Northeast Floods Stir Global Warming Debate

(But note the final paragraph quoted from the article. Rick Santorum's big contributor and supporter, ACCUWEATHER, says hey, relax, it's just natural cycles! This is the outfit which Santorum pimps for in legislation that would prevent any government agency from making available for free to the public, ANY weather information which a private company (like, hey! ACCUWEATHER! is selling. See that way, Accuweather can sell advance info to investors in the futures market re the impact of upcoming hurricanes, tropical storms, etc.)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060629/sc_nm/weather_usa_warming_dc;_ylt=AqButlyZZpwn9A1AavtUFuKs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MzV0MTdmBHNlYwM3NTM-

BOSTON (Reuters) - Images of swamped homes in the U.S. Northeast deepened suspicions over global warming, giving ammunition to scientists and others who say greenhouse gas-spewing cars and factories are fueling extreme weather.

Paul Epstein, associate director of Harvard Medical School's Center for Health and the Global Environment, said the Atlantic is warming faster than scientists projected even a decade ago, and he expects such storms as the one seen this week from Virginia to New York to become common."Scientists and climatologists are looking at one another and we're just stunned because no one, even in the 1990s, projected the magnitude of the storms and degree of warming in the Arctic that we are seeing," he said.Epstein sees a clear pattern: rain has increased in the United States by 7 percent in three decades; heavy rain events of more than 2 inches a
day are up 14 percent and storms dumping more than 4 inches a day rose 20 percent.

The floods that forced up to 200,000 evacuees from a historic Pennsylvania coal town on Wednesday followed a year of erratic weather in other parts of the region, including record rainfall in May and June in Massachusetts, a spring-like January in Maine and Vermont's worst autumn foliage in memory.Most scientists say greenhouse gases could cause huge climate changes
like floods, heat waves, droughts and a rise in sea levels that could swamp low-lying Pacific islands by 2100.

But not everyone blames human pollution for drenching the U.S. Northeast. "The climate is warming," said Bernie Rayno, senior meteorologist at Accuweather.com. "The real question is: 'Are humans causing it or is it occurring because of natural cycles?' We believe that we are in a natural cycle like we were back in the 1930s, 40s and 50s. And that was a time of big climate swings."

A lot of the devastation is due to sprawl. There's so many unneeded homes and businesses that there's just nowhere for the water to go. This is particularly true in Pennsylvania.

say that homes and businesses are "unneeded"? Clearly people are living in the homes and supporting the businesses or the buildings would be sitting empty. The problem is more in where the houses & businesses are situated, and particularly the huge parking lots for the megastores, and megamalls. There are designs for parking lots with runoff ponds, that could minimize runoffs - and other design elements which I can't now recall, but which I heard about in hearings maybe 10 years ago in a community which had just suffered a disastrous flood, from what was then described as a hundred year storm, i.e., one which such a freak of nature that it only occurred every hundred years. Since then, this community regularly gets "hundred year" storms - should change the designation to once-every-other-year-if-we're-lucky.

As to Pennsylvania, my home state, the far eastern strip of the state has been extremely overdeveloped and marketed to people from NYC in the north and Baltimore County in the South - who commute across state lines to work to get (relatively) cheaper housing and lower taxes. These developers/builders have put a tremendous strain on the local governments' infrastucture - particularly roads and schools, severely driving up property and school taxes.

ON EDIT: And of course, "sprawl" is a function of overpopulation, another human factor which Gore points out greatly contributes to global warming.

After the grass has grown up through the holes:





http://www.psat.wa.gov/Publications/LID_studies/permeable_pavement.htm
http://www.invisiblestructures.com/GreenBuilding1/LEEDImpact.htm

Usually happen in the spring, with the snow melt adding to the rain. In the summer they get t-storms that are over quickly, or day-long "drizzles" that don't amount to much. Torrential storms in the summer are rare.

Stossel Labels Majority of Americans “Socialists” Who “Hate Capitalism”

Just when you think ABC News “reporter” John Stossel has publicly embarrassed himself more than any pundit possibly could, he goes and sets a new low. Last night on MSNBC, Stossel labeled those who support measures to decrease carbon dioxide emissions so as to slow down global warming “socialists” who “hate capitalism.” He also claimed that he “has talked to” scientists who deny that global warming is being caused by humans. He then refused to name a single scientist he has “talked to” who said this and was unable to deny that the National Academy of Science directly refuted his claim very recently.

http://davidsirota.com/index.php/2006/06/29/stossel-labels-majority-of-americans-socialists-who-hate-capitalism

Stossel attacks Gore: We’re all socialists
By: John Amato on Thursday, June 29th, 2006 at 1:26 AM - PDT

Listening to John Stossell try to attack Al Gore and his movie about Global warming was rather comical. He had no facts or documentation to back up his points, but he did have a few choice words handy, He called us alarmists.

Video-WMP low res (The video is out of sync so just listen to the segment. I’ll try to redo it later in the day) Video -QT

John says the serious scientists scoff at the notion of global warming, but did he name one? I must say though that he did talk to the scientists so that’s enough for me. What was that study he quoted again? Tyson Slocum came on the segment and did actually present some facts, but that didn’t stop Stossel’s onslaught, no sir. He had the final say and dug deep into his word well and called us all—Socialists who hate Capitalism.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/posts/2006/06/29/stossel-attacks-gore-were-all-socialists

DU discussion started by iconoclastNYC here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=2701525

when something affects them personally. That's generally known as being selfish. I looked at Google Earth out of curiousity and Manhatten is only 7 foot above sealevel. Can't wait for the whinging when Broadway has got dingies instead of Yellow Cabs.

They are not only selfish, but extremely short-sighted. It's the same GOP-think that encourages executives to cannabilize their own corporations so that quarterly profits and their stock options are up in value; screw long term plans, delayed gratification, the environment or their grandchildren's futures.

PS. I'm curious. UKers say "whinging"; USA says "whining". The meaning's the same, to grumble peevishly, but how is "whinging" pronounced?

win-ging but can't be spelt that way because winging would be pronounced the same as ringing.
We do also use whining but connotations differ slightly - whine implies sound. Hard to explain really.

I've been trying to understand your term swift boating / swiftboating to see if we have an equivalent of that. I think its cool that on DU we can learn from each other in the friendliest possible way. Repugs can't do that - doubt if anyone outside of the USA goes into any of their equivalent sites like FreeRepugnant whatever. :)

I really feel for all of the people affected by these storms. Being flooded out is just awful.

But I loved the picture of Bush with his umbrella in the pouring rain. Mother Nature was pretty much getting in his face.

The bad part of this is that these extreme weather patterns will probably continue - widening and deepening deserts in some places and extreme downmpours in others.

Here in KC we are just not getting the storms we usually do - they are going North and East of us. There is a realy possibility and that our weather may really modify - warmer and drier. Even the tornadoes seem to be going North into Wisconsin and Iowa and Ohio.

to KC. Special place that - where Count basie and Benny Moten started off.:)

areas.

We have a huge floodplain here. If you build in the floodplain you can be certain that sooner or later you will be flooded.

The rivers flood sometimes but that is usually very localized.

This city is built to withstand big rains - we have runnoff ditches running along beside all of the streets. 4" is nothing to us. Now 10 inches in 24 hours could cause problems.

in Carlisle which is NE England. They are subject to natural heavy rainfall in that area and over a period of time they have developed land which was a flood plain.

How about Southwest Blvd? It floods a LOT. How about the Plaza flood in 1976?

uh, yes they do. Everyone who matters in the scientific community blames human activity. Everyone.

It's telling that they had to go to a meteorologist with a private company to get a dissenting opinion. Who will they ask next? Some chick working at Payless shoes at the mall?

they will start passing out Boot Straps.. that is the message they used Katrina to initiate..

they are not stupid, they will will just wait till the time comes when the country collapses and then use it to finally declare a dictatorship publicly.. impose shoot to kill curfews, give Bill O'liely a gun, and tell the homeless refugees they will be shot if they 'Loot' water, food, or cardboard for shelters for their children.

it could get so bad environmentally there will come a point where it is useless to try to rebuild. and to Fascists poverty and suffering is a vice, and gOD is giving them what they deserve..

it is a bitch to be clairvoyant, but you dont have to be psychic to see what they have in store for us.

Then it would be better to go down fighting then to live on our knees, wouldn't it?

I do agree that you can't say anything about global climate change based on a single week of flooding. There are too many ups and downs in the weather cycle, both with precipitation and temperature, to blame any particular weather event on global warming. We have to look at the long-term data, which scientists almost unanimously agree shows us the planet is warming.

But the specific language the meterologist from Accuweather uses is taken right out of the climate contrarian playbook. To say, "The real question is: 'Are humans causing it or is it occurring because of natural cycles?' We believe that we are in a natural cycle..." is exactly what people say when they're trying to muddle the scientific case for human-driven climate change. He's going beyond the specifics of the recent flooding and introducing the more general talking point.

The head of NOAA says global warming is "the greatest hoax ever played on the American people."

And tropical weather expert Dr. William Gray says within the next 20 years the earth temperature will begin to cool. And when we look back at this debate we are all going to be laughing.

They don't deny that the earth is warming. They completely agree with those stats. They just don't believe that humans are doing anything to cause it.

Do you have a cite for your claim that most meteorologists think it's a hoax?

The NOAA statement is most likely a political statement by a political appointee. Either that or his writings have been modified by government censors. See here for example: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/10/AR2006021001766.html

Dr. William Gray is a global warming skeptic, you're correct about that. But he's in a distinct minority. There are people just as educated as him who believe quite differently (many more people). There are also a handful of biologists who believe in creationism. Quoting the rare dissenters on an issue proves nothing.

On Edit: fixed spelling

NOTHING would happen, because the Greenhouse Effect is a myth.

We are NOT in a garage with the door closed and the car running. Don't be silly.