The Real Danger

This story from Tulsa World exemplifies the real danger. While our erstwhile climate science community is preparing the world for the scourge of global warming, the real killer is the cold. What a period of extended cooler climate such as occurred during the little ice age would do to our modern world is far more a threat than all the fantasies propagated by the media and a large portion of the science community.

The sad part is that they will never be held to account for their shortsighted quest for acclaim and funding, future generations of scientist will be left to bear the brunt of the publics disdain of science.

"Soothsayers have always tried to persuade people that they could predict the future. What is new today is that the incredibly powerful tools of science - nuclear weapons, flights to the moon, computers, iPods - have such huge implications for civilization that they may contain the seeds of their own destruction.

Thirty years from now, we will probably not be interested in today’s specific computer forecasts, but we may have lost our faith in science, a deeper and, to me, a more important problem."

Daniel Botkin



via Climate Depot

Cold snap may have broken wheat crop
The freezes of April 6 and 7 may have cut this year's production


Last week's freezes have devastated Oklahoma's winter wheat and could end up killing 40 percent to 60 percent of the crop.

The freezes of April 6 and 7 dropped temperatures into the low teens in some parts of the state, damaging the maturing plants, especially in southeastern Oklahoma.
Agriculture researchers and officials say many farmers were hit so hard that it will be unprofitable to harvest their fields this year.
"It was just bad timing because most of the plants were a week or so ahead of schedule," said Jeff Edwards, an assistant professor at Oklahoma State University.

Oklahoma's farmers usually start harvesting wheat at the end of May.

The state's other grains, vegetables and fruits were spared from significant damage, officials said.

An unusual winter made the late freeze particularly harmful.

Warm weather helped wheat to grow faster, putting the plants closer to the harvest stage but making them more susceptible to cold weather.

Officials from OSU and the Oklahoma Wheat Commission spent the last week surveying the damage in various parts of the state.

In an average year, Oklahoma will harvest some 120 million to 130 million bushels of wheat, Edwards said, but the freeze will likely reduce that to below 90 million bushels.

Oklahoma farmers planted some 5.6 million acres of wheat in 2007 for a value of $617 million. Producers will be fortunate to get anywhere near that figure this year, officials said.
Edwards is recommending that some farmers consider plowing under their fields and planting summer crops like sorghum or soybeans.

Mike Schulte, executive director of the Oklahoma Wheat Commission, said most wheat fields in the southeastern part of the state had 90 percent of the crop destroyed.

Only areas close to the Kansas border avoided most of the damage, he said.

"Its real bad out there," Schulte said. "In some places it's a total loss."