Jay Weaver, an insurance adjuster from California, has been working in the Rockaways and Long Beach, New York, after Sandy. He sends the picture above and writes:
Even in the devastated areas, the courage and determination of the volunteers and residents to recover from this natural disaster is commendable. Thanks for sharing.
And thanks for sending that picture, Jay. (Our sending machine.)
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OMG, now they take it seriously? They wrote it on the wall.
They see the light,as they rebuild despite their new vision. I should have bought that land in Nevada. Worthless now but in a few decades it may have an ocean view!
I know in my heart global warming is real and we are to blame. The science is too strong to deny, the proof is everywhere. Yet here I sit in my heated home typing away on the internet. Soon I will crank up the car to go somewhere-after all driving is freedom in action. I can not be bothered with giving up my comfort just so your rug rats might have a chance in thirty years.Besides tree huggers get no respect and I am too old to go back to riding a bicycle!
Oh well such is life.
The real shame is that a carbon tax to fund activities that remove as much carbon as fuels put in the atmosphere would only be 15 to 20 cents per gallon of gas, and since the price of gas is set by supply and demand most of the tax would come out of crude oil profits and not consumer pockets.
(If production costs set the price of gas, gasoline from Saudi oil would be less than two bucks per gallon.)
RM. Sandy...a natural disaster, yes, but not the only major catastrophic disaster in the memorable past, of the same name. An unpleasant reminder that one of the first shots fired, that, arguably, led to the past decade's financial crisis...by another Sandy. The one that created, designed, and orchestrated our very first Megabank...that was all things to all people, blowing away any semblence of regulation...Citigroup.
The current Sandy, like the shot fired on Fort Sumner(?) that ignited the Civil War, fired another round on the Atlantic Coast, causing an angry, uncontrollable wave... an uncivil war...CitRegroup...which we hope and pray will have more positive results. END
I get the fact that global warming doesn't necessarily have to mean "heat" but we should not get alarmed when a hurricane hits during hurricane season. That's what they're supposed to do folks!
Give me a call when it's 90 degrees for 5 straight days in Minneapolis during early February and we might have a "climate change" issue to deal with then.
A hurricane during hurricane season...not a big whoop
five straight days of near 100 degrees in Minneapolis during February...maybe you got something there.
Or in other words you just don't get it and never will until after its to late.
Do you understand that there is more heat energy in a tub of ice water than there is in a table spoon of boiling water? If not, then no, you won't understand.
The energy of a hurricane, the energy required to push winds over a hundred miles an hour, comes from the heat energy in the water at the ocean's surface. If you measure the total amount of energy in a two gallon bucket at 72deg and compare that to the total amount of energy in a two gallon bucket of water at 73deg you won't find a lot of difference.
Sandy was over 900 miles wide. That's nearly 3,000 square miles of surface area. If you raise the temperature of that much water by one-half of one degree, you will put squiddly-eight times as much energy in your hurricane.
And you'll generate more hurricanes in a year.
Compared to the sun and the galaxy and the universe, the Earth is a very small blue marble. Compared to you and me, she is murderously huge.
#4.2 Indeed. And Mother Nature seems to be rebelling against our decades upon decades of abuse. I don't want to think about what she'll do when she is totally pis##d off at us.
The real problem is not heat. The real problem is changes in weather patterns.
Why was Sandy's path strange? Because Sandy moved up the coast and then hooked west into shore. Hurricanes are not supposed to do that, especially this late in the season, for this time of year the jetstream is supposed to blow weather to the east and out to sea.
Except this year, the jetstream was not where it typically is in October. It was off to the north... as though it were July or August...
Of course, you will scoff at this. And the ice-free Arctic Ocean. And the rapid melting of glaciers and ice sheets. And the rise in sea level to date and the rise that will be measured over the next few decades. And the loss of farmland along the southern wheat and corn belts. And the disruption of water projects as rainfall levels drop in some areas. And the change of ocean currents and the associated disruption of commercial fishing. And...
Because denial is not just a river in Egypt.
I am really concerned about the Winter to come in Pennsylvania. In 2010, we were literally buried in snow and lost power for five days. We even wrapped the cat in my husband's wool watch cap! The climate change is very, very troubling.
There can be no question: something is wrong.
India. Maybe you should get the cat an electric sweater. lol
I prefer "climate change" to "global warming". While it's true, the earth is getting "warmer". To most it doen't feel warmer. The Ice caps are melting, the oceans are rising and we will be losing beach area. Something needs to be done. But wil anybody do anything in time?
adapt like our ancestors did when faced with similar change.
Our ancestors were tougher. Of course we are not talking about a glacial period or a normal warming trend. We do need to adapt. We need to stop polluting or learn to cram over six billion people into the high ground and build desalinization plants so we can starve rather than die of thirst. How do you adapt to ever changing weather and acidified oceans. We tried wiping out life in the oceans with huge nets dragged across the bottom but we will succeed in its destruction by accident.
Sure we can fight a good fight but considering that the real damage to the atmosphere comes as the air pollutants freeze over Antarctica and then thaw,recombiningg into ozone eating compounds and the crap we pour into the oceans go to the bottom where the cold bottom currents creep along for around a hundred years before getting to the top. Well we ain't even seeing the biggest part of our industrialization yet.
Not being pessimistic.
paul
not to be a smart ass but Darwin was right. In the long run we have a better chance to survive as an organism by adapting to the environment than being egotistical enough to think we can adapt the environment to us. Think about it before you rant. one of the reasons we all do not look alike is that original man moved over the continents and developed skin color and other features to adapt to the region. There is no reason to believe that the human organism has lost the ability to adapt and evolve. One way to adapt is to stop building houses in areas prone to flooding and do so every two or three years that the rewt of us have to pay for during a hurricane etc. If you know your river is prone to flooding every now ant then maybe stilts on the homes might make sense. http://www.floodsmart.gov/floodsmart/pages/flooding_flood_risks/flood_scenarios.jsp
We have adapted the enviroment to us and we will pay the price as our pollution and pillage of our enviroment causes the whole system to crash.
My house has been safe for sixty plus years and will last long enough for me to die here. Stilts? I do not live on the river and it does not flood-yet-enough to even come close. The best solution for those who do live in a known flood plain is to move. Then there are the beaches. Why would any government allow people to own beach property?Why would anyone insure beach homes? Had the beaches been left wild then the public could still enjoy them while letting them go through their natural shifts.
The tide is rising and will continue to do so.
Thoughtful conservative, #4.7
Actually this is an unprecedented climate change. Our ancestors did not experience this.
If you think nothing is different now, please check the available data.
india
are you aware that all animal life simply stopped living during the permo-triassic extinction, not to mention the ice age both of them. Humans have different skin color due to different environments that they settled in. we are much more able to deal with necessary adaption given our technology that our ancestors did not have. We do not have to live on a river bank or a coastal waterfront. The melting of ice in the arctic is exposing much useable ground that before was unreachable. I would not trade today with then.
http://io9.com/5558871/why-did-nearly-all-life-on-earth-die-250-million-years-ago and then there wqs
http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/dustbowl/
What's tough for me to understand, is how so many don't comprehend even the simplest concept, the polar ice caps are shrinking and the Earth will absorb more heat due to that. The perma-frost is thawing and more methane will get into the atmosphere. Once this chain reaction gets going, it may be unlikely to get it stopped. It's hard to have hope when so many take pride in being ignorant.
Some of the zealots would claim god will save us from ourselves,others would say it is god's will. The fact is that facing the truth is hard at times so we invented god.
The wealthy are of course busy trying to figure out how they can take it with them Capitalists are denying the truth to keep the market going.
As always there are those who find profit in telling the masses a good bed time story of denial. The one truth they all ignore is We have not found a new planet man could live on so we are all in the same boat. Well that is one truth,another truth is that we find it hard to make sacrifices even when our lives are at stake but playing Ostrich is easy.
how about a different take?
There you go we can drill baby drill and contribute more greenhouse gas to the warming. Making lemonade out of persimmons?
Hi thoughtfulR, you've made a case that the oil companies will continue to benefit and profit from the environmental changes they helped create, which gives the impression that there really isn't any need to get off the oil teet.
Do you feel that continuing down that path is the best idea if the temps of the earth surface are increasing? The margin of liveable temperatures for fawna and flora as well as human beings is not that wide. We may adapt by moving into enviornmentally controlled habitats, but everything outside cannot be brought inside.
Tempature impacts on a global scale will require faster and wider adaptations by all living things than just humans. I don't doubt humans can adjust, but life on the earth's surface cannot remain the same. Given that outlook, I really don't see the value in new shipping lanes and Big Oil's increased opportunities to continue carbon pollution. Respectfully...