Maple and Global Warming

[Amber Gold]

This is a maple article my wife found.

http://green.yahoo.com/blog/daily_green_news/14/will-global-warming-doom-maple-syrup.html

I always wondered what happened inside the tree to cause the sap to run...did the author quote UVM correctly in how it works. Global warming doesn't sounds like it'll be doing us syrup producers any favors.

Aside from what the article is about, two things caught my eye as recent threads:

Some producers do call a stack a chimney.

And some producers still use pork fat.

[benchmark]

I thought they were calling it climate change now, not global warming. I dont believe it anyway......

[briduhunt]

NOT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If one is to believe all that is written in the papers and other news source we will only be around for another 10-15 years. I think it is all bogus. We have a large amount of 100 to 200 year old sugar maples in my area and they are healthy. This man made globe warming is all made up in my mind. We have not seen Al Gore lately as he is off jetting around the world in his private jets burning fuel and omitting pollution.
Just my opinon.

[NedL]

Just have to look at who he is writing for to know what the slant of the article will be. Then read it and confirm his slant.

[Haynes Forest Products]

OK so lets buy into this...........What should I do starting tomarrow who do I send all my money too to change something that has not happend. I have had the best 3 years in a row with better equipment and great weather so help me out who do I call and send my money too to screw up a good thing.
STUPID IDIOTS CANT EVEN PREDICT 30 DAYS DOWN THE ROAD

[nas]

I think we have more imminent threats to worry about, like the Asian longhorned beetle, than gorbal warming. Just my humble opinion.:rolleyes:

Nick

[Amber Gold]

I thought it was an interesting article and didn't intend to start a debate if global warming/climate change is true or not...only the last section is about global warming, the rest of it is about about sugar making in general.

[bpmorris]

I agree Nick- I think this whole global warming/climate change deal is a bunch of bologna!!!!!!!!!!! My opinion of course!!!!

[PerryW]

Well something is melting all those glaciers. The photographic evidence of pictures of glaciers around the world receding over the last 100 years is pretty hard to fake.

Though I agree with NAS; there are much more imminent threats.

[Haynes Forest Products]

Yea all those receding claciers and whoa look Martha a cave full of old tools from some poor man that got snowed out of his mine from 500 years ago oh well screw him I want the glacier back to cover up that unsitely hole from some "EVIL" miner from long ago comeon Martha lets go to Starbucks get in the Rickshaw

[Tweegs]

Things that make you go hmmmm.

Solar activity hasn’t been this quiet in a century.

We have seen no appreciable rise in global temperatures since 1998.

NSIDC data shows that Arctic ice extent was 30% greater in August 2008 than it was in August 2007.

“Sensor drift” caused the Antarctic sea ice to be underestimated by some 20 miles.

Some temperature sensors used in computer modeling were found to be located in asphalt parking lots, next to burn barrels etc., some were originally placed in open areas that are now developed.

The fact that 2008 was colder than 2007 invalidated 87% of the computer models that predict global warming.

If 2009 is colder than 2008, 99.9% of the models will be invalid.

(The models are having a little trouble predicting the extent and effects of cloud cover)

And we now know that the greatest contributors to CO2 in the atmosphere are the worlds oceans.

>shrug< Call me a skeptic. :lol:

[Clan Delaney]

The Rickshaw is making stops at Starbucks now?!? Get me a Caramel Macchiato, I'll pay you back. :)

For me, I'm a scientist at heart. Natural laws, defined processes, cause and effect. That's me. If I'd stayed in school I'd be a geologist right now. I can only hope I'd still be making maple.

So from my perspective, Tweegs makes a good point. The results aren't the most important thing to me, but rather how those results were arrived at. Data is just data. Anyone can make it mean anything. Without context it's meaningless. So, I try my best not to fully accept or outright dismiss whatever the latest study says without first running through the W's -Who, What, When, Where, Why (and sometimes How). I've also learned to look at what's not said, because that's often as important as what is said.

So after reading that article, some of my thoughts are 1) Weather is not the only factor that affects the overall performance of a sugar maple. 2) "Weird" is not a scientific term. 3) A few years of over or above average temps is not a trend. 4) Slow acting threats (environmental stresses) are as big a deal as fast acting threats (ALB), but suggesting scenarios where they all happen at once to catastrophic affect without proof is kind of irresponsible. 5) The question of everything disappearing eventually is a question of when. (When was the last time you saw a dinosaur?) Maple trees are no exception. 6) No maples in New England isn't the end of maples. Remember Canada?

So, yes, things are happening, and they could be bad. I'm paying attention. I'm not buying the doomsday scenario.

[3rdgen.maple]

You can correct me if I am wrong but I Believe there are something like 600 scientist that disagree with the whole global warming scam. Not exactly sure of the correct numbers but we only have daily climate data for less than 100 years. I remember that if you took the western part of the US's climate data that average temps in the summer where like 120 degrees compared to today's averages that are much lower. Now from what I understand the only consistant temperature data is ocean temps. It takes more than a weeks above or below average daily temps to affect ocean temperatures. So therefore why have the oceans temps dropped 3 degrees over the past 100 years. I guess you could argue that by saying the melting ice is cooling them. But wouldn't the oceans have to get warmer to melt them. Im no scientist though just a guess. Guess what the biggest contributer of the depletion of the ozone is. Yep water vapor. So does that mean everytime we are boiling we are depleting the ozone. I do think we are having a climate shift not a global warming. Winters coming later and ending later. We use to get alot of snow here in november now we don't see any significant amounts till January. So all in all lets make some crap up to keep our jobs and rob the taxpayers a little more. Just my 2 cents worth. Hey lets all go hunting and shoot our buddies in the face and then help push a bill to ban the second amendmant. What a jack@#%

[PerryW]

Unfortunately the whole global warming debate has become a political issue instead of a scientific issue. The oil companies are interested in maintaining the status quo and the scientists are looking out for their next grant dollars.

What I don't like is when people dismiss Global Warming as nonsense simple to ease their guilt about wasting gasoline in their Hummer.

[markcasper]

The whole reason there is the climate change phenomonom is because it gives the elite bankers the chance to get another income stream. They are pushing it because they have to have a reason to tax us, in this case its in the name of climate change. Carbon dioxide is a natutral element and without it, we'd all be dead!

Like my dad has always said, the sun goes so far this way and so far that way.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

I remember when I was in college about 15 years ago, it seemed all they could talk about was the ozone layer and how it was being destroyed. What happened to all that concern??????????

[NedL]

I remember when I was in college about 15 years ago, it seemed all they could talk about was the ozone layer and how it was being destroyed. What happened to all that concern??????????

They discovered that they were wrong and the "hole" in the ozone normally fluctuates in size, so they dropped that. Now the same "scientists" moved on to global warming and then climate change.

I think the problem with science now is that in order to keep getting their grants at universities the researchers have to prove what ever politician that is funding them is right, rather than actually use science to prove something wrong or right. If they come up with a conclusion that goes against what the funding was to be for; they lose the funding and have to look for other work.

[Homestead Maple]

I took a tour in Alaska 5 years ago and part of the tour was to travel the "Inner Passage" and look at the glaciers and such. The people on the criuse ship were given a map of the area and the map showed the names of the bays we visited and the map gave the names of the glaciers and also showed how far the glaciers flowed out into the bays at one time. And who knows how much further they may have flowed out but no records were kept then, except we do know that the ice age was a "lot different." Any way, the map showed where the ends of the glaciers were in 1640 something, (I don't remember the exact dates, I can get them if people want to know, but the earliest time shown was in the 1600's.) Starting in the 1600'S the times went ahead to the present and every year noted on the map it showed how much the glaciers had retreated/receeded. I asked some people at a meeting I was at onetime that were touting the idea, 'that man has contributed to the polar ice melt, significantly' what was man doing in the 1600's that would have any effect on polar ice melt? I was ignored. The industrial age started when? The mid eighteen hundreds or so? Those glaciers had already started to retreat/receed long before that and by quite a lot. So you can't make me believe that my "carbon foot print" is contributing that much or ever has. This world was shaped by God and he's still at work and he hasn't finished yet!

[mark bolton]

The reason they've changed the title from global warming to climate change is so that they can blame all weather changes on atmospheric CO2 levels. As mentioned before the warmest year was 1998- it has been cooling since then. Their monitoring thermometers were all in farmers fields in the 1950's- now there are only 1/2 as many and they are in the middle of large airports surrounded by black tarmac- surprised they are reading warmer sometimes? Plants "eat" CO2 and North American forests are denser than they've been in generations. My Maple trees are very happy and I think we have bigger things to worry about than a made up idea about climate change.

[bpmorris]

homesteadmaple, nice post I agree with you 100%. I wish alot more people would understand and believe that!!!!