven't had anything significant, no freezes, & we usually have a good freeze by this time of year. Just a few days ago I was whining.."Is it ever going to cool off around here?" We deal with some long, brutal summers & when it doesn't cool off, some of us get irate.
If we could find good jobs up North, we would probably move back up there, I miss the seasons.


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## BryceM (Nov 6, 2005)

Just keep in mind that highly variable weather has always been a part of nature's plan. 100 year floods tend to happen about every 100 years. Once a century the warmest winter in 100 years is apt to occur.

Just to play a mind game here........

Assume there are 6 billion people in the world and that they're evenly distributed around the world (not true, but hang in there....).

Assume that 0.1% of the earth is currently seeing it's warmest winter over the past 1,000 years. There would then be around 6 million people on the planet right now experiencing a warmer winter than had been observed in their neighborhood for the past 50 generations.

One of the interesting side-effects of the modern information age is that news of unusual events is shared almost instantly around the world. If you had to read through 999 news reports of near-average weather, the single report of "the warmest year in 1,000" wouldn't seem like such a big deal.

Global warming? Who knows. We know even less about this than we do about proper nutrient dosing for our little glass boxes.

Should we expect to see really whacky weather once in a while? Yes. It would actually be more strange not to.


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## Bert H (Mar 2, 2004)

T-bone, I'm sorry to hear about Stanley Parks losses.  That's one of my favorite places that I have ever visited.


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## bpimm (Jun 12, 2006)

guaiac_boy said:


> Just keep in mind that highly variable weather has always been a part of nature's plan. 100 year floods tend to happen about every 100 years. Once a century the warmest winter in 100 years is apt to occur.
> 
> Just to play a mind game here........
> 
> ...


Very well put guaiac_boy,

As an example of past weather just think what the weather must have been like when "Greenland" was named.


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## Burks (May 25, 2006)

Guaiac has good points. The Earth is a constently changing place and if it was the same year after year, that wouldn't make sense.

Plus if our winter went from "normal" last year to this warm this year because of global warming, better get a chiller for your tanks this summer.


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## HeyPK (Jan 23, 2004)

Spring has sprung,
The grass has riz,
I wonder where our winter is. 

It is warmer than normal in Central Mississippi. Spring peepers have been peeping since the first week of January. Spring flowers are blooming, crickets chirping, birds singing. The ocean is rising and New Orleans is sinking.


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## JanS (Apr 14, 2004)

HeyPK said:


> Spring peepers have been peeping since the first week of January. Spring flowers are blooming, crickets chirping, birds singing. The ocean is rising and New Orleans is sinking.


You stop that.... LOL!  
Right now we're sitting at -6 F, and the wind chills are sometimes hitting -40....

I love all of the things you've just described, but we won't see them until sometime in May.


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## banderbe (Nov 17, 2005)

Somebody call Al Gore!! We're all gonna die!

It's four degrees outside my house. Frankly, I'd like a little global warming.

Seriously though, the only thing good about all the environmentalist fear mongering is that it's moving the world away from petroleum based fuels and that is a good thing for the security of the modern free world from Islamofascist maniacs.


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## fish_lover0591 (Jan 11, 2007)

Uh i have a crazy theory about earth. We can't control anything it does But we still think we are the main species on earth when there are many other animals and such being discovered up to this day. Earth is Basically a Biosphere. Global Warming And w/e is going on right now is because of us Humans. Also Guaiac_boy does make a good point.


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## banderbe (Nov 17, 2005)

I don't know how we can possibly know that "global warming" is due to human activity.

It's possible, sure but face it folks, we just don't have a large enough body of data to say one way or another.

The truth is that there's a LOT of money to be made for organisations who can convince you to fork over your money to them in a useless effort to stop "global warming".


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## Cavan Allen (Jul 22, 2004)

banderbe said:


> Somebody call Al Gore!! We're all gonna die!
> 
> It's four degrees outside my house. Frankly, I'd like a little global warming.
> 
> Seriously though, the only thing good about all the environmentalist fear mongering is that it's moving the world away from petroleum based fuels and that is a good thing for the security of the modern free world from Islamofascist maniacs.


So any viewpoint that's different from yours is fear mongering?  I don't think statements like that contribute to civil and constructive debate. Do you?


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## banderbe (Nov 17, 2005)

Cavan Allen said:


> So any viewpoint that's different from yours is fear mongering?  I don't think statements like that contribute to civil and constructive debate. Do you?


Cavan, you're a scientific minded fellow. Do you really think that's the most rational conclusion to draw from what I said?

I think that if everyone made irrational leaps to unsubstantiated conclusions based on scant information then indeed it would not contribute to civil and constructive debate.

There's absolutely a real and important debate to be had about the global climate changes that we are experiencing.


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## Cavan Allen (Jul 22, 2004)

> Cavan, you're a scientific minded fellow. Do you really think that's the most rational conclusion to draw from what I said?


I think you could have stated that a way that some might not construe as confrontational.


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## banderbe (Nov 17, 2005)

I suppose it could be construed that way, but there are so many hysterical environmentalist wackos out there.

The world right now is brimming with ignorant morons pretending to speak in the name of science while they make a mockery of science right in front of a gullible public. There are so many people claiming that science proves this, and science proves that, and there's a consensus on that, and a consensus on that, and nobody disagrees with this, and that, etc., etc.

Fear mongering about environmental issues has been going on for the better part of half a century.

In the 1970's as I am sure you are well aware, the big threat was "Global Cooling". Now, it's Global Warming. In another thirty years it will be "Global temperature stagnation." God only knows.

And when you look at the organisations pushing these idiotic ideas, you find a huge financial incentive. Do you have any idea how much the CEO of Greenpeace makes?

The question: "Do we even have the technological expertise to stop global warming?", assuming it needs to be stopped, hasn't even been asked!

The public policy implications based on such widespread ignorance, or as I call it, education by proxy, is staggering and truly should be a cause for genuine fear.


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## Burks (May 25, 2006)

fish_lover0591 said:


> Global Warming And w/e is going on right now is because of us Humans.


Yes and no. The Earth does go through a warming and cooling cycle. For all we know we could be in the warming cycle (or an extended one) and humans are just increasing the warming a bit faster than normal.

So to say global warming is based only on humans is a stretch.


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## Cavan Allen (Jul 22, 2004)

> I suppose it could be construed that way, but there are so many hysterical environmentalist wackos out there.


Oh man... You just don't get it, do you? Or is that supposed to be funny? It isn't. Keep it civil or this thread gets locked in a hurry.


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## banderbe (Nov 17, 2005)

I get it. Don't say what you really think. Got it.

No worries, mate. I won't be posting anymore tonight. My bed is calling.. it's my only escape from the pseudoscientific propagandists of the world..


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## Cavan Allen (Jul 22, 2004)

We strive to have open and civil debate on this board. Not censorship. Nonetheless, if you lack the ability to keep things civil, then by all means, keep it to yourself. 

I'm thinking something about you too, but with what I said above in mind, I'm not going to 'say what I really think'. I think that's the difference between us.


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## snowhillbilly (Mar 29, 2006)

Cavan Allen said:


> So any viewpoint that's different from yours is fear mongering?  I don't think statements like that contribute to civil and constructive debate. Do you?


Not to start a fight but cant he have his opinion also. It takes all viewpoints to create a civil and constructive debate. Are there certian key words that people arent allowed to use when they write their own opinion. LOL I myself love the term fear mongering LOL.
BTW it never made it above zero here today and thats very normal for this time of year. Dont we have enuff information that tells us about a hundred years ago that earth was in this same warm cycle. I know the highs in North Dakota for this time of year are recorded in the very early 1900's.


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## Minsc (May 7, 2006)

banderbe said:


> there are so many hysterical environmentalist wackos out there.


Heaven help us if we try to protect the environment without overwhelming evidence of impending doom

Sorry, back to my corner....


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## snowhillbilly (Mar 29, 2006)

Freemann I want to thank you for another great post on APC. Its nice to have a topic that, creates a little debating. It is that that helps us keep are minds open to different ideas. 

And with all the warm weather just think of how many trees that we arent burning this year to stay warm LOL.


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## Cavan Allen (Jul 22, 2004)

snowhillbilly said:


> Not to start a fight but cant he have his opinion also. It takes all viewpoints to create a civil and constructive debate. Are there certian key words that people arent allowed to use when they write their own opinion. LOL I myself love the term fear mongering LOL.


Of course people can have different viewpoints. It's really nice though, when people are respectful and not out trying to bait others into a fight and 'push buttons'.


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## Laith (Sep 4, 2004)

banderbe said:


> ... Do you have any idea how much the CEO of Greenpeace makes?
> ...


Since you asked! 

An annual salary of €110,359 (US$ 140,000) plus €18,151 (US$ 22,300) in employer pension fund contribution. From Greenpeace's 2006 annual report : http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/international/press/reports/annual-report-2006.pdf.

I'm not a rabid fan of all of Greenpeace activities but it would be a stretch for me to consider the above salary excessive for the head of an organization that large. How much do some of our politicians make? And how much value do they add?  

In any case, my comment about the warm weather here had nothing to do with the global warming debate. It is warm here, period. Skiers traveling here are getting frustrated, as are the businesses in the ski resorts. Last year we had unnaturally cold weather and lots of snow. The year before that as well. Three years ago was also warmer than usual...


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## BryceM (Nov 6, 2005)

The information age gives us data - hopeless quantities of data - presented in a random, sometimes-biased fashion. Making sense of all this data is a bit like the flea on the back of a dog trying to predict the end of the world by observing the dog's mood.

People are gullible - no question there. Making sense of well-organized scientific data is actually quite difficult, even for "experts". Good studies are hard to come by. Accurate interpretation of the data is even harder. Throw in the media, politicians, a few people on a soapbox, and the notion that science is in the driver's seat is absurd.


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## dyckster (Nov 28, 2006)

> I'm not a rabid fan of all of Greenpeace activities but it would be a stretch for me to consider the above salary excessive for the head of an organization that large.


No doubt, CEOs are paid ridiculous amounts of money. The CEO of Home Depot was recently paid $200 million in wages, stock, bonuses, etc. over 5 years while returns to stock holders went down 13%. $140,00/yr is nothing for a CEO.

Back to the weather story.... Around here is was unusually warm for this time of year (melting snow at christmas is unheard of) but we recently got nailed with some crazy weather. It was -32C the other day without windchill and around -41C with windchill! Global warming, El Nino, random weather fluctuations, whatever just bring it on. I was getting used to -15C as a winter low and it was great.


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## JanS (Apr 14, 2004)

snowhillbilly said:


> BTW it never made it above zero here today and thats very normal for this time of year.


Same here, and the wind was giving us a -40 F windchill..... I sure was spoiled with the above normal temps, and I knew when the weather did come around I wouldn't be gradually acclimated to it as usual. :faint:


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## banderbe (Nov 17, 2005)

Minsc said:


> Heaven help us if we try to protect the environment without overwhelming evidence of impending doom
> 
> Sorry, back to my corner....


That brings up a great point.

I'm all for protecting the environment, and I think the U.S. is doing a pretty fine job of it. Air and water quality have both improved dramatically in the last thirty years. Today there are more trees than there were at the turn of the 20th century.

The real question is what, if anything, can human beings do to stop so called global warming?


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## Freemann (Mar 19, 2004)

I don’t want to sound eschatological.
But we like or not, (and allow me to say I have not the slightest idea of the degree we are a part of it, but we surely are part of it) big problems loom in the horizon of the living creatures of our planet. There is data mingled yes sometimes with lots of noise that confirm this fact. Exponential increase of emissions (China’s, India’s industrial, economic growth with its consequences comes to mind), CO2 skyrocketing, decrease of the thickness of the arctic ice sheet from 100 m to 40 m over the last 50 years (data from USA submarines surveying under the arctic), global dimming, extinction of forests, species, increase of the population to 6.5 billion from 1.5 in 100 years, permafrost melting, glaciers disappearing e.t.c, e.t.c.
Humanity needs to research, conclude and act fast. I know this won't happen before it is too late and maybe not even then, still our children will consider of us really irresponsible for never thinking to what world we are delivering them to.
My two cents
Freemann


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## banderbe (Nov 17, 2005)

Act fast? And do what? What can people possibly do to stop the climate from changing? 

More importantly, what can we do without plunging our societies back into the dark ages. 

The fact is that there's nothing we can do. Global climate change is a problem of technology- we don't have it. We can't stop it. 

Every scientist worth his shirt knows that reducing emissions a la Kyoto won't do anything to stop climate change in the least.

I guarantee you, in thirty years people will be laughing at the idea of global warming as a catastrophe like they laughed at the idea of global cooling. This is fear mongering and hysteria designed to raise money and drive political aspirations, nothing more.

I'm so glad that I can sleep at night, free from worries about a phantom menace that doesn't exist and never will.

Also, I'm glad the planet has 6.5 billion people. I think people are wonderful, and we need more of them. I'm having lots of kids, and I encourage everyone to reproduce as much as possible. People are an invaluable resource. Progress, technology, industry, capitalism, all products of human ingenuity are wonderful things and we need more, more, more. NOT less.

Sadly though at the rate Europeans are having kids the Muslims will own the continent in 100 years. The death of a once great society is a sad thing indeed. There are a lot of great books on this topic. Londonistan is a great place to start learning about European demographic trends.


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## Laith (Sep 4, 2004)

I think I'm getting confused now... so it's the *Muslims* that are causing the weather changes??    

Anyway, let's be a bit careful here; we're veering into political/religious territory and stereotyping. While that kind of debate can be interesting, it does not belong here.


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## HeyPK (Jan 23, 2004)

While Banderbee sleeps blissfully, the rest of us should note that the American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Academy of Sciences all have expressed concern about global warming and believe that increase in greenhouse gasses, primarily carbon dioxide and methane, is the major cause of present global warming which has led to the melting of glaciers and arctic sea ice. 

The Permian extinction of 250 million years ago---the greatest extinction event known---has been shown to be a product of run-away global warming, started by massive volcanic eruptions increasing the atmospheric CO2 content, which led to a 4-5 degree centigrade increase in global temperatures, which led to melting of permafrost which led to the release of trapped methane gas which led to further warming of around 20 degrees C. This led to large areas of the oceans becoming anaerobic and filled with bacteria producing hydrogen sulfide. Escape of hydrogen sulfide into the atmosphere led to massive extinctions on land and also the loss of the protective ozone layer, which also led to further extinction of land life due to lethal ultraviolet radiation. Fully 90% of marine lifeforms went extinct and 70% of land lifeforms went extinct. See the following references:

Rivers in Time: The Search for Clues to Earth’s Mass Extinctions.
Peter D. Ward. Columbia University Press, 2002.
Abrupt and Gradual Extinction among Late Permian Land
Vertebrates in the Karoo Basin, South Africa. Peter D. Ward et al.
in Science, Vol. 307, pages 709–714; February 4, 2005.
Photic Zone Euxinia during the Permian-Triassic Superanoxic Event.
Kliti Grice et al. in Science, Vol. 307, pages 706–709; February 4, 2005.
Massive Release of Hydrogen Sulfide to the Surface Ocean and
Atmosphere during Intervals of Oceanic Anoxia. Lee R. Kump,
Alexander Pavlov and Michael A. Arthur in Geology, Vol. 33, No. 5,
pages 397–400; May 2005.

It is no wonder that scientists are taking global warming very seriously. See, also, the September, 2006 issue of Scientific American which is devoted to proposed technologies to reduce carbon emissions.


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## gnatster (Mar 6, 2004)

Ok, this can lead to no good as I see it now. Somebody is gonna raise creationist theory eventually and point out that the world is barely 6000 years old according to the Bible. 

Oh look I did it. 

Some mod should lock this thread that will be reduced to politics and religion debate. This is a forum for the discussion of our hobby and its a narrow focus. 

Want to discuss the weather? Fine

Leave the politics and religion out please. 

From Plano TX where it's 30.2F and raining ice. 

BTW, it does that here normally once or twice a year. Mostly in winter.


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## BryceM (Nov 6, 2005)

Well, I for one agree with Gnatster. Let's say goodbye to this thread and get back to discussing plants.

No offense intended to anyone........ moving on.


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