New Hampshire, Maple Syrup, Global Warming, Something - Something... - Granite Grok

New Hampshire, Maple Syrup, Global Warming, Something – Something…

NHPR published a short article a few days ago titled, “Maple Sugar Season Faces Mounting Climate Change Pressure.” I had to look. They are reporting that, let’s just call it ‘The Weather™” ‘is leaving a mark on one of New Hampshire’s springtime rituals: maple sugaring.’

They actually use the term Climate Change, but the climate changes every day, every year, over decades and millennia and yes, this does have an impact, not just on Maple Trees but everything, except Global Warming theory.

So, what about those stressed trees?

 

Mount Washington Observatory research director Eric Kelsey says maple trees face a lot of stresses: abnormal storms, droughts, excess road salt, acid rain and new pests.

He says those stresses are all getting more severe as the climate changes.

 

Are they? Getting more severe? All of them?

I’m no climate scientist. I’m also not making a living as a Climate Cult Professor at Plymouth State University, but I can read. According to the Department of Agriculture, New Hampshire’s Maple Syrup industry is doing fine.

There’s no notable deviation from a normal trend here, and correct me if I’m wrong, but we’ve had a really warm winter, a catastrophic statewide drought™, and a very bitter-cold winter over the course of these years.

Whatever stresses are at work, the people and the trees appear to have it worked out without any intervention by “government greeks” bearing “gifts.”

That is, of course, what I suspect the goal is. To build a case for bailouts? Or perhaps they are just gathering to discuss shared experiences, observations, successes, and failures for the shared benefit of the sugaring industry. I’m a big supporter of such things as long as they don’t become associations of rent-seekers lobbying for my money. Especially when, by all accounts, money isn’t a problem for the Maple syrup industry.

Price down, profits up.

In 2013 we reported a record year for production in New Hampshire. The industry reported 124,000 gallons which are small (white) potatoes to what they are today despite all the so-called stresses.

But that has not stopped the Climate Cult from laying the groundwork for years. Jeanne Shaheen loves to tell us about how government needs to intervene before New Hampshire loses all its touristy wonderments to the evils of man-made climate change.

Beginning with her Senate races, Snowfall, Maple Syrup, Skiing, Foliage, and all the jobs and profits that extend from that have been on the block unless we abandon cheap, abundant energy for more costly government regulation and interference in every aspect of our lives.

None of her predictions came to pass so she changed her narrative. That’s how this works.

But the numbers tell a different story. A part of the story that NHPR left out of their tale of woe, probably because it contradicts the desired narrative. That you are making life difficult and the cure is more government intervention.

The only thing that more government “cures” is the pesky problem of free-market capitalism, liberty, human dignity, opportunity, and too much prosperity.

Given the choice, I’d pass on the maple syrup, but as it turns out, I don’t have too.

 

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