
Harvey Didn't Come Out of the Blue. Now Is the Time to Talk about Climate Change - cardamomo
https://theintercept.com/2017/08/28/harvey-didnt-come-out-of-the-blue-now-is-the-time-to-talk-about-climate-change/
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lucb1e
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. Maybe these record-breaking events
are quite normal in this period.

I don't think so, and I think denying climate change is a dumb thing, but an
article that spends ten paragraphs on politics with no exploration of any
evidence is just useless and only fuels the political side of the discussion
without convincing anyone. My dad for example cares little about this, and
numbers like "three degrees Celsius worldwide over a decade" don't sound like
much, but the number of times we hear "record-breaking event" on the news is a
very tangible thing that could have been a good argument. But alas.

~~~
rocqua
> 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.

~~~
lucb1e
> Do you think climate change is man made?

Largely. I don't know enough about it to cite any accurate figures, but from
what I remember it was warming up perhaps half a degree per century and now,
over the last half a century, it increased two degrees. Something in that
order. So the climate would have been slowly changing and an ice age would
follow the heat period eventually, but extrapolating we'd have an ice age (or
something else that's disruptive for mankind) in two centuries or so instead
of in a few hundred thousand years.

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chiph
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 a severe rainfall event.

And the photo she led with, with the people walking along the highway divider?
Houston's road network is designed to be a last-resort flood buffer to collect
rainwater temporarily until it can drain to the east into the ship canal. So
yeah, that's going to happen.

The good news is the $700+ million in FEMA money that was spent over the years
since Katrina to prevent flooding at the city's medical centers appears to
have worked. They stayed open.

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

~~~
chiph
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).

~~~
Turing_Machine
"Perhaps not more likely, but since they run on heat, hurricanes could
possibly become stronger in the future."

They run on heat _differential_ , like any heat engine. A uniform global
temperature increase would likely have minimal effects.

~~~
DennisP
But the poles heat up faster than the equator, so we actually do have an
increased differential.

Edit: apparently someone doesn't believe me. Here's a source:
[http://www.npr.org/2014/12/18/371438087/arctic-is-warming-
tw...](http://www.npr.org/2014/12/18/371438087/arctic-is-warming-twice-as-
fast-as-world-average)

~~~
dragonwriter
Since the poles are currently colder, them heating up faster than the equator
decreases _that_ temperature differential. I don't think that's precisely the
differential at issue with Atlantic hurricanes, though.

~~~
DennisP
Hah I'm an idiot. Thanks.

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bmmayer1
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 change arguments for the same
reason it's lazy to use a blizzard to bolster climate change skeptics.

~~~
DennisP
This is like saying it's lazy to use lung cancer cases to bolster arguments
against smoking, since there's no way to prove that a particular case of
cancer was caused by smoking.

~~~
bmmayer1
As long as you are comfortable with cigarette companies pointing to cancer-
free smokers and saying "See! Smoking doesn't cause cancer!"

~~~
DennisP
Which they did for a while, but we didn't respond by abandoning the entire
line of argument, which would have been silly.

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emodendroket
Also worth talking about and springing from similar causes: wetland reduction
has made the region more vulnerable to floods, as this local article
highlighted a year ago. [http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-
texas/houston/a...](http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-
texas/houston/article/Houston-s-development-boom-and-reduction-of-8403838.php)

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diego_moita
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 hurricanes and
should build accordingly. Just as much as California builds expecting
earthquakes.

France and Germany have a much bigger population density and lots of floods
but a lot less fatalities. Maybe they know something about how to build
cities.

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

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-
europe-40554842](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.

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liberte82
These conversations are endless and repetitive. Both sides are fully
entrenched in their positions and I don't know how we can come back to having
productive discussions on this topic when both sides have already decided what
they believe to be true. How can we talk about anything when we don't agree on
the facts?

~~~
amoorthy
To be honest, I'm learning a lot from the comments on this thread. I
appreciate climate change skeptics speaking up because I know it's not a
popular position to take. I also appreciate where everyone has added highly
credible citations to back up their claims.

For those who struggle to understand skeptics point of view take a look at
Michael Crichton's interview on Charlie Rose. This was the first time I came
to appreciate the views of climate change skeptics:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vh4dIkEyfd0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vh4dIkEyfd0)

Essentially he says yes the planet is warming but the impact that will have is
unclear and models suggesting a high degree of certainty are not being honest.
(I don't think this is the same FUD of cigarette companies as some have
suggested above).

An even quicker way to understand skeptics is to read this blog:
[http://theparadoxproject.org/blog-1/2017/6/6/the-tribes-
of-c...](http://theparadoxproject.org/blog-1/2017/6/6/the-tribes-of-climate-
change). The 5 points on climate change, and where skeptics vs. scientists
differ, is clearly laid out.

Essentially liberals and conservatives largely agree on the facts but differ
on the policies that can help.

~~~
liberte82
I guess I feel it would be easier to trust the motives of skeptics if they
weren't constantly shifting the goalposts and fighting the data. A couple
years ago there was plenty of denial that climate change was happening at all.
Now the data has made that position indefensible so now they seek to cast
doubt on what the impacts will be.

I'm all for good science and skepticism, and for legitimate issues with the
models. But all of this reeks of the same type of "science" that tobacco
companies bankrolled to fight the lung cancer findings decades ago. Their
motivations just make it very difficult to take them seriously.

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mcot2
I'm interested in sea level rise and warmer oceans as direct catalysts for
more powerful storms with larger impacts occurring more frequently. It seems
like our models for predicting major hurricane events may be flawed.

In Harvey's case there was an intensification in the last day or so before
landfall that caught many experts by surprise. It also came back out to sea
and was able to reenergize stronger and faster in the warmer waters. These are
troubling details that make me question our grasp on predicting the occurrence
and strength of these types of storms.

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rocqua
> Which means there is a moral imperative for informed, caring people to name
> the real root causes behind this crisis — connecting the dots between
> climate pollution, systemic racism, underfunding of social services, and
> overfunding of police.

I see the obvious relevance of climate change and perhaps social services, but
I don't see how systemic racism is a factor in the tragedy of the storm
Harvey. Certainly, the article provides no context.

For rebuilding, it is likely to be an issue, but it is almost defeatist to
assume ahead of time and include it in the current tragedy.

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ackfoo
Harvey was a hurricane. It could have occurred anywhere on the Gulf Coast.
There is no direct relationship between climate change and any particular
named storm.

To argue otherwise is to destroy one's credibility.

The problems that exacerbated the disaster of Harvey are indeed linked to
climate change, but not in the simple-minded way that Naomi Klein makes out.
The economic factors that lead to high-density construction in flood zones are
the same as those that drive the wasteful use of fossil fuel energy.
Overpopulation, overbuilding, market-driven urban planning practices, shoddy
construction intended to maximize profit and waste while minimizing safety--
all of these underlie both climate change and the disaster in Houston.

Raving about climate change as if every hurricane is a direct consequence is
both intellectually ridiculous and it ignores the root cause: us and our
wasteful, idiotic consumerism. If we understand that we, and not corporations
or governments, are the root cause, we can fix climate change almost overnight
by two simple expedients: stop having babies and stop buying things that we
don't absolutely need.

By doing so, we could exercise power over the corporations that we unfairly
demonize. No company is going to dig oil out of the ground if the demand does
not justify it.

Klain's worst offence is being a stupid liberal, just like the ones who drove
36 hours or more one-way to join the protest at Standing Rock in gas-powered
vehicles. Want to stop an oil pipeline? Stop using oil. It's easy: at least
80% of our energy use is wasted. Just cut the waste.

When stupid liberals write articles like this, a backlash is inevitable. Want
four more years of Trump? Want the alt-right marching in the streets? Keep
writing articles like this.

Instead, be a smart liberal. Start by having a look in the mirror.

~~~
toss892625
'market-driven urban planning practices'

National Flood Insurance Program subsidizes building in flood-prone areas.
Doesn't sound very market-driven to me.

~~~
danharaj
No true market.

~~~
honestoHeminway
If its bad, it never is.

~~~
danharaj
A market is a market, whether it's distorted or regulated or monopolized or
captured or unhealthy. The fact that markets can behave poorly because they
are embedded in the wider world is absolutely intrinsic to the concept of a
market.

~~~
emodendroket
Yeah, I think it is a mistake to try and think about the market and the
political environment as two separate spheres rather than deeply linked
entities constantly influencing each other. There is no such thing as "free
market" without a government creating the conditions for one, whether that
means subsidizing flood insurance or creating a navy to force other countries
to go along with free trade (a development largely coinciding with the rise of
laissez-faire theory).

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dogruck
Anyone have proof that man's actions have significantly contributed to this
storm's catastrophic power?

The title feels like political click bait, to me. How about proactively
preparing for these events?

If you tell me, "there's no way we could prepare" I'll tell you "there's no
way we can do whatever you think is required to meaningfully alter our
supposed impact on the climate."

