Alberta Politics Thread

[Handsome B. Wonderful]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

That wasn't my question though.

So lets just put this another way. Please provide a link that shows the total production in India from all sources and what they are planning/building into the future.

And if you aren't going to provide a link, you may as well just not bother.

Tinordi only likes to cherry pick the facts that support his narrative.

[PsYcNeT]

It's a good thing that only one side of the argument does that, otherwise we'd all just be jerking each other off about politics.

[Bownesian]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

What could go wrong in a city watered by glacial runoff when the glaciers are gone?

The answer to that particular canard is not a whole lot:

http://wsow.brbc.ab.ca/index.php?opt...=219&Itemid=89

Glacial meltwater contributes only about 2.5% of the total annual flow in the Bow River upstream of Banff, but in low flow years, it can contribute up to 16%. During the summer months, these contributions are about 7% during average flow years, but in the lowest flow year (1970), 47% of the August flows upstream of Banff came from glacial meltwater.

The vast majority of the Bow River watershed is sourced from snowmelt and rain that in addition to filling reservoirs, also naturally refreshes alpine ground water that is then released in the late summer/fall months.

Calgary water consumption was 176 billion L/year in 2015 which works out to ~5.6 m3/s. The flow rate of the bow river is ~129 m3/s.

[Fuzz]

Thanks for facts and analysis, as opposed to what Tinordi provides...

[Flash Walken]

Good for Alberta's Economy?

Spoiler!

[Fuzz]

Floods had nothing to do with global warming, other than it was a convenient thing to point at and say hey! Global warming! They are no more frequent or massive than has occurred in the past.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Floods had nothing to do with global warming, other than it was a convenient thing to point at and say hey! Global warming! They are no more frequent or massive than has occurred in the past.

You may be right, but show your work. My purely anecdotal sense of things is that floods and droughts are increasing in frequency and magnitude. Will see what data I can find ...

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming...l#.VuWlBvDOerU

https://www.climaterealityproject.or...s-and-droughts

http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth...oods_droughts/

http://www.nrdc.org/globalwarming/fcons/fcons1.asp

https://www.nwf.org/Wildlife/Threats...e-Weather.aspx

[nik-]

Originally Posted by troutman

You may be right, but show your work. My purely anecdotal sense of things is that floods and droughts are increasing in frequency and magnitude. Will see what data I can find ...

Not sure about all floods, but the last flood was a combination of an incredibly late snow melt combined with a storm that got stuck in the mountains and dumped all of it's water onto still frozen ground. No absorption and combined with the late snow melt it just all went directly down the mountains into the drainage basin.

Coastal flooding increasing with global warming, I totally buy that. Our last one however, not the case.

[Fuzz]

http://www.calgary.ca/UEP/Water/Page...ical-data.aspx

[CliffFletcher]

This why I say global warming has moved beyond science and empiricism and into the realm of received truth and dogma. Citing global warming for every single extreme weather event is like blaming a lack of propitiation to the gods for every drought. It has nothing to do with science and everything to do with turning the issue into a simplistic morality tale.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

This why I say global warming has moved beyond science and empiricism and into the realm of received truth and dogma. Citing global warming for every single extreme weather event is like blaming a lack of propitiation to the gods for every drought. It has nothing to do with science and everything to do with turning the issue into a simplistic morality tale.

More severe weather events are a symptom of climate change. Warmer weather produces stronger storms. That Calgary experienced two of these events in different conditions within a decade of each other might lead one to conclude at bare minimum that there could be a corollary relationship between the two.

What Nick is saying isn't wrong. A much larger than usual weather system was trapped over the mountains because an equally large or larger system was preventing it from travelling to the north.

Larger, more powerful weather systems are a hallmark of warmer climate change.

The insurance industry already understands this and municipalities are beginning to understand it as well. The Federal Government seems to understand as well, and based on the provincial government continuing to prevent unfavourable-to-development flood mitigation studies from being read by the public, I'd say they know it too.

Stats Can seems to know it:

While single storm events cannot be attributed to climate change, scientists predict that climate change will affect storm patterns and result in increased storm activity. Extreme weather events such as storms, floods, hurricanes and tornadoes can have devastating consequences. In 2006 in British Columbia, record dryness in August led to water shortages for residents and tourists, while in November and December, wind and rain toppled thousands of trees in Stanley Park and led to power outages, flooding, landslides and Canada's largest-ever boil-water advisory, affecting people in the Lower Mainland for over 12 days.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

This why I say global warming has moved beyond science and empiricism and into the realm of received truth and dogma. Citing global warming for every single extreme weather event is like blaming a lack of propitiation to the gods for every drought. It has nothing to do with science and everything to do with turning the issue into a simplistic morality tale.

Climate science does not purport to explain individual weather events.

P.12

http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/educati...e_literacy.pdf

[Enoch Root]

And yet that is exactly what Flash tried to do (which is why he was called out)

[Fuzz]

And the graph I posted clearly shows there is no discernible increasing trend. If 2014 and 2015 were on there, they would look to be on the low side, I suspect. Thus blaming the floods on climate change is bad science.

As for the insurance industry, I suspect the increases we have seen over the years are more related to us building in hazardous areas, greater populations, and most of all, we own more expensive stuff. More families with multiple vehicles, bigger houses etc that all cost far more to repair than they did in the past. That, and when a company knows they are billing insurance, the rates tend to double. I haven't researched this, that's just the suspicion I have when we here insurance losses costing so much more than they used to.

[GaiJin]

Hence the reason for changing Global warming to Climate change, so no matter what happens in what direction, it can be blamed on anthropogenic influence.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

And yet that is exactly what Flash tried to do (which is why he was called out)

No I didn't. I was responding to the ludicrous notion that climate change could have a positive impact on the Alberta economy (whether you think climate change is man made or whether you don't).

Increased Flooding events will happen in the city of Calgary in the future. Everyone with skin in the game seems to recognize this. These will become more and more costly as the province continues to develop land in flood plains. There is clear evidence of this trend and the province has now conducted several studies which reach the same conclusion.

Flood events are not good for Alberta's economy. Even if you don't believe humans are causing the climate to change you should at least be able to acknowledge that the climate IS changing and that these consequences are logical. troutman shared some links in this regard earlier.

Instead of Federal dollars for a new stadium, the city should be actively campaigning for flood mitigation infrastructure. That would have a much better return on investment.

That's the only thing I was replying to.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

Increased Flooding events will happen in the city of Calgary in the future.

And that is what I disagree with. There is no evidence of this. None. It hasn't been happening, and the mechanism for it happening hasn't been explained, other than a vague "warmer weather means more storms" which there has been no evidence of.

This is going way off topic, but these myths like increasing tornado activity:


NOAA's own words...

The bar charts below indicate there has been little trend in the frequency of the stronger tornadoes over the past 55 years.

https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/climate-in...atology/trends

And hurricanes, spoiler'd for big image, but no trend here either.

Spoiler!

When you look at the actual facts, instead of the rhetoric, you see that a lot of these predictions and claims are false. Sadly real science has taken a kick in the balls in the climate change arena, and it can be hard to find the facts. There is lots about climate change that is well researched, and real, I'm not denying that. But there is so much hogwash that gets thrown around, I think it does real damage to having the public trust scientists to lead policy.

Much of it falls on the media for sexy headlines, avoiding the realty where a scientist may say something like "we don't know for sure, but we think there may be more violent storms in the future, but there is no evidence yet" gets reported as "violent storms from a warming climate will kill us all!"

[Flash Walken]

Fuzz, why do you change the parameters of the discussion in each your posts?

WTF is talking about hurriccanes?

[Fuzz]

Like I said, it was going off topic, but because their isn't really anyone tracking frequency of storms here,(and clearly my flood graph didn't sway you) the claim that a warming climate is leading to increase storm activities, in general, hasn't born out, as the tornado and hurricane data show. As near as I can tell, the only evidence to support these claim comes form the models. I prefer data.

[PaperBagger'14]

"Calgary is flooding! Climate change caused this!"

"Southern Alberta is experiencing a drought! Climate change caused this!"