Katrina, climate change, and our man Mitch

[IndianaGreen]

Katrina, climate change, and our man Mitch

September 4, 2005

by Steven Higgs

While the mainstream media has largely ignored the role climate change has played in Katrina, Democracy Now! on Sept. 1 ran a piece titled “Katrina’s real name is global warming.”

The segment featured an interview with journalist Ross Gelbspan, a former editor and reporter at the Boston Globe . His 1997 book The Heat is On is a must-read on the subject.

Gelbspan explained the connection between Katrina and climate change on Democracy Now! “It’s very clear that global warming does not make more hurricanes,” he said, “but it makes hurricanes much stronger. And that’s because hurricanes take their energy from the temperature of surface waters.”

Katrina, he noted, started as a Category 1 hurricane with 70 mph winds when it glanced off South Florida. As it moved through the Gulf with its 80-degree surface temperature, the winds reached about 170 mph. At one point before landfall, Katrina was 400 miles wide.

<snip>

In 2002, then-U.S. Army Corps of Engineers head Mike Parker approached Bush Budget Director Mitch Daniels with physical evidence that New Orleans flood control infrastructure was crumbling.

“I said, ‘Mitch, it doesn’t matter if a terrorist blows the lock up or if it falls down because it disintegrates,” Parker told Vest. “Either way it’s the same effect, and if we let it fall down, we have only ourselves to blame.’ It made no impact on him whatsoever.”

http://bloomingtonalternative.com/subscribers/news.php?topicid=827

[rdf1002]

1. Global Warming still unproven

There is no proof this storm was enhanced by GW or that it even exists. There have been many stronger storms before GW was a possibility.

[billbuckhead]

2. Bullshit!

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[billbuckhead]

4. Saying global warming doesn't exist when tundra is melting

makes you a what? Bush regime apologist?

SCIENTISTS CLAIM FINAL PROOF OF GLOBAL WARMING

By Mark Henderson

Science Correspondent, The Times, 6 May 2004

POWERFUL evidence for global warming has been discovered by scientists funded by the US Government, demolishing the chief argument of sceptics who deny that the phenomenon is real.

A new analysis of satellite data has revealed that temperatures in a critical part of the atmosphere are rising much faster than previously thought, strengthening the scientific consensus that the world is warming at an unnatural rate.
---------------------snip--------------------------------
<http://www.mng.org.uk/green_house/threat/threat6.htm>

[rdf1002]

5. Global warming could be caused by the sun

I find it far more likely that GW is caused by the sun if it even exists at all. The earth has always had warming and cooling periods. This article discusses this possibility

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/56456.stm>

[Retired AF Dem]

6. 3,000.000 years ago

The avg mean temp was three degrees warmer than now. I don't think man had anything to do with it. I believe in 1931 was a record of 21 named storms. Bill we do consume to much for one country but we still don't do 75% of the pollution in the world.

On edit I found this old article from 1933. As global warming goes and the melting of the icecaps wouldn't that make the oceans colder thus less hurricanes? I heard that once but I'm not a scientist and don't play one on TV.
http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/mwr/061/mwr-061-01-0011.pdf

[billbuckhead]

7. "The Final Proof: Global Warming is a Man-Made Disaster"

Published on Saturday, February 19, 2005 by the lndependent/UK
The Final Proof: Global Warming is a Man-Made Disaster
by Steve Connor

Scientists have found the first unequivocal link between man-made greenhouse gases and a dramatic heating of the Earth's oceans. The researchers - many funded by the US government - have seen what they describe as a "stunning" correlation between a rise in ocean temperature over the past 40 years and pollution of the atmosphere.

The study destroys a central argument of global warming skeptics within the Bush administration - that climate change could be a natural phenomenon. It should convince George Bush to drop his objections to the Kyoto treaty on climate change, the scientists say.

Tim Barnett, a marine physicist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego and a leading member of the team, said: "We've got a serious problem. The debate is no longer: 'Is there a global warming signal?' The debate now is what are we going to do about it?"

The findings are crucial because much of the evidence of a warmer world has until now been from air temperatures, but it is the oceans that are the driving force behind the Earth's climate. Dr Barnett said: "Over the past 40 years there has been considerable warming of the planetary system and approximately 90 per cent of that warming has gone directly into the oceans."
--------------snip----------------
<http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0219-01.htm>

[Retired AF Dem]

8. "Over the past 40 years"

So it isnt really president assholes fault, though he isnt doing shit to curb it.

[billbuckhead]

9. Defending Bush?

Interesting.

[Retired AF Dem]

10. Of course

that is why I called him president asshole and he isnt doing anything to curb global warming. You are dumber than I thought.

[billbuckhead]

11. Why am I "surprised" you would defend Bush

[AwakeAtLast]

12. Getting back to the point

They don't call him "the Blade" for nothing. This time it cut more deeply than I think even he could have imagined. How many more of these types of decisions are out there waiting to blow up in our faces?

Get us a surgeon, quick! :thumbsdown: