Posted on 09/25/2005 6:34:16 PM PDT by indcons
MERCIFULLY the southern US appears to have escaped devastating human consequences from its second hurricane in a month. But can it also escape the lesson on climate change from the increase in powerful and possibly destructive tropical storms?
Rita was originally rated in the most ferocious category five with winds over 155 mph. As with all hurricanes, however, it lost power when it went ashore on the Louisiana and Texas coasts, dropping to a Category 3 and then 2 though as the coming hours will show, it has nonetheless caused plenty of damage.
Hurricane Katrina which smashed into New Orleans last month was a Category 4 storm with wind speeds of between 131 and 155 mph. Given that tropical storms are named alphabetically, it may at first seem puzzling that the list has suddenly jumped from K to R. In fact it has not. Since the destructive impact of Katrina, in the last four weeks, there have been the following: Lee, Maria, Nate, Ophelia, Philippe and now Rita. With two months of the four-month tropical storm season in the Atlantic to go, experts have predicted seven more storms, three of which could become major hurricanes. Thus it looks likely that for the first time ever the US National Hurricane Center will run out of the 21 pre-selected names. Once Stanley, Tammy, Vince, and Wilma have been recorded, they will begin using the Greek alphabet.
A hundred years ago, there were seldom more than a handful of tropical storms annually. Though some were ferocious, the damage they caused was a reflection of less sophisticated forecasting and poorer protection. Some storms which made no landfall may never have been recorded. It is however quite clear that a real increase has been taking place in the last 30 years. The question the Bush administration should be asking itself is why this is happening, along with all the other climactic change involved in global warming. The White House still rejects the link between carbon dioxide pollution, of which America is the biggest offender, and global warming. Five years ago, in one of his first acts as president, George Bush trashed the Kyoto Treaty which would have committed America to relatively modest reductions in its output of greenhouse gases. Big business supporters in the Republican Party feared the cost of cutting down pollution would cripple US international competitiveness, especially as emerging economic giants China and India would have longer to implement controls on carbon gas emissions. Bush argued that the science on the link between climate changes and greenhouse gases was not proven. The changes could simply be part of a natural climate cycle.
Even if this claim is right, the question now is can the US afford to reject the alternative? A larger number of more devastating hurricanes in future promises to impose a cost on America at least equal to, if not greater than, the price of cleaning up its pollution act. Five years have already been lost. Is the president finally going to sign up for Kyoto or will America continue to stubbornly plow yet another lonely political furrow?
Handful?
In 1933 there were 21 storms.
Aren't all desert dwellers hurricane experts?
LOL.....great one, CC.
The closest these ragheads will ever get to anything resembling a hurricane is at windy end of a camel.
Written with the syntax of a twelve year old.
We Americans get the other 90%!
A Russian immigrant once pointed out to me that in Russia there is no weather ~ just seasons ~ as Americans would think of weather. He said he'd seen more damaging thunderstorms and hail in 2 years living in Northern Virginia than he'd seen in 40 years of life in Moscow.
He found it invigorating and it'd gotten him into the habit of watching the television weather programs.
Accordingly we should expect just about all the funny little foreign people in the Old World to be a bit naive about a real man's weather. Still, it's ridiculous for even an Arab to state so authoritatively that: "A hundred years ago, there were seldom more than a handful of tropical storms annually. Everybody knows that only those that hit shore were counted, with most such storms staying far at sea ~ just as happens today. Even after the airplane was invented many tropical storms were simply missed. It took satellites to reveal the full extent of what's going on out there.
I guess he wants the world to stop buying their oil huh.
BTW, when a CAT 5 is lurking around your neighborhood, it's much wiser to run for your life than to hang around waiting for a looter to come in and get your stuff.
Remember, the rule is "life first", "stuff second".
Stay home next time, just don't bother calling for help.
As a general rule, taking advice or instruction from government will set you up for a screwing. Taking home improvement advice from the dolts who sell stuff at Home Depot also ain't a great plan, either. I'm throwing that in for free in case you need to fix up your house after the storm.
Pollution comes from cars and factories which are powered mainly by petroleum products. And where does much of the world buy its petroleum--from the the Middle East!
You haven't thought about this very much have you?
They have much experience in that regard..
Australia get a ton of tornados, second to only the US.
[The White House still rejects the link between carbon dioxide pollution, of which America is the biggest offender, and global warming.]
I just can't stop laughing at the idiocy of this sentence.
And I can think of about 15 punch lines that go with it.
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