John - Pa. wrote:
I know it is not PC, and that I'll probably get flamed for this, but
as a gardener, I can't bring myself to see limited Global Warming as a
100% Bad-Thing.
[...]

It isn't - if it happens slowly enough. Major climate change has
happened many times in the past, and minor warmings and coolings lasting
a century or two have occurred in historical time. Not that these minor
climate swings were universally minor in effect: in borderline climate
zones they made a huge difference. The southern Greenland Norse
settlement for example was wiped out by the minor cooling (about 1
degree C on average globally) in the 1500-1600s.

The evidence suggests that a) the present change is greater than the
minor changes that occurred in the past; and b) it's happening very,
very quickly. That will throw off a whole raft of seasonal changes. As
you know, some plants and animals respond to changes in light, others to
changes in temperature. Further north (towards the Arctic circle) there
is already a serious enough mismatch between these two seasonal
responses that some pollinations will not occur or be seriously
diminished. That's not good.

Of course, yearly weather fluctuations can and do mask the long-term
trends in climate. That's why deniers can make plausible-sounding cases
against the near certainty that we are living through a fast change in
climate. Not that the rate of climate change is well understood.

Nobody really knows how fast the climate is changing, and whether or the
rate of change will speed up or slow down. If the climate is changing
very, very quickly, we'll know within 10-20 years. If it's changing very
quickly, our children and grandchildren will know in 50-100 years. If
it's changing quickly, our multi-great grandchildren will know in about
500-1000 years. If it's proceeding at a "normal" pace, our descendants
will know in about 5,000 - 10,000 years. But of course we'll all have
been either rapturised or condemned to hell forever long before then,
according to some interpreters of secret codes embedded in one or
another of the world's sacred texts.

Yer pays yer money and yer makes yer choice.

HTH

--
wolf k.