The beat goes on

The weather is getting more and more crazy according to an article in the NYT this morning.  -50 degrees in Siberia.  +129 degrees in Australia and all kinds of extreme weather in between.  People are now finding out that global climate change is not a steady increase in temperature, but also a wild variability in the weather.  A case in point is the climate in Yuma, Az., the winter salad bowl of the US and Canada.  Temps below freezing are predicted for 3 successive days this weekend.  If the mercury goes below 28 degrees for more than a few hours, you can kiss your salads goodbye for at least a month.  A head of iceberg lettuce will become an extravagant luxury, costing 5 dollars or more.  Most other vegetables will become very scarce.  Of course, if you can't pump diesal fuel in Russia because it is too cold or gasoline in Australia because too hot, you may not have much sympathy for salad challenged Americans, especially since the policies of our goverment are causing much of the environmental turmoil the rest of the world is going through.