Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Some Cold (Or Warm, If You Prefer), Hard Facts Pertaining to Climate Change and Extreme Weather
1) Weather related losses as a percentage of GDP have actually decreased since 1990 by 25%.............2) Hurricanes have not increased in frequency, intensity, or normalized damage since at least 1900 (this, despite the fact that we now have better detection capabilities and a greater population).............3) Floods have not increased in frequency and intensity since 1950 and flood losses as a percentage of GDP have actually decreased by 75% since 1940.............4) Tornadoes have not increased in frequency, intensity, or normalized damage since at least 1950.............5) Droughts have become shorter, less frequent, and have covered smaller amounts of the U.S. over the last century.........................................................................................My source for this information is Senate testimony from Roger Pielke (a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado and a visiting scholar at Oxford), various sections from multiple IPCC reports, and the U.S. Global Change Research Program. They are generally accepted by both sides of this debate and I think that they thoroughly debunk this whole notion that human emissions are somehow causing extreme weather.
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3 comments:
Is Climate Change Real? This from NASA.
That something is going on is undeniable. Whether the changes scientists have observed over time will have catastrophic results for our earth if we do nothing will be seen in the future. The only question IMO... Is it prudent continuing on as we have been and as we are hoping for the best?
That 97% figure is bogus, Les. It's based on a very small sample and was basically 2 questions, one of which was, "do you think that human activity plays a role in climate?" That's a very generic question and I can tell you that 80-85% of the skeptics (me, included) would even agree with it (not just in terms of CO2 but also with deforestation, urbanization, etc.). The question here is simply one of degree and whether or not we can do anything about it (by virtually every calculation it is much, MUCH, cheaper to adapt to climate change than it ever will be to prevent it)............And that graph is bogus, too. It's a James Hansen creation in which he adjusted away the 30 year cooling period from 1945 to 1979 and even that spike after 1979 is wrong in that the much more sophisticated readings from the satellites and radiosonde balloons have shown zero warming from 1979 to 1997 and only a spike in temperatures afterwards.
As for the prudent thing, let me ask you something. Would you ever purchase an insurance policy in which the premiums were far more expensive than the payout? No way, right? Well, that's exactly what the Al Gores and James Hansens of the world are advocating here and the fact that these folks have no compassion for the poor people of the world is even more revolting.
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