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This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1247616
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1247616
Dorian and the one in Houston in 2017 both moved very slowly, basically stayed in place for several extra days to devastating impact. It’s my understanding they were blocked from passing through by entrenched patterns in the north. Does that sound right? Would that also be an effect of global warming?
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I’m not sure anything in this article is true. Has Trump tweeted his agreement with these theories? He controls the weather, Wilbur says so.
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Just off the top of my head, Hurricane Florence and Cyclone Idai in the last couple years also stalled, both causing catastrophic flooding. The steering currents are weakening around the world.
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While people in coastal communities often express sentiments to the effect of “we’ve been through this before and know what to do,” the reality is these storms are already more dangerous compared to those they’ve experienced in the past.
This is exactly the attitude of so many in Houston. I moved there in 1991 and so many people talked about Alicia (1983) as being the worst, but they made it, so they could make it through anything. Until Allison in 2001, I had not experienced a truly disastrous rain event hitting the area. But after Allison there was Ike, Rita, Harvey, not to mention the Tax Day Flood, the Memorial Day Flood and unnamed ones that caused flash flooding that was dangerous to be in but subsided quickly once the rain ended. Once my car was caught during one of those flash flood events on my neighborhood street (I could see my headlights underwater) but that was the most dangerous thing I went through as our immediate neighborhood was spared flooding by the big events. I definitely saw increased rain and flood intensity in the years I lived there.
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This story has to be fake news. There is no climate change. Category 5 hurricanes are caused by windmills, big windmills in the ocean, the same windmills that cause cancer. I know this is true because President Trump told me so.
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Bit of a rambling…
Paying attention to the smaller weather events may be important as well. By conscious observation, over the last decade our local weather has changed quite a bit. We frequently have storms that would have been moderate suddenly getting wicked now. Earlier this summer our down town and points west suffered quite a bit of damage from straight line winds and lightning. Took days for them to clear the trees and get the electrical back in place. Out heat bubble is not bouncing storms off as much as it had for some reason. 2016 was the year of the hail storms with the one in April that year costing the insurance industry billions and spanning states. Talking to their adjusters, it was unprecedented. A few years before that, we had the 9-11 inch rain in just a handful of hours that caused tremendous flooding and destroyed an entire neighborhood (With the city’s help). In the past, some of our heaviest storms came from the west, boiling across from Mexico through the Val Verde county region. I am not seeing that pattern much now, with a change to southerly generations and some from the north as fronts march through. This year we had a unusual, wet beginning continued from the end of last year. Our Pecan trees in many places suddenly started dumping leaves and nuts after we moved into a dry spell. What looked like a fall phenomenon was happening in late July and August. Talked to our arborist and he said it was sort of a shock, with extra root surfaces growing in the wet and then suddenly being deprived of water to sustain them. Pecan trees are survivors and start throwing things overboard to stabilize. In the last two years or so I am seeing a change in birds. Ravens from the west are moving in and CaraCaras are now visible in the city. In 45 years, I had never seen a Caracara in the city, in the last year I have seen three with one now in my neighborhood. Not completely unknown, but what was rare is now not. This tells me there is a change for them as well.
Point is, Hurricanes are highly visible events, but to see the real difference, look for nuance around you.
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Part of the problem is the lack of urban planning in Houston. I am not sure the city has ever been prepared for the problems that come with a major city sitting in what is essentially flat bottom land. Drainage is a challenge in Houston whether there is climate change or not. That said the frequency of adverse weather is increasing. Just wait until the first Cat 6 hits.
A few years ago I hired a landscape guy. While we were planning he told me that you should ask people who make their living picking plants if there is climate change. He says hell yes. He can successfully plant plants that were impossible just 10 years ago, and plants that were common in the past are no longer viable.
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I’ve always wanted my own arborist. And a flying car.
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We also need our leaders to take urgent action to address climate change, enacting policies that go the furthest in reducing emissions while also improving ways to keep communities safe.
A lot of us, including many politicians, have a vested interest in crashing global ecosystems, looting natural resources and venusification of our atmospheric chemistry. We know what to do but prefer to pretend that all this is somehow just the capriciousness of natural phenomena. Moreover, the longer we wait, the higher the costs of restoring natural systems. The Bahamanian government’s flat-footedness before, during and after Dorian, provides a concise insight into what to expect from normal governments going forward – inaction and paralysis. Add to that the US problems caused by an administration bent on dismantling institutions.
We can do better if we want, of course. We could change our diets, protect the natural services that remain, move to a completely electric vehicle fleet over the next decade, teach geoscience to our kids, and cut our carbon footprint by four-fifths. It appears we would rather be killed by our own inertia.
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I think back to back generations forgoing human procreation would be best for the planet.
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Okay, now I am being paranoid. Did I say something off kilter? As far as the Flying Car is concerned, mine is in the shop waiting for parts. Any day now.
I was being petty and jealous. The one and only arborist I’ve ever had in my life was allergic to trees, so he was a bit disappointing.
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The Chinese sort of tried this. During the Cultural Revolution it was still ok to have six kids. In the 1970s China moved to voluntary limiting of family size to 1 or 2 kids, only to find that rules had to be mandatory. Thus began roughly four decades of one-child policy that led to an imbalance in surviving male babies relative to girls and the demographic strangeness China currently finds itself in, wealthy, aging and dying of cancer. Now the country is back to a 2-child standard. It is doable in the context of China, which has a powerful central government. For the US, the Supreme Court would have to decide that the fundamental right to procreate attenuates, and that would mean setting some limits on the fertility rate. Alternatively, we could leave the right in place, but attenuate family benefits as in the Swedish model (e.g. guarantees of old job back for returning mothers for three years, and limits on eligibility for paid maternity leave after the third kid).
I was more hoping for some sort of worldwide pandemic that rendered all homo sapiens sterile. Let the planet go back to the plants and animals that are unfamiliar with the use of fire, distilling petroleum and uranium refinement.
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The current novel we’re all writing will not end well. And I think the ink has dried on too many of the completed chapters for a radical revision to be pulled off.
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Back in the 1980s, Richard Duncan espoused his Olduvai Theory, whereby the population of homo hydrocarboniens fallsto near zero.
The highpoint of industrial civilization followed by its terminal decline will be a watershed of human history. Ackerman’s Law defi nes it. The goal of this essay is to predict the highpoint and the initial decline. Energy production and population data from 1850 to 2005 are the foundation of the forecast. To these are added estimates of the Earth’s carrying capacity, the attractiveness principle, and 2007 as our forecast for peak oil. Further, the energy and population history of the U.S. is shown to be an invaluable guide to forecast the energy and population future of the world. Specifi cally: U.S. energy production per capita has gone from growth, through stagnation, and now into terminal decline. The world has gone from growth and now into stagnation. The terminal decline of industrial civilization— according to these calculations—is imminent. The life expectancy of industrial civilization is about 100 years.
Thank you for that comment. Here in OK, we have experienced more severe tornadoes. The other day a front moved in to the OKC metro area with straight line winds topping 100 mph. It was moving slowly and at least one local news meteorologist called it an “inland hurricane.” His hyperbole notwithstanding, the storms have caused greater damage in the past few decades.
Insurance companies may end up being the reason that policy makers finally decide to do something. (And yes, we’re seeing the same response from trees.)
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Nah, Republicans will just devise a scheme wherein poor people pay the added premium costs hitting the rich and middle class.
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