BUTTERFLIES AND GLOBAL WARMING IN PURGATORY

I'm on James Hansen's mailing list.  He normally sends climate warming info, but recently had one on Monarch Butterflies.

Can you believe that most of them spend their winter at a 15 acre pine/fir forest in a Mexican mountain?  Only a few years ago they were on the verge of extinction.

Hawaii, of course, is different.  We are not on the Monarch migratory path.  What we have is what we imported almost a hundred years ago from California?  Why?  To control army worms.  I guess they must have done research to find another option to milkweed, for that is the only plant that nourishes Monarchs on the mainland.  Turns out that the larvae thrived on the crown flower leaf.  Interestingly enough, in the early 1970's they were considered pests because they reduced the production of crown flower, which is used for leis.

In the USA milkweed is undesirable, for they take up space that can grow profitable crops and is toxic to livestock.  So public grounds and schools came to the rescue.  However, recently, when the Monarchs looked like they were going extinct, some farmers voluntarily planted sizable acres to save the butterfly.

I now and then see crown flower plants for sale, and am tempted to buy one to see if I can help the cycle.  You can purchase Monarch Butterfly eggs.  Ten will cost about $15.  You can also buy eggs from the Julia Butterfly, Cloudless Sulphur Butterly and Viceroy Butterfly.  However, they each need a different food source.

This e-mail just came from Jim (he regularly gets arrested for leading environmental movements):

GLOBAL TEMPERATURE IN 2018 AND BEYOND

James Hansen, Makiko Sato, Reto Ruedy, Gavin A. Schmidt, Ken Lo

Abstract.  Global surface temperature in 2018 was the 4th  highest in the period of instrumental measurements in the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) analysis.  The 2018 global temperature was +1.1 C (2F) warmer than in the 1880-1920 base period; we take that base period as an estimate of 'pre-industrial' temperature.  The four warmest years in the GISS record all occur in the past four years, and the 10 warmest years are all in the 21st century.  We also discuss the prospects for near-term global temperature change.  Additional figures are on our global temperature web page.

But, President Donald Trump trumps on:

Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump

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Be careful and try staying in your house. Large parts of the Country are suffering from tremendous amounts of snow and near record setting cold. Amazing how big this system is. Wouldn’t be bad to have a little of that good old fashioned Global Warming right now!

4:59 AM - 20 Jan 2019

However, 74% of Americans now say that global warming is happening, and, even 70% of liberal/moderate Republicans.  Conservative Republicans?  42%.

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