Our Most Unusual Season

Today, January 6, 2007, I went out for a soggy morning hike with my dog, J Edgar in our forest. Around Christmas, I published some pictures of what this area looked like covered with hoar frost crystals. We were blanketed by freezing fog for 3 days and there was virtually no wind. It created a fantastic landscape. Then the suun came out and within an hour, all had melted.
That was the extant of the freezing temperatures here. It was pretty cold for a week and now we are in the typical Dordogne winter rainy season. What is unusual, is that there is no frost. The week of frost we had wasn't extreme enough to do its job and now I'm seeing all sorts of things that aren't typical of winter. Like the photo of oyster mushrooms on the tree. I took it this morning. There are lots of other mushrooms that will grow in cold weather, but oysters are a fall mushroom and like most fall mushrooms, they are over after November 1st. I realize that in the scheme of things, there are normal cycles of weather. Some winters are warmer than others and some are nastier than others. It's just that I hear of this phenomena this year as not just a local condition, but almost everywhere. I saw pictures of cherry trees blossoming in New York and Washington!
I assume that everyone has seen the Gore film, An Inconvenient Truth and has a grasp on the machinery of global warming. The French Senate even had a private showing of it in their chambers. Britain has taken the message to heart and is trying to create legislation to deal with it within their scope of influence. Yesterday, the British government took Ryan Air to task for the lack of energy efficiency of their planes.
One place Britain can't seem to influence is their very good buddy, George Bush's America. I have gotten into long on line discussions with American bloggers who seem to be making a living defending Americas energy use policies and attacking the idea of global warming. I have read that Exxon has spent 32 million dollars to support scientists who can generate reasoning that can be used to disprove global warming . That is but a drop in the bucket as to all the money spent in disinformation campaigns to stop the debate.
I realize that it is very often impossible to change the self righteous selfish deluded mind set of a lot of conservative bloggers. You only have to go to their pages and read the brainless repetitive insults they repeat over and over again while congratulating themselves on the "fact" that conservatives are naturally more intelligent than panicky liberals. You want to debate global warming? Well, why is Al Gore so fat? Ha, Ha! Okay, I've over simplified the gist of some of the stuff I've heard, but that's basically the theme.
What I'd like to do with this post is provide a starting point for a discussion of what you feel is going on. Things you have seen with your own eyes.

This picture is of a wild primrose blooming today. It should be in flower at the end of March into April. Send me your pictures with comments of what you think are meterological anomalies going on around you. I'll try to publish them in some form from time to time. Perhaps we can help each other be in a position to debate more intelligently when we run into someone armed with loaded facts and carbon dioxide atmospheric profiles for the last 25 years that don't really mean anything. Send them to me at my email address: 18speed@gmail.com
I can't wait. I want to see your picture of a common garden slug 2 feet long named Rudy or what ever it is that makes tyou think that you've found some evidence of global climatte change in your back yard!