Lies, damn lies, and climate change denial
It takes real dedication to "prove" that a 500-year flood event is nothing out of the ordinary, but Roger Pielke , Terence Corcoran and the National Post are nothing if not committed.
Using a statistical trick that would be dismissed in any debating club, Post Business Editor Corcoran argues that the recent round of U.S. flooding can in no way be linked to climate change. In fact, according to his graph, you might be left with the impression that flood damage is actually receding in these weather-battered times.
Well, not true. The graph shows flood damage receding as a percentage of gross domestic product. Only if you imagine that the U.S. economy has not grown in the last 80 years could THAT be a reassuring notion.
It is somewhat to his credit that, if you read Corcoran's column closely, you see something approaching balance - at least on the part of those who are arguing for a prudent response to an anticipated increase in dangerous weather. Corcoran quotes Henry F. Diaz, of the U. S. Earth Systems Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado, saying, flatly, "As everyone notes, any particular occurrence of a climate anomaly cannot be shown in any deterministic fashion to have occurred as a result of global warming." Which Corcoran translates correctly to mean: "No event like a flood can be pinned on climate change."
But Diaz goes on to say that as a thoughtful race, humans are compelled to consider this flood in context. There were predictions, and there are trends. There has been an increase in CO2 in the atmosphere that - without question - traps more heat close to the planet - and the troubling implications of that fact appear to be playing out in a way that is costing money and lives. Diaz, Canadian scientist Andrew Weaver, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and every major science academy in the world all agree that these facts bring us to an unalterable conclusion: climate change is upon us and we must act with all due haste to mitigate the damage.
Corcoran comes to a different conclusion, arguing that we should ignore climate change in favor of BETTER PREPARING FOR FLOODS. Ah, it would seem, from all thoughtful accounts, that preparing for floods is a prudent part of adjusting to a changed climate.
So, in the U.S. midwest, why not start there. Why not admit, as Andrew Weaver says, that this is only the beginning? Start shoring up those dikes and improving those floodways. And while you're at it, you might think about ways to stop making the problem worse. Say, by reading something more even-handed and forthright than the National Post.
Well, you're wrong on this!
Any economist will tell you that measuring something in absolute terms is like comparing prices in 1900 to prices in 2000. You need to add another dimension to the analysis to reflect it. A richer society with more capital will surely have more absolute destruction from a hurricane than a medieval society. You're just trying to find a fight here, it does not disprove anything. It just points to the fact that as part of GDP, the amount of damage wrecked is less significant than it used to be.
Nothing controversial there.
Vincent
For the lack of any clear
For the lack of any clear indication anything has changed it does seem prudent to now claim some indefinable term like Earths Energy Balance to be the causes of all unfortunate natural events. Is this (like mentioned above) the next term now that global warming is failing to behave as billed and our climate continues to meander up and down, back and forth like it has for millennias, oblivious to alarmist hysteria?
BTW, Enthropist is a great term, it has nearly worthless meaning which some how seems concise for this application.
http://www.jstor.org/pss/1972629
Ray, if you want to learn a
Ray, if you want to learn a little bit of how the real world works, you need to find out the meaning of phrases with which you are unfamiliar, such as "energy balance". You can read about some of the different definitions used in various contexts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_balance
Note this one especially.
...In geography, specifically climatology and hydrology, the "'energy balance'" refers to the total of all energy inputs and outputs at any location; these include solar, atmospheric transfer, and ground conducted energy...
Carl S. said, "Climate
Carl S. said, "Climate change is related to energy imbalance so to speak"
This has become really silly!
Yes, ignorant outbursts like
"This has become really silly!"
have become really silly.
Well if you read any
Well if you read any scientific literature you'll realize why weather events like those mentioned above in my post are related to energy imbalances. Climate change is about.....a changing climate, which is an imbalance!...thats...why...extreme weather events are increasing with....climate change...thats not silly thats scientific.
That's not scientific -- it's idiotic.
"my post are related to energy imbalances. Climate change is about.....a changing climate, which is an imbalance!"
The only circumstance in which an "energy imbalance" will not exist is a state of total entropy. In other words, it would seem your ideal state will involve no less than the heat-death of the entire universe.
I propose we henceforth refer to Global Warming cultists as Entropists.
"enough to suggest that
"enough to suggest that periodic severe flooding, whether on a five hundred year, fifty year or five thousand year frequency is attributable to global warming ...err "climate change."
Actually, that's exactly what has been discovered by examining outwash and coastal lagoon sediment cores and correlating them to temperature proxy records.
Not at all surprised that you wouldn't know that, though, it involving actual science and all.
I read where this years high
I read where this years high water flow has cut portions of the Grand Canyon much deeper than many scientists had expected, adding several inches to its already mile depth. Is this too a sign of global warming...or perhaps something that may have happened many times in the past?
Could it be Richard Littlemore is, in an increasingly shrill voice, simply taking advantage of a natural event in an attempt to prop up fraying global warming hysteria.
Temperatures over the past year have been at or below average for the areas currently being flooded, how can global warming/climate change be blamed for this event!
This has become silly.
Climate change is related to
Climate change is related to energy imbalance so to speak. Weather events such as hurricane tornado storms etc are related to energy imbalances and transfer of said energy. While I dont think its possible to link any one event to global warming per say, the frequency of events is linked to energy imbalances in nature.
I suppose the point that I am making is that global warming/climate change is more than about the weather of the central plains area in any given year. It is of course on the world scale where more specifically the changes in varying regions can affect energy transfers between those regions as well as the climate system.
Something's "unbalanced" alright
"the frequency of events is linked to energy imbalances in nature."
Here we have the central conceit of the Warmist ideology: that there is, or ever was, a state of "balance" in nature.
Livermore seems to be losing
Livermore seems to be losing it. Desperation?
Not even Hansen is loopy enough to suggest that periodic severe flooding, whether on a five hundred year, fifty year or five thousand year frequency is attributable to global warming ...err "climate change".
If it "warms" any little leftist hearts to blame the disaster on the activities of nasty humanity, try drainage disruption, destruction of watersheds, cultivation on a massive scale and even the minor effect of paving over tens of thousands of acres.
Floods, drought, heatwaves, blizzards, January thaws, marital infidelity - name almost anything you like, and some media clown will attribute it to "climate change", which is code for AGW.
Climate Change Denial
Richard, the clearest demonstration of this denial is the use in the US mainstream media of the term "extreme weather" in place of global warming. When I followed the extreme tornados of the F-5 variety and the previous extreme heat the Midwest had, now followed by flooding, it became clear that this fit within the global warming model that leading scientists like James Hansen have been discussing in their respective lectures.
I have a question about this use of "extreme weather" to describe what is going on. Do you know if there are any weather reporters in the print or electronic media being instructed by their bosses not to discuss this within the context of global warming?
or Using Global warming
or Using Global warming instead of Global Cooling
and then using Climate Change instead of Global warming
and Using Greenhouse Gas instead of CO2.. kind of "clearest demonstration"?