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Harvey Didn't Come Out of the Blue. Now Is the Time to Talk about Climate Change

theintercept.com

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Re: Harvey Didn't Come Out of the Blue. Now Is the Time to Talk about Climate Change

#31

Post by rocqua »

bmmayer1 wrote: post #19

Two things to note here: - Naomi Klein is a well-known leftist activist and author with a clear agenda. Take what she writes with a grain of salt. - Yes, it's important to think about climate change and how it may impact weather patterns. But no serious climate scientist would ever credit singular weather events to global climate trends, which take decades to evolve. It's lazy to use a hurricane to bolster climate ch…

Obviously, climate change is nowhere near 'the cause' of this storm. However, the pattern of there being more storms and floods is a clear consequence of climate change. Choosing this moment to drive home the need to reverse climate change makes sense. Which I think is the intention here.

This is more about arguing 'climate change is bad' as opposed to 'climate change is real. And really, we don't need to be discussing the latter, it has been well established.

Re: Harvey Didn't Come Out of the Blue. Now Is the Time to Talk about Climate Change

#32

Post by dogruck »

emodendroket wrote: post #17
chiph wrote: post #14

Climate change is the most likely reason behind rising sea levels, however, Houston is far enough inland to not have gotten any storm surge. What happened was the storm stalled over top of the city instead of moving on through. This meant that it picked up water on the south-east side of the storm and dropped it on the north-west side, right over the neighborhoods. And did it over a couple of days. What it was .. was…

It was my understanding that climate change made events like hurricanes and extreme rainfall more likely.

Remember when Dr Roger Pielke Jr was fired because he didn't think climate change intensified hurricanes?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_A._Pielke_Jr.

You might have that understanding because the media punishes disention.

Re: Harvey Didn't Come Out of the Blue. Now Is the Time to Talk about Climate Change

#33

Post by mercurysmessage »

DarkKomunalec wrote: post #27
mercurysmessage wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why you insist on spreading this ignorance all over HN, this really isn't the place for your rhetoric.

Ignorance? Well, please point out where I made an error - I'd be happy to correct it.

> All that happened is we were told we need immigration instead.

You say this everywhere, we discussed this already. You have an unfounded, ignorant view of immigration. You are so locked into your position that it doesn't matter what you are shown, you will ignore it and instead fall back to your ignorant position.

And please, tell me why a tech news aggregator is the place for ignorant anti-immigration rhetoric?

Re: Harvey Didn't Come Out of the Blue. Now Is the Time to Talk about Climate Change

#34

Post by zimpenfish »

diego_moita wrote: post #18

There are a lot of things more crucial than climate change. There are towns with no building and zoning regulations, bad infrastructure for water drainage and few resources for tragedy prevention. Low taxes and deregulation are very nice in the short run. But then comes what statisticians call black swans and you understand why you needed them. New Orleans and Houston are Gulf Coast cities, they should expect hurrica…

France doesn't get anywhere even close to what Harvey dumped on Houston.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-40554842 - Paris got 54mm of rain - "heaviest July deluge on record", "the equivalent of 27 days of rainfall".

Harvey has dumped 25x that (51" and rising) on Houston.

If you dumped half that on Paris, I guarantee it would be a national disaster on the same scale.

Re: Harvey Didn't Come Out of the Blue. Now Is the Time to Talk about Climate Change

#35

Post by dogruck »

chiph wrote: post #29
emodendroket wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was my understanding that climate change made events like hurricanes and extreme rainfall more likely.

Perhaps not more likely, but since they run on heat, hurricanes could possibly become stronger in the future. I haven't seen any articles which reference research on this, as it's hard to filter out the ones with bias (in either direction).

Strange how difficult it is to get a non-political unbiased view of man-made climate change, isn't it?

Re: Harvey Didn't Come Out of the Blue. Now Is the Time to Talk about Climate Change

#36

Post by chiph »

diego_moita wrote: post #18

There are a lot of things more crucial than climate change. There are towns with no building and zoning regulations, bad infrastructure for water drainage and few resources for tragedy prevention. Low taxes and deregulation are very nice in the short run. But then comes what statisticians call black swans and you understand why you needed them. New Orleans and Houston are Gulf Coast cities, they should expect hurrica…

Funny that you mention zoning - Houston has none. There's a guy living next door to an amusement park and during the summer has to listen to the screams of the adjacent roller coaster riders every 2.5 minutes. It's just an accepted part of living there.

However, Houston does have building codes, and structures must withstand 130-150 mph winds, depending on location and other factors. So new-construction buildings and those undergoing significant renovations must have things like hurricane-rated glazing, and roof ties to prevent them from being blown off.

https://edocs.publicworks.houstontx.gov/documents/divisions/...

Re: Harvey Didn't Come Out of the Blue. Now Is the Time to Talk about Climate Change

#37

Post by rocqua »

lucb1e wrote: post #24

Disappointing article. It starts with "don't wait until the event and hype are past, but talk about climate change now. The fact that there are record-breaking events so often isn't normal." Then it continues to elaborate on politics, politics and politics. So, how abnormal is it? How often should we expect record-breaking events? If I remember correctly, the world was warming up already as part of its natural cycle.…

> the world was warming up already as part of its natural cycle

Do you think climate change is man made?

I agree strongly with the rest of your post, the article was way to political and could've supported the claim 'warmer earth -> more storms'. But those positions are easily supported, which makes the lack of such support even more egregious.

Re: Harvey Didn't Come Out of the Blue. Now Is the Time to Talk about Climate Change

#38

Post by 0xfeba »

dogruck wrote: post #35
chiph wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps not more likely, but since they run on heat, hurricanes could possibly become stronger in the future. I haven't seen any articles which reference research on this, as it's hard to filter out the ones with bias (in either direction).

Strange how difficult it is to get a non-political unbiased view of man-made climate change, isn't it?

From major news outlets? No, not strange.

Luckily the AAAS, NASA, NOAA aren't nearly as political.

Re: Harvey Didn't Come Out of the Blue. Now Is the Time to Talk about Climate Change

#39

Post by 0xfeba »

cpr wrote: post #20
emodendroket wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was my understanding that climate change made events like hurricanes and extreme rainfall more likely.

Except that the US has had 10 years free of serious storms. Doesn't quite fit the narrative.

Please define "serious", as the US has definitely had multiple storms in the past 10 years.

Re: Harvey Didn't Come Out of the Blue. Now Is the Time to Talk about Climate Change

#40

Post by geiseric »

dogruck wrote: post #35
chiph wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps not more likely, but since they run on heat, hurricanes could possibly become stronger in the future. I haven't seen any articles which reference research on this, as it's hard to filter out the ones with bias (in either direction).

Strange how difficult it is to get a non-political unbiased view of man-made climate change, isn't it?

If in fact climate change is man made. There is strong evidence that this is a natural cycle. Are humans contributing greenhouse gasses? Yes, but what effect are they having? We don't really know, contrary to those who say they do. We have an idea, but climate prediction is still difficult and imperfect. So NO! The science isn't final.
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