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TagsBY MICHAEL HAYNE
COMMENTARY
If you're like me and reside in the Metropolitan area, you're not really accustomed to dealing with behemoth hurricanes, not especially at the end of October. Due to our strategic geography vis-à-vis production and contribution in the sectors of education, finance, and entertainment, we tend to think that we let flyover country co-exist in our country so long as they assume all the destructive weather. So one can only conclude that climate change and the wayward, retarded man children in the
Republican party's reluctance to accept the worldwide scientific consensus of its existence, whoring themselves to the coal and big oil and thus refusing to effectuate any of the necessary recommendations to lessening its impact, is responsible for Hurricane Sandy (Frankenstorm just sounds like the sky will drop angry Al Frankens).
"Freak" formation, "unprecedented and bizarre,” and a “frankenstorm” that could cause historic storm surges, last for multiple days, and cause over a billion dollars in damage is the foreboding and dire language being used by meteorologists. And Bryan Norcross, a chief hurricane analyst, described the storm this way on his facebook page:
“This is a beyond-strange situation. It’s unprecedented and bizarre. (Think Progress)
Since bat-sh#t crazy is today's new moderately intelligent in the GOP and they think that "global warming' is simply god's morning breath or a Hollywood invention, they downright refuse to acknowledge our climate system is breaking innumerable records at an unnatural pace, including thermal expansion creating greater and stronger Hurricanes like Sandy and stronger snowstorms like Snowpocalyspe in New York City and NJ in the winter of 2011.
Kevin Trenberth, former head of the Climate Analysis Section at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research, concludes that all superstorms “are affected by climate change."
"The air is on average warmer and moister than it was prior to about 1970 and in turn has likely led to a 5–10 % effect on precipitation and storms that is greatly amplified in extremes. The warm moist air is readily advected onto land and caught up in weather systems as part of the hydrological cycle, where it contributes to more intense precipitation events that are widely observed to be occurring," according to Trenberth. (Think Progress)
But the modern-day Robespierres in the Republican party and their radical austerity policies (big government for the wealthy, Somalia sized government for the rest), including Mitt Romney stating he wants to make major cuts to FEMA--the very organization that helps states like his political buddy Chris Christie handle the destruction from major storms-- and Captain Capitalist playing to the knuckle-dragging (maybe not since they don't believe in evolution), mouth-foaming crazies in the tea party by cynically mocking President Obama’s pledge to deal with climate change and “slow the rise of the oceans” at the Republican National Convention in Tampa , apparently think that their car elevators will protect them from the inevitable damage of climate change.
Worse yet, the very crucial debate on climate change and the candidates solutions to dealing with it was conspicuously absent from all three of the presidential debates, which evidently is the first time since 1988.
In the mean time, the rest of us may not exactly have the luxury to stay at our chalets in Aspen until the hurricane blows over, or escape to our $12 million dollar homes in Lo Jolla when the power goes out indefinitely. But rest assure that so long as the corporations are buying the best politicians money can buy, we will never have a meaningful debate or sound solutions to the destructive factors of climate change. Alas, we'll just hear more about the need for such hilarious oxymorons as clean coal, which is like soft-core porn in that it's still dirty but not that as many people are getting screwed. Stay safe.
Michael is a comedian/VO artist/Columnist extraordinaire, Follow him on Twitter and Facebook
Please tell me how microscopic variations in CO2 have made the Pacific Ocean go cold and the Atlantic Ocean go warm.
You can't, because they don't. Likewise there are few good theories on what causes La Nina and El Nino, beyond spinning changes in the liquid iron core of the earth (which is causing the magnetic north pole to move).
We would have to spend $$ trillions for any effect on CO2 and there's nothing beyond pie-in-the-sky theory that links CO2 concentrations to anything to do with climate. Indeed, the British Met Office, long a believer in AGW recently admitted the planet has not warmed at all since 1997.
In 2005, after Katrina, the sky is falling crowd said we were about to embark on an epic era of hurricanes. But since 2005 we have had a record low number of hurricanes and a record low amount of hurricane-caused damage.
Superstorm Sandy was caused by a mid-Atlantic hurricane, Sandy, being sucked into a super- low created by two cold lows -- one coming down from Arctic Canada and one coming from the unusually cold Pacific. that's why sandy made a hard-left turn. A very odd event, as are east coast hurricanes, relatively speaking, but they happen every few years and some are very deadly. Hurricane Hazel in 1954 skipped overland killed 54 people in Toronto, on Lake Ontario. the Long Island Express of 1938 hit harder than Sandy but there were fewer people and buildings in its path. The Great Atlantic Hurricane of 1944 killed hundreds, many of them in WWII ships. etc.
Storms aren't caused by manmade or man-effected global warming. They are caused by the sun and influenced by the ocean's temperature, which cycles. The last thing we need is Washington trying to change the weather.
If the bubonic death is any precedent in human history for what it takes to challenge ingrained dogma in an entire society, then it will take about one third of the human population dying from unnatural causes before Washington "wakes up." That is, unless we who know can find a way to change opinion...who knows, maybe modern communications and free speech will make this possible ...but so far it hasn't been good enough!
Most of us figured out that "global cooling", er, sorry, "global warming", er, sorry, "global climate change", er, sorry, "global climate disruption" - was globalist horse-output years ago. It's what's called "climate".
But don't worry. You can always push your anti-American globalist agenda by whipping up a frenzy about "global toothache", or something.
"As environmental science has advanced, it has become apparent that the human appetite for animal flesh is a driving force behind virtually every major category of environmental damage now threatening the human future: deforestation, erosion, fresh water scarcity, air and water pollution, climate change, biodiversity loss, social injustice, the destabilization of communities, and the spread of disease." Worldwatch Institute, "Is Meat Sustainable?"
"The livestock sector emerges as one of the top contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global. The findings of this report suggest that it should be a major policy focus when dealing with problems of land degradation, climate change and air pollution, water shortage and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity. The impact is so significant that it needs to be addressed with urgency." UN Food and Agricultural Organization's report "Livestock's Long Shadow"
“If every American skipped one meal of chicken per week and substituted vegetables and grains... the carbon dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than half a million cars off of U.S. roads.” Environmental Defense Fund
Why would someone choose to be vegan? To slow global warming for one! Here are two uplifting videos to help everyone understand why so many people are making this life affirming choice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKr4HZ7ukSE and http://www.veganvideo.org
"Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet." ~ Albert Einstein
We know it's just a manufactured "global problem" requiring a "global solution".
Try harder, or, don't.
We know it's just a manufactured "global problem" requiring a "global solution".
Try harder, or, don't.