Now’s a Really Good Time To Have That Talk about Climate Change
For those wishing to understand the relationship between climate change and hurricanes, here’s a wonderful piece from Yale University that describes precisely the role that warmer oceans play in all destruction we’re seeing.
Before we launch into a discussion of how climate change applies to Hurricane Harvey (the clean-up and repair of which is projected to exceed that of Katrina in 2005 and Sandy in 2012 combined), it’s only right to acknowledge the scientific truth that it’s impossible to blame the existence of any one storm on global warming. Similarly, we cannot blame the death of any single lung cancer victim on smoking cigarettes, yet no one challenges what scientists deem to be conclusive evidence of the causal relationship there. Is it possible that random chance has resulted in 15 of the 16 hottest years on record occurring in this century, the same 17 years in which we’ve seen a horrific increase in hurricanes and tropical storms? Sure. But the probability of such a coincidence is one in several trillion, and here again, scientists aren’t buying it. If you think there is debate within the scientific community on this subject, you are simply misinformed.
Another way to look at this is as follows: though climate change (or climate disruption, or chaos, or destabilization–call it what you will) cannot be blamed for initiating a certain storm, it absolutely plays a role in increasing its destructive force, due to three basic facts we all learned in high school physics: a) warm waters occupy more volume, causing sea-level rise and thus greater storm surges, b) the same warm waters provide more energy, thus higher winds, to the storm as it crosses above them, and c) warmer air holds more moisture than cooler air, thus adding to rainfall events.
So let’s get to the point: What is the right time to talk about climate change and its relationship to catastrophes, like the one we’re experiencing in Texas? Put another way, why do the mainstream media, even the putative “liberal” outlets like CNN and MSNBC, make almost zero mention of climate change in their coverage of Hurricane Harvey? It’s not like they have no time to fit it in, given their almost completely unbroken 24 hour/day coverage of these floods. Yet the coverage of climate change on all nightly and Sunday television news shows in the U.S. in 2016 was a total of 50 minutes, which was 96 minutes less than in 2015—a drop of 66 percent.
Here’s the theory put forth by George Monbriot, columnist at The Guardian: it opens up a huge can of worms, a kind of Pandora’s Box, in that it leads directly to questions about the legitimacy of our entire way of life, built, as it is, on limitless growth and wealth acquisition on a planet of finite size. It shows that humankind is throwing itself of an environmental cliff if it does not make fundamental changes in the very basic ways it conduct its existence on this planet. And this, of course, is a direction no news reporter wants to go; it leads to direct and immediate ostracism at both the personal and professional level. “Going there” requires great bravery, and such courage is in short supply.
Here’s another theory that may be at work in parallel with the one discussed above. Though the government doesn’t control the media in the U.S., as it does in places like Belarus, Burma, Ethiopia, North Korea, China, Iran, Syria, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, is what we have here much different? The federal government has systematically eliminated all references to climate change and global warming from its websites, and has forbidden its employees to discuss this subject in public discourse. This administration’s battering ram has crushed the voice of the major news outlets and left us with a population of viewers and readers that is deprived of the most important aspect of the story, i.e., why we’re having “100-year storms” every couple of years, and, just as importantly, what can we do to make them stop.
There are those who claim that bringing up the subject now is to politicize tragedy. That’s the position of the current EPA, which now is, ironically, fighting tooth and nail to remove environmental protections. But how compelling is that argument? So we can’t talk address this issue while it’s right in front of our faces, but nor can we do so when it’s being forcibly ignored between catastrophes.
Politicizing tragedy? Think about that. First, keep keep in mind that climate change and its horrific consequences aren’t a matter of politics; they’re the purview of science. Again, there is no debate in the community of climate scientists as to what’s happening on this planet and the forms of recourse that humankind has to address it.
So, isn’t this precisely the time for the discussion? Fifteen trillion gallons of rain just caused damage to the fourth largest city in the United States that will take months to quantify and many years to repair. The storm has set yet another record for the devastating power of climate change’s effects, of which there are many, in this case, super-virulent storms.
How long must we wait to have a serious talk on the subject that should have begun 40 years ago? Let’s get real. The time is now.
Well said Craig,
And a good point.
But to put this in proper perspective, this is more like a 100,000 year flood event, and it’s almost certain we will see one this bad or worse happen again within the next 10 years. We will likely see 3-4 of these occur within the next 20 years.
It’s something we should be seeing discussed with every mention of the extraordinary nature of Harvey: The fact that this will not be so extraordinary anymore.
Craig,
Perhaps the reason why most responsible people don’t attribute every cyclical or extraordinary weather events to “Climate Change”, is because they’re just weather events.
I know true believers want to attribute everything to exciting apocalyptic, end of days type scenarios, but mostly these are just naturally occurring weather events.
The idea that the planet has a naturally stable climate is a fantasy. The planet’s climate and geography is constantly changing, long before an anthropoid decided to become a biped.
Claiming every news worthy weather event, no matter how little evidence, as the result of “climate Change”, only creates doubt and confusion in the public arena.
Only 10 years ago, an international panel of renowned world “climate Scientists’ led by serial eco-pest, Dr Tim Flannery formed an authoritative ‘consensus’ opinion concluding due to man made global warming Southern Queensland, Australia had reached a state of permanent and irrevocable desertification.
As a result after much pressure from “green” politics etc, the Labour government abandoned maintaining river levies and started building a large desalination plant.
Queensland’s economy suffered as the ever arrogant Tim Flannery and his gullible media cronies chastised and persecuted farmers for wasting precious water. Anyone who raised an objection ruthlessly reviled as a “climate deniers”.
The self-qualified Flannery even encouraged University Students to demand the removal of tenured professor for questioning the accuracy of his pronouncements.
The hysteria grew so bad, banks and governments refused further agricultural loans, drought relief, and only allowed relief if farmers agreed to de-stock their land and accept ‘desert rehabilitation’ programs. (Basically, planting desert shrubs and other native plants, which although ideologically pure, actually exasperates the problem).
Farmers who had been on the land for 5 and 6 generations, were forced off with little recompense and abused as land vandals, by Tim Flannery and his urban based “experts”.
In 2010-2011, the drought broke and the rains came ! The devastation caused by neglect of century old levies and river beds covered thousands of square miles.
People, livestock, towns and infrastructure (ironically the foundations for the desalination plant was one of the first victims)were swept away, many lives were lost and homes devastated.
The environmental damage was enormous as the floods swept enormous amounts of precious top soil into the ocean and Great Barrier Reef.
In 2013 the floods returned again dumping millions of tons of water into region, creating widespread flooding. Fortunately, this time the state was better prepared.
Queensland’s aquifers and artesian basin has returned to normal and all signs of desertification have disappeared along with the drought.
Sadly, it will take much longer to repair the damage to the region’s inhabitants and farms.
While all this was happening, Tim Flannery never apologized, he was too busy 15520 kilometers away pontificating to the UN while receiving accolades from students at Yale.
The real tragedy is the media forget what every Australian school child used to learn the words of one of Australia’s early poets, Dorothea Mackellar OBE, who wrote over 100 years ago :-
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror
The wide brown land for me!
Dorothea Mackellar wrote those lines in 1904 following the great flood of Southern Queensland and northern NSW in 1902, and the stories she had been told about the 1881-1892 great drought which broke in 1892 causing huge flooding.
Although this is only one example of dangers arising from attributing every weather event to “climate change, it provides a good example.
I recently saw a headline where an environmental advocate claimed “record property damage and lives lost” ! A quick check revealed that wasn’t surprising since 74 years ago during the previous hurricane, the area had been sparsely populated, mostly by subsistence farmers !
I could quote hundreds of over-hyped claims by enthusiastic climate advocates which are inaccurate, erroneous, or just plain silly.
The media has finally realized the public has grown weary of the hype, and is in danger of throwing out the bay with the dishwater due to excessive claims by over zealous advocates.
It’s time to exercise a little more caution.
Craig,
I’m currently watching the wild weather hitting the Texas and Louisiana. My heart goes out to those folks who have lost so much.
It makes the trails and tribulations of our own lives seem so petty and trivial in comparison.
A special thought to all the emergency workers, risking their lives and working so hard in giving in service to their fellow citizens.
We normally do not notice the equivalent hurricanes and tornadoes going on elsewhere in the world, so don’t add them to the tally. Note the recent super monsoons in Bangladesh and India, and floods in Nepal. These are “normal” seasonal things, but seem larger and more destructive this time around. Climate change?
Excellent. Fully one-third of the entire country of Bangledesh is under water at this moment. 1200+ people dead. Barely makes the news here.
Dean,
No, not climate change, just more crowded urban area’s, poorly constructed buildings,soil degradation through deforestation and poorly organized infrastructure.
Sierra Leone has also suffered devastation. Again, long years of civil war left the population totally unable to cope with any natural catastrophe.
The population of Bangladesh has exploded since the last great Monsoon of this intensity. At that time, only 60 years ago, the total population was just 42 million of whom 40 million lived as subsistence farmers and only 2 million in urban areas.
The current population of Bangladesh is 167 million, with 60 million living in poorly constructed cities.
The current events are not the result of climate change, but demographic and increasing pressures on land usage.
In public health, patients with slightly elevated blood sugars and/or moderately overweight, are encouraged to adopt lifestyle changes to avoid diabetes. I don’t understand leadership that won’t adopt even modest lifestyle changes to adapt to a changing planet and prevent further damage to the int Intricate interlocked ecosystems.
RIDE A ELECTRIC ASSIT TRIKE FOR neighbourhood errands, no insurance, no pollution, no need for parking lots, no shopping arts no traffic jams, no first/last mile problem, no waiting for a bus…………..
Beautifully and powerfully written, Craig, and a most valid and worthy message.
Shipmasters who stay in a hurricane’s path risk all as a result. Those folks in power and busily denying the data are inviting catastrophe. The difference being that all known life is on board the big blue ship they’re scuttling.
Within our historically normal climate patterns there was always a range of chaotic weather, producing occasional catastrophe, but more and more, our own disruption of that natural pattern is leading to more severe and more frequent extremes.
As long as we keep pouring tens of billions of metric tons of CO2 from prehistoric carbon fuel every year into our modern skies, we’ll see more energy in the air and oceans, causing more costly weather.
We’ll see more volatile shifts in rainfall patterns (drought/flooding), and a variety of widespread lethal effects across the biosphere generally. The ranges of disease vectors are already shifting.
We’ll see more acidity, more coral die-offs and more expanding dead-zones across our oceans.
Climate disruption is just one weapon in our heedless arsenal. The progress of our blindly consumptive paradigm is staggering. From 1970 to 2010, the number of humans has doubled, and everything else with a backbone fell by half. That analysis emerges from studied trends across 10,380 populations of 3,038 species.
It isn’t “doom and gloom” to warn fellow passengers of an oncoming storm (particularly when the helm is busy shutting off the radio and the radar).
It’s perhaps the worst and most effective kind of doom and gloom to dismiss the warnings and the messengers.
Land, sea, and air, we’re busy snipping away at the web of life supporting us all. There’s big old money in the scissors business, but it’s a long way down.
Thanks. Great analogy with the scissors/snipping, btw.
And yes, ringing an alarm when there’s an emergency is the right thing to do.
@Craig
Today is a good day to engage in GHG discussions.
Tomorrow will be another good day for that discussion also, and so will the day after that.
Let’s remember that every discussion, every stark reminder of extreme weather events globally and in particularly those where the results are havoc, despair and suffering, as difficult as it may be, are also days to continue the GHG discussion.
But at the same time we should also remain mindful, that technological changes that will make great contributions to solving GHG emissions are happening every-day somewhere, and many responsible decision makers are making decisions that collectively will start to reverse the GHG levels over time.
GHG emissions are current technological issues, with new counter technological solutions. Those solutions have been defined. Great science and work is happening and gathering momentum globally. There is absolutely no doubt about that.
There are many positive initiatives already gathering momentum globally that will collectively solve the current GHG crisis and ultimately reduce GHG to insignificant levels.
The task won’t be complete tomorrow though, or the day after, but there is every reason for all people to remain optimistic about a reversal of GHG emissions in the foreseeable future.
Lawrence Coomber
Over two thirds of the natural gas produced in the US is now fracked gas, and the ratio keeps increasing. When the shale is fractured only a part of the gas that is released is captured. The better part of the released gas is no longer sealed within the shale, as it has been for 360 million years (for Marcellus). It remains underground for a time but the surrounding rock types (which once also contained their own natural gas) allow the gas to move around, and there are thousands of boreholes that do not provide a barrier to gas escape. Some of it also moves with the ground water. The eventual result is that many thousands of megatonnes of GHG(eq) will in time reach the atmosphere. That contribution is not presently being included in the calculations for GHG.
@Ron
The quantum of global bovine farts arn’t counted either Ron!
Why is that?
Lawrence Coomber
You counsel that we should “remain optimistic” that GHG emissions can be reversed. The fist step should be to properly measure those emissions, including those from both fracking and bovine flatulence. Actually, the latter have been quantified but the former are simply ignored, even though they may well be the primary source of GHG if you apply the correct GWP for methane.
you are right. Climate change and its horrific consequences aren’t a matter of politics; they’re the purview of science