Let me begin by saying how much I sympathize with the victims of Hurricane Harvey, and hope that they all land on their feet. This piece isn’t a celebration of “being right”, no, it is a warning, and one that likely comes far too late.
It is Almost Universally Agreed That Climate Change:
1. Has Caused Sea Temperatures to Rise
2. Increases The Frequency and Severity of Storms
3. Is a Direct Result of Human Created Carbon Emissions, At Least to Some Degree
A Wake Up Call…
Hurricane Harvey plowed into the gulf coast of Texas, leaving behind more than a meter of water in its wake. The amount of flooding in Houston has been described at “apocalyptic”, and there are serious questions about whether or not some areas of Houston will ever be repaired.
Currently, it is just too soon to tell.
It is a dark irony that one of the meccas of petroleum extraction was hit by a massive hurricane, after President Trump decided to exit the Paris Climate Accords. Clearly, this is the time to make reductions in our carbon emissions, and look for other ways besides fossil fuels to sustain the modern world.
Connected Disasters
The long chain of problems that is starting to emerge from Hurricane Harvey serves to demonstrate the interconnectivity that the modern world relies on to function. Once the power goes out, the flood waters knock out the backup power, and the storm refuses to relent, factories that manufacture dangerous chemicals start to explode.
And there isn’t anything anyone can do about it.
With all of the cost estimates for the damage that Hurricane Harvey did flying around, it is easy to forget that dollars can’t restore the earth to the condition it had before we started destroying it. Money can’t fix the atmosphere, and it certainly can’t keep hurricanes at bay.
As if to illustrate this, as I write this there is another massive hurricane in the Mid-Atlantic. Her name is Irma, and she is planning to strike the U.S. at some point in the next week. No one knows for sure where she will decide to make landfall, but another strike on the gulf coast can’t be ruled out.
This is a very serious situation, and we may want to reconsider our view towards the environment. Ultimately the earth will survive us, but we may not survive the earth, especially if we just keep acting like everything is normal, and nothing needs to be changed.
[via rollingstone]
COAL / OIL / GASOLINE / NATURAL GAS FRACKING / IS EVIL
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER was a master of oil refinery and petroleum
transport so when autos were built to run on gasoline
or clean burning alcohol he started up and financed
the prohibition era that otlawed the manufacture of alcohol
— not liquor to drink but alcholol to run internal combustion engines.
Research alcohol at the gas pump
I agree Harvey is a learning situation, the question is what is the lesson we should learn? Is it that oil production is evil? Is it that people have an affect on the weather? Is it that people will take credit for natural acts and use them to push an ideology that serves their purpose? I know which way I’m leaning. Since we’ve been tracking hurricanes how many have come across Florida or impacted the gulf coast? Let’s just say a lot of them. Now have we learned any lessons from this history? Sure we have, we changed building codes we made set backs from building in coastal areas. Why? because we know sooner or later there will be a storm that will devastate the area. It’s kind of like building your house on a active volcano sooner or later it’s not going to be a good idea. People who believe in man controlled climate are a facade. Here is the reason I say this, if they truly believed in their faith they would represent solutions and not hot air (i.e. Carbon emissions ). Nature has been and is currently removing carbon from the environment, it’s been doing it from the beginning of time. If people really cared about carbon pollution then they would be doing something about it. Solutions are really simple, plant a tree, harvest the tree and build a lasting item from the wood. Plant another tree and do the same etc,. Oops we are doing that. You need not complain about what’s on TV because you can get off your butt and change the channel. Same goes for climate change, global warming, etc,. The answer is not to try and control the climate but to adapt to it, want less carbon in the air plant more trees, sequester more carbon. Sure work towards less emissions but try to live in the real world. Everybody gripes about leaving the Paris accords, but the fact of the matter is from my understanding is that China has no obligations to reduce emissions until 2040. What’s up with that? There must be some other agenda at work here other than reducing carbon emissions. All those who are not part of a real solution are part of the problem if carbon emissions are the objective and not something else. Here’s an idea take all that yard debris and cram it in an exhausted coal mine and seal it up, tada sequestered carbon locked away. There are real solutions if the problem is carbon emissions. I don’t think carbon is the problem.