Links tagged “hurricane”

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Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, M.Div., Ph.D., is Professor of Theology and Immediate Past President of Chicago Theological Seminary: 'These 'superstorms' aren’t an 'act of God,' but an act of willful disregard for God’s creation, and the neglect of the human responsibility to care for the planet.' -- 'There is the moral evil of continuing to pump fossil fuels into the atmosphere, producing global warming. Second, however, is the moral evil of climate change denial, that is, those who would continue to deny, in the face of mounting evidence, that violent climate change is upon us and it is accelerating.  

There is a theological prescription, in a classical sense, for what we must do: confession, repentance and change.  In the case of what we are up against in terms of planetary destruction, those theological directives look like this: 1) Admit human caused, violently destructive climate change is happening.  The harm to God’s creation is real, it is happening and human beings bear enormous responsibility for it.2) Repent for what we have already lost by inaction... action to stop what we have already done, and slow down future changes, is urgent. 3) Change personal practice and public policy...Individuals need to take responsibility as well, both to move toward less of a carbon footprint, and to vote for those who will make positive policy changes.

Pielke Jr.: "In practical terms, on timescales of decision making a signal that cannot be seen is indistinguishable from a signal that does not exist"

Pielke Jr. On 'unsupportable quotes' from Mann, Francis & Masters: 'Of course, there are scientists willing to go beyond what can be supported empirically to make claims at odds with the overwhelming scientific consensus on this subject -- e.g., [Michael] Mann, [Jennifer] Francis, [Jeff] Masters are always good for inscrutable and unsupportable quotes.'

Sea Level: 'Sea level rise is inexorable and relatively slow in comparison to the surges associated with tropical cyclones...It is not possible to identify a 'sea level rise' signal in historical normalized losses from tropical cyclones, and of course, not a GHG-driven sea-level rise signal. More generally, when we are talking about 5 meter storm surges, I am not convinced that 3 mm/year of sea level rise is a big issue in the magnitude of disaster losses (because building and adaptation along the coast is continuous and in the context of where the sea is presently)'

'Overall, globally and over decades, disasters from weather events are resulting in lower damages per unit of GDP and less loss of life.'

Correlating Deadly Cyclones With CO2 - 'There have been 35 cyclones in the last 800 years which killed more than 10,000 people. Thirty-three of them occurred with CO2 below 350 PPM. The deadliest one in 1970 was blamed on global cooling at the time'

'CNN wrote that the storm surge was 40-50 feet; the actual figure from the meteorologists was 18 feet.'

'There have been 12 cyclones with death counts greater than 100,000 in recorded history. Almost half of them occurred during the 19th century. The two deadliest cyclones of the 20th century occurred during the 1970′s, and were blamed by climatologists on global cooling at the time.' 'US hurricane strikes also peaked during the 19th century'