What are the differences between Iowa and Indiana?

[SharpHawkeye]

Originally Posted by Mercruiserdr

A couple of years ago a local community college professor ( art ) and I were engaged in a rather heated debate on the issue when he released a real zinger.
He started throwing some B.S. at me about a recent scientific study that proved the ambient temps are much warmer now than they were even 200 years ago proving man made global warming was taking place !

When he said that I had to laugh, then I said "well thank God for that , because 200 years ago we were in an ice age period" !
He went bonkers , then started with the name calling by stating I was a complete idiot and didnt know what I was talking about.
Which just about got his hiney kicked had not his wife ( my foster sis ) and several of my compadre's not jumped in and saved his rear.

After things cooled down a bit I told him to put his money where his big mouth was, I challenged him to a $100 bet that he and his B.S. data were full of crap, that I could prove there was indeed an Ice age in progress 200 years ago.
Confident in his G.W. propaganda he took me up on the challenge , so I promptly went after my laptop and did a quick search and showed him this.

"Only 150 years ago, Europe came to the end of a 500 year cold snap so severe that thousands of peasants starved. The Little Ice Age changed the course of European history. Dutch canals froze over for months, shipping could not leave port, and glaciers in the Swiss Alps overwhelmed mountain villages. Five hundred years of much colder weather changed European agriculture, helped tip the balance of political power from the Mediterranean states to the north, and con*tributed to the social unrest that culminated in the French Revolu*tion. The poor suffered most. They were least able to adjust to changing circumstances and most susceptible to disease and increased mortality. These five centuries of periodic economic and so*cial crisis in a much less densely populated Europe are a haunting reminder of the drastic consequences of even a modest cooling of global temperatures."

"The Little Ice Age was the most recent of three relatively long cold snaps during the past ten thousand years. The Younger Dryas that triggered agriculture in southwestern Asia was the most severe, for it brought glacial conditions back to Europe. Another cold snap in about 6200 B.C. lasted four centuries and caused widespread drought. The Little Ice Age had more impact on history than its two predecessors, for it descended on the world after centuries of unusually warm temperatures. One can reasonably call it the mother of all history-changing events. "

Fagan 1999 chapter on LIA

He didnt know what to say , he was cluless to there ever having been a period known as the "little Ice Age".
Like a good little brain dead liberal he simply took the G.W. cool aide and ran with it.
No I have never gotten the Ben Franklin he owes me , the loser now keeps a safe distance from me whenever he finds himself in my presence , he does keep his mouth shut however so I consider that payment enough for the time being.

This is all true. Ever wonder why all Dickens' novels are all so cold and bleak?

[Mercruiserdr]

Originally Posted by SharpHawkeye

This is all true. Ever wonder why all Dickens' novels are all so cold and bleak?

As was once so rightly stated : "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

When I was a little kid I used to think trees were something that took centuries to grow to any size worth messing with.
However experience has taught me just how quick nature can cover human kinds tracks.

Less than thirty years ago the Rock Island railroad used to cut our farm in half with a main trunk and a side track as well as a short section where an old bulk plant used to reside.
When I moved to Texas those rails were still in use and from fence to fence on either side of those tracks was nothing but bare ground, heavy gravel the timbers and the rails of the railroad.
They kept the right of way sprayed and cut so nothing beyond grass around a foot high ever grew.

When I returned to Iowa in 1990 after around a ten year hiatus in Texas the Rock Island was gone, as were the rails , all that was left were the ties and spikes etc.
At that time the grass and weeds were getting fairly high , and some saplings were getting to be around roughly 10 to fifteen feet tall.
After my family acquired the right of way I went to work with a small dozer straightening the mess left by the railway when they left up a bit.
My main objective was to make a driveable passage to connect the farms.

Some of the trees I encountered during that process were no easy pushovers.
In fact several required some serious digging before the dozer could get them out of the path.
Since then I have to conduct a vigilant trimming and mowing regimen to make sure that pathway stays open.
Many of the trees I have allowed to grow on each side of the pathway are now easily 35 feet at the minimum and several are now easily over two feet or better across.
They now overgrow the twenty five foot wide pathway forming a tree tunnel in several areas, one of them easily over a quarter of a mile long.
Eventually the entire mile plus path will be covered by the ever growing trees.

The main traffic on the path is easily a local herd of deer , turkeys , pheasants , squirrels and I have seen a bobcat or two, and heard the coyotes at night.
However there is a red four wheeler that flashes down it once in a while , and a couple of young neighbor girls I discovered use it to ride their Pop's four wheeler on also.
I think they were as surprised to find me on the path as I was them !

What has always amazed me is how fast the wildlife and plant life have taken that piece of land back.
If I did not keep it cut back the pathway would be over grown and impassable in less than a years time.

[GraniteStater]

Originally Posted by Mercruiserdr

So we have never experienced a drought or temp variation in this area before ?
As for the cause of this recent warming trend as well as those of the past I would be very suspicous of that bright yellow orb seen practically everyday that creates a need for tanning lotions on all those bikini clad babes.

If your one of the G.W. zealots who swears that the whole thing is a problem caused by republicans driving hummers I request you explain a couple things to me.
In case you have not noticed , that big red spot which has single handedly had reign over Jupiters visible surface for over 400 years recently had puppies.
I know you democrats are instantly suspicious of pluto since he's known to be a dog of sorts , however seeing how he has recently been downgraded to a planetoid because of his diminutive size he would have been eaten alive had he even dared approach the jovian planet.
Mars , Saturn and Neptune all have problems of their own to contend with so they are not responsible , and Uranus as his name implies dont lean that way, so we are left with one suspect, yep good ol Sol.
And scientist tell us he's been acting rather squirrely lately.

He's also catching the blame for a noticeable increase in temps on other planets of the solar system , Mars has been hit so hard its all but lost its polar regions.
What I find amusing is the G.W. zealots all swear this has nothing to do with the current increase in temps the Earth is experiencing, I guess the solar rays skipped over us or something.

I was not having an AGW discussion. Reading comprehension...

Here is my high brow line of reasoning regarding the issue.
I have studied that "hockey stick" graph, so one invariably figures out that CO2 increases follow temperature increases throughout most scientific reserarch involving ice core samples. One can see the PPM of CO2 present in the atmosphere via analysis of the drilled ice core sample. CO2 levels are now at a rate higher than at any time in tens of thousands of years. Whether the combo of anthroprogenic forces + human derived forces, a higher level of CO2 means warmer temperatures. Therefore, the formula of CO2 levels increasing after temperatures increase is inverted. "Some" suggest a level of climatic stability at 350 PPM of CO2.

[El Rhino]

Sooo, back to talking about the differences between Iowa and Indiana...

[Bluefox]

Originally Posted by Mercruiserdr

Something else about this area that seems to be forgotten, at one time tall grass praires covered the majority of Iowa , Illinois and reached even into Indiana.
Those vast praires often encountered out of control fires set by either lightning or some even claim indians which kept the young tree saplings and other invasive plantlife under check.

Not until settlers from the east started plowing the soil was there anything beyond the rivers or rains to keep these fires under control and allow the trees etc. to grow.

Tall Grass Prairie

That's true. There is actually a very small but protected remnant of Indiana's tall grass prairie located within the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Mercruiserdr]

Originally Posted by Bluefoxwarrior

That's true. There is actually a very small but protected remnant of Indiana's tall grass prairie located within the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I have read where several states park services are now undertaking the creation and preservation of tall grass praire plots.
One of the tasks of maintaining those plots correctly is having an annual "controled burn" to properly keep a natural and healthy balance.

When the settlers would head west with their covered wagons the sight of them crossing the vast open prairies reminded observers of ships on an ocean which is where the name "Praire Schooner's" was born.

I stumbled onto this article telling about the grass praires even reaching into Tennesee.

This land Tennessee: A lone prairie | Natural History | Find Articles at BNET


Some interesting historical reading about praire fires , seems Lewis & Clark started their fair share of em !

NPS Fire History Timeline (http://www.nps.gov/fire/utility/uti_tl_perspectivestext.cfm - broken link)


This article say's it was all the indians fault ! ( tries to pass it off on the asians however ).

American Indian Use of Fire in Ecosystems References