Open Thread
Filed under: Open Thread — Michael van der Galien, Editor-in-Chief on May 9, 2007 @ 3:11 pm CEST
Got news, links, something to say, nothing to say but want to say something anyway, this thread is for you.
Have fun.
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1 Alan
May 9, 2007 @ 3:38 pm CESTSome environmentally-related things I’ve noted recently:
1. Flooding along the Mississippi in Missouri and Iowa
2. Greatly increased presence of black flies (”buffalo gnats”) in
central Illinois
3. Gas prices approaching record levels–US$3.21/gallon in Chicago area
4. Strangely cool spring, with considerable temperature fluctuations
I don’t know if all of these are related to global warming, but they do make you think.
Then there are the 17-year cicada, due in about 2 weeks, but that’s a normal natural phenomena.
2 C Stanley
May 9, 2007 @ 4:03 pm CESTAlan: I thought the 17 year cicadas had just come round a couple of years ago??
3 mvdg
May 9, 2007 @ 4:28 pm CESTAlan: fascinating. I would like to add that it was 32 degrees Celcius in the netherlands two weeks ago, which is insane. We’ll break all records this year.
Like we did last year.
And the year before.
Heh.
Christine: perhaps he means that the cicadas are 17 years old?
4 Alan
May 9, 2007 @ 4:39 pm CESTChristine:
Nope, the last time the 17-year cicadas came was 1990, so they’re right on schedule. There are other types of cicadas which come at shorter intervals.
Michael:
That’s awfully hot for Europe. But you can look at is this way–at least this will get you used to weather in the US before you come. Except for the West coast and the far North, 32C isn’t that unusual here.
5 David
May 9, 2007 @ 4:42 pm CESTIn Europe we had a very mild winter. In Hungary we had no snow all winter and it was only below freezing for a few nights. We then had a very hot spring, with summer like weather. I got sunburn in Belgium in April, need I say more? Meanwhile in North America the winter seems to have been unusually cold, similarly the spring.
Strangely though many people seem to think that BOTH the unnaturally hot and the unnaturaly cold weather are as a result of global warming. Not sure how that one works, but I’m sure someone has a convoluted explanation.
6 mvdg
May 9, 2007 @ 5:23 pm CESTDavid: global warming means that it will get colder in certain places, and hotter in others, hotter in general.
7 C Stanley
May 9, 2007 @ 7:27 pm CESTMichael: You are right that some colder regions doesn’t disprove global warming, but neither does it prove global warming if you talk about how warm it has been in your neck of the woods. Neither of those facts are very meaningful really.
8 mvdg
May 9, 2007 @ 7:31 pm CESTC.S.: no, I agree. Everytime something happens now, people blame global warming. They’re overdoing it a bit. One has to look at the global developments (global warming), not just at whether it’s hotter in your garden this year compared to last year.
9 C Stanley
May 9, 2007 @ 8:12 pm CESTThis is pretty funny
Apparently Al Sharpton said (in a debate with atheist Christopher Hitchens) that “those who really believe in God will defeat Romney” and when Romney took issue with that, Sharpton accused Romney of “fabricating a controversy.”
Sharpton should know a thing or two about that, I guess.
10 Interested
May 9, 2007 @ 8:25 pm CESTmust have been a gaffe
11 mvdg
May 9, 2007 @ 8:30 pm CESTA verbal one.