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July 5, 1988: page 1

Our July metting (#871) took place at the home and grounds of Nancy and Mo
Chance. Despite the deplorable deficit of rain that the preceding month had
inflicted us with, the Chance's horticultural efforts were flourishing
nonetheless. In addition there were interesting assemblages that could've
been mistaken for a great many things but were in fact contraptions to help
the Chance's mountaineer son Peter climb the unscalable and traverse the
uncrossable.

Unfortunate to be missing (especially since we finally got around to taking a
few group photos) were the Goffs, the Bullards, and the Conlons. The guests
were John and Lea Paul of the local pick-your-own garden goods emporium,
Paul's Patch. Susan Canby took the gavel in the absence of Beth Bullard.

Rudi Hanel had an article to share with us but the extended heat and
drought inspired him to talk instead on the greenhouse effect. The
greenhouse effect is caused by the growing concentrations of man-made gases
in the atmosphere. While we are dependent on the atmosphere's's ability to
retain heat, gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and
fluorocarbons do too good of a job and tend to shutter in heat.

There are severe long range consequences to the sun's heat not being able to
reflect and otherwise escape back into space. The warmer troposphere in
turn melts the ice and snow cover and thus helps the effected area absorb
the sun's heat rather than reflect it. Melting of the polar ice caps leads to
higher sea level. This threatens the shoreline areas of the globe where half
the earth's population lives. An expanded ocean area would also increase
evaporation and drastically change weather patterns. This changes the river,
reservoir and drainage systems of the planet and would thereby dramatically
alter the future topographical nature of the planet.

It's a pretty grim scenario to envisage. What's especially grim is the nature
of man and their governing bodies. We are presently experiencing the
prelude to the greenhouse effect's eventual disastrous consequences.
Scientists and theoreticians are kind when they say that we still have time
to stall the greenhouse effect by cutting our reliance on petrochemicals and
ending man's destruction of the globe's rain forests. It is encouraging that
there is still hope. It is Earth's sad moan that humankind is slow to
swallow any bitter pill that looks beyond self-indulgence towards the
salvation of future generations and the planet itself.

Our gathering with great relief greeted an article volunteered by Buzz
Hussman about a relatively sublime and up-lifting subject - Gypsy Moths.
The article came from Harrowsmith Magazine (Nov.-Dec., 1986 issue) and
detailed a sure-fire way to control gypsy moths. The process involves
irradiating adult moths and allowing them to mate. The resulting egg masses
produce sterile offspring that when released into the wild mature and mate
with fertile gypsy moths. The resulting dud eggmasses would over a number
of years severely cut into the foul moth's strangehold on our hardwoods.
The system has some bugs in it but has been used successfully in Florida to
control fruit flies. The expense involved matches $5,000 of the irradiated
moth technique with similar results from insecticides costing $160,000.