I’d like to debunk something
In this Slate magazine article, the author attempts to explain that hurricanes are not actually getting stronger and more destructive, but that the economic damage they cause is only greater because real estate is always becoming more valuable where they strike. It’s a typical right wing attempt to debunk this pesky global warming myth.
I’d really like to believe this theory, I would. I’d really like to say, yeah, Katrina, Rita, and Wilma weren’t really that bad, there was just more stuff in their way than for previous storms.
Unfortunately, this guy is just plain wrong. These three hurricanes were three of the strongest storms (in terms of lowest barometric pressure) on record. The last hurricane season was completely unprecedented and seeing as we already have one named storm under our belt as of June 21, this one could be as well. This weekend I drove from New Orleans to Mobile, which does not look like a very large distance on a map, but driving it gives you an appreciation for how vast the destruction from Katrina was. It’s a two and half hour drive on the interstate. When we got to Mobile I realized people there are still fixing up their flooded houses just as we are in New Orleans. That’s not even mentioning the complete obliteration on the Mississippi coast. This thing was huge. There really is nothing to compare it to.
This Slate article can basically be summarized as saying “nothing to see here folks, no reason for alarm,” and I think that does a disservice to anyone who lives along the coast from, say, Maine to Mexico. Isn’t that about half the population of this country? The fact is that hurricanes of the past few years have been stronger and more destructive than anything we have on record– maybe this can’t be attributed to global warming, but to chalk it up to some lame theory of economics is particularly offensive to me and anyone else who lived through the past hurricane season down here.
Related posts:
We need to take a serious note on the changing and shifting
currents from the stand point of a captain’s log.
We are seeing evolution occur and we are reminded
that we are participants in it.
Even Australia took it this year, Cyclone Larry
was the first cyclone to decimate mainland
in slightly over a hundred years.
The oceans affect both hemisperes, as the currents shift
so do our normal routes.
The continents keep falling into the ocean cos’ terra firma
is in movement under us even if we don’t feel it.
We are talking about a global shift in how we will be doing trade.
Laurie