Reply #18: Yes, I've been in Alaska since 1975

[Blue_In_AK]

and the changes are startling. Gardening, for instance ... the old rule of thumb here was that you didn't plant before Memorial Day because of the possibility of frost, and you needed to harvest Labor Day weekend for the same reason. The last few years I've been putting my garden in by mid-May, maybe even a week earlier, and we haven't been getting good frosts until October. People have even been growing CORN up here, for heaven's sakes - something that was unheard of 30 years ago. With the changing climate, we've had more serious spruce bark beetle infestations, which kills the trees. There also has been much more lightning (also something that used to be rare) which has led to record-breaking forest fires (dead trees contribute). Almost 6.6 million acres burned in 2004 and another 4.4 million last summer, which coincidentally raised the carbon monoxide levels all around the globe. http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2005/08/02/forestfire-co050802

There are so many issues - Native villages on the Western Alaska coast threatened by eroding coastlines, melting permafrost -- which according to some will end up releasing vast amounts of methane gas from the rotting peat. It just goes on and on. Really, we may be on the verge of a mass extinction. It would seem to me that the very nature of the air we breathe is being radically changed - CO, CO2, methane ... I hope we make it.