2017 Hurricane Season

[Tinordi]

Harvey is what climate change looks like:

http://www.politico.com/magazine/sto...-harvey-215547

But there’s an uncomfortable point that, so far, everyone is skating around: We knew this would happen, decades ago. We knew this would happen, and we didn’t care. Now is the time to say it as loudly as possible: Harvey is what climate change looks like. More specifically, Harvey is what climate change looks like in a world that has decided, over and over, that it doesn’t want to take climate change seriously.

If we don’t talk about the climate context of Harvey, we won’t be able to prevent future disasters and get to work on that better future. Those of us who know this need to say it loudly. As long as our leaders, in words, and the rest of us, in actions, are OK with incremental solutions to a civilization-defining, global-scale problem, we will continue to stumble toward future catastrophes. Climate change requires us to rethink old systems that we’ve assumed will last forever. Putting off radical change—what futurist Alex Steffen calls “predatory delay”—just adds inevitable risk to the system. It’s up to the rest of us to identify this behavior and make it morally repugnant.

Insisting on a world that doesn’t knowingly condemn entire cities to a watery, terrifying future isn’t “politicizing” a tragedy—it’s our moral duty. The weather has always been political. If random whims of atmospheric turbulence devastate one neighborhood and spare another, it’s our job as a civilized society to equalize that burden. The choices of how to do that, by definition, are political ones.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

Harvey is what climate change looks like

And it looks like the past. Hurricanes have always hit the US, some of which are historically devastating even to this day but with greatly improved technology and capabilities (and development), the US is now dealing with massive property damage rather than thousands of people getting killed.

[Mazrim]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

Harvey is what climate change looks like

I thought the entire 2005 Hurricane Season was what climate change looked like!

[djsFlames]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Hurricane Irmagherd looks to be on the path of most destruction, nailing the Caribbean before setting sights on the lowest lying parts of Florida, and possibly on to the Gulf Coast for more...

Hopefully this one makes a turn to the north soonish.



Also, Hurricanes in Obama's 8 years=0. Hurricanes in Trump's 3/4 year= soon to be 2 and counting. What a disaster of a President. Can't even stop a hurricane.

Hurricane Ermagherd?

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

Harvey is what climate change looks like:

http://www.politico.com/magazine/sto...-harvey-215547

This is disingenuous. With or without climate change this storm happens.

The probability of it happening might have gone from .2% per year to 1% per year but there has always been a non-zero chance of it happening. Most of the issues caused by this storm are due to poor development practices around drainage and sprawl.

There wasn't even a significant storm surge with Harvey relative to the nightmare storm that could happen. (again with or without climate change).

Blaming climate change for this seems like trying to politicise the problem to get support for a massive issue that effects the world when in reality these hurricane damages are simple engineering problems.

Set a design capacity for these systems and design accordingly. This does not happen because it gets wrapped up in the politics of climate change.

Like the Katrina levy failure this is a failure of engineering not a failure of environmental policy.

[Tinordi]

Originally Posted by GGG

This is disingenuous. With or without climate change this storm happens.

The probability of it happening might have gone from .2% per year to 1% per year but there has always been a non-zero chance of it happening. Most of the issues caused by this storm are due to poor development practices around drainage and sprawl.

There wasn't even a significant storm surge with Harvey relative to the nightmare storm that could happen. (again with or without climate change).

Blaming climate change for this seems like trying to politicise the problem to get support for a massive issue that effects the world when in reality these hurricane damages are simple engineering problems.

Set a design capacity for these systems and design accordingly. This does not happen because it gets wrapped up in the politics of climate change.

Like the Katrina levy failure this is a failure of engineering not a failure of environmental policy.

Did you read the article?

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

Did you read the article?

Clearly not

[Duruss]

Originally Posted by djsFlames

Hurricane Ermagherd?

Its a meme reference:
https://www.google.ca/search?q=omage...ybZxlp5vvkLYM:

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

Did you read the article?

Sure did,

Its conclusion that we should use this catastrophe to spring board into fighting climate change is flawed because instead of dealing with it as a engineering problem it politicizes it and then nothing gets done.

It comes from a point of view that you can somehow convince people that climate change is real and that this should spur action. That is not the case. Therefore the path suggested by the article is dangerous.

It's only in the very last paragraphs it recognizes the real solution of better city design. It also tries to state that you can't engineer your way out of the problem which is also false.

[Northendzone]

it will be interesting to get a handle on the real damage once all fo the water has dried up and the engineers have had a chance to full inspect roadways and other infrastructure

it would seem that for the next few years, there will be a lot of trades opportunities in the Houston area, although, it is hard to wrap your head around where do they start the repairs

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Northendzone

it will be interesting to get a handle on the real damage once all fo the water has dried up and the engineers have had a chance to full inspect roadways and other infrastructure

it would seem that for the next few years, there will be a lot of trades opportunities in the Houston area, although, it is hard to wrap your head around where do they start the repairs

They are going to need a lot of our softwood lumber, that's for sure.

[calumniate]

Originally Posted by djsFlames

Hurricane Ermagherd?

Hurricane Monahan up soon

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

They are going to need a lot of our softwood lumber, that's for sure.

If I was in a hurricane prone area like southern Texas, Louisiana and Florida and had to rebuild after a big storm I'd probably look at doing so with composite or aluminum studs instead of traditional wood. Just like some folks up here took the opportunity to upgrade to a more durable Hardy Board exterior finish after our big hail storms a few years ago.

[REDVAN]

A lot of them don't have basements in Texas either... actually I'm not sure if that makes it better or worse for flood rebuilding.

[Weitz]

Originally Posted by REDVAN

A lot of them don't have basements in Texas either... actually I'm not sure if that makes it better or worse for flood rebuilding.

Much better. Don't have to worry about having 9 feet of water in your basement..

[Nufy]

Originally Posted by Northendzone

it will be interesting to get a handle on the real damage once all fo the water has dried up and the engineers have had a chance to full inspect roadways and other infrastructure

it would seem that for the next few years, there will be a lot of trades opportunities in the Houston area, although, it is hard to wrap your head around where do they start the repairs

But what to do without all that cheap Mexican labor ???

[wittynickname]

I heard a really profound statement from a climate expert on NPR last week--no single storm can be fully attributed to climate change.

But there isn't just one storm. There were massive flood events in Houston in the last couple of years, without a Harvey to cause them. Louisiana had historic flooding last year without a Harvey. West Virginia and South Carolina have had historical flooding events in recent years. More forest fires, LA is on fire right now. The west coast has dealt with record heat and droughts for years.

And that's just the US. India is dealing with record flooding, parts of Africa are dealing with record flooding, the Middle East had record heat this year, etc, etc, etc.

Harvey is just one small sign of a massive problem.

[Izzle]

Originally Posted by wittynickname

I heard a really profound statement from a climate expert on NPR last week--no single storm can be fully attributed to climate change.

But there isn't just one storm. There were massive flood events in Houston in the last couple of years, without a Harvey to cause them. Louisiana had historic flooding last year without a Harvey. West Virginia and South Carolina have had historical flooding events in recent years. More forest fires, LA is on fire right now. The west coast has dealt with record heat and droughts for years.

And that's just the US. India is dealing with record flooding, parts of Africa are dealing with record flooding, the Middle East had record heat this year, etc, etc, etc.

Harvey is just one small sign of a massive problem.

But it all is really an engineering problem.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by wittynickname

And that's just the US. India is dealing with record flooding,

India is dealing with slightly below average precipitation:

http://hydro.imd.gov.in/hydrometweb/...ngpage=landing

Plus the Indian monsoon period shows incredible swings between drought and flood over time:



http://www.tropmet.res.in/~kolli/MOL...rical/air.html

Harvey is just one small sign of a massive problem.

Harvey is just one small sign that the Earth's climate has always had nasty periods, and it's only thanks to modern developments and engineering (and using huge amounts of energy) that disasters only kill hundreds or thousands today when they would have killed tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands in the past.

The list of worst floods is dominated by Chinese disasters that occurred before the massive increase in CO2 emissions after WW2.

[Tinordi]

Originally Posted by GGG

Sure did,

Its conclusion that we should use this catastrophe to spring board into fighting climate change is flawed because instead of dealing with it as a engineering problem it politicizes it and then nothing gets done.

Ok so how would you engineer solutions to mitigate climate change in a politically neutral way? I mean, how would you reduce GHGs by 50% over the next 40 years with engineering solutions that aren't political?

To blithely state that politics don't have a place in reducing GHGs seems completely delusional in my opinion.