Tsunami Weather
Filed Under Cloud gazing, Environment, Weather | 1 Comment
Air and earth has quickly become a deadly pain in the ass.
Images from TV the last few days, and the last couple of months to be more precise, has reached a seemingly movie-as-real-life scenario with scenes of carnage which once could only be depicted via CGI — the absolute waste is visually overwhelming, as one CBS reporter said this morning, “the destruction is hard to comprehend.”
And there’s really no end to it all.
On Tuesday, more severe weather, including tornadoes, sliced across Arkansas, Kansas and Oklahoma, killing at least nine and leaving chaos and disaster in its wake, even buffering Joplin, MO, where 124 died on Sunday, making it the deadliest single U.S. twister since modern record-keeping began 61 years ago.
Gird thy loins, humanity, bad shit is already hitting the fan.
(Illustration found here).
The photo above is the aftermath of the 9.0 earthquake and tsunami which struck Japan March 11 along the coast about 250 miles northeast of Tokyo — the destruction there was also movie-like, sucking up memories of the end product off the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
According to the BBC in March:
The quake was the fifth-largest in the world since 1900 and nearly 8,000 times stronger than the one which devastated Christchurch, New Zealand, last month, said scientists.
Along with the main show, there were more than 100 aftershocks, including at least a dozen of magnitude 6 or higher, creating further devastation while scaring the living shit out of anybody still alive.
The lingering major trouble with the Japanese, of course, is that damn nuclear power plant.
Just yesterday, the Tokyo Electric Power Co., which operates the facility, reported that three of the stricken Fukushima Dai-ichi plant’s reactors most likely suffered fuel meltdowns in the early days of the crisis.
The Japanese have bungled the operation from the beginning, and because officials weren’t forthcoming, no one really knows how precarious the operation, which lead also on Tuesday, to the arrival of a team from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the nuclear oversight body of the United Nations, to investigate the situation — which ain’t pretty in any light.
(Illustration found here).
And the picture above is from Joplin, Missouri, this past weekend — the scene could have been drawn straight out of Japan.
The carnage is near-beyond comprehension, twisting and tearing houses, buildings and even leveling whole apartment complexes with all the occupants gone, vanishing into the rubble.
The experience was a rarity of nature:
The tornado Sunday in Joplin was an EF5, the National Weather Service said Tuesday, the highest rating given to twisters.
The rating is assigned based on the damage storms cause.
The weather service also announced that the tornado appeared to be a rare “multivortex” twister. Multivortex tornadoes contain two or more small and intense subvortices that orbit the center of the larger tornado circulation.
Multivortex tornadoes have been seen in massive storms.
Although the event is horrible, the destruction immense, Joplin vows to come back from it: But no matter what happens, the mayor of our small city put it this way: “We’re not going to let some little tornado kick our ass.” Even if it was an EF5.
Air and the earth — products out of whack due to a changing global climate.
No matter what the science says is coming in a few years — supposedly experts talking about bad climate shit coming in 2015, 2020, 2100, and on and on.
Wrong!
It’s already here, boys.
From Skeptical Science and a summary of horror:
April 2011 was a month defined by extreme weather conditions, particularly in the United States.
…
The month also witnessed violent storm fronts that brought record precipitation, severe wind, and hail the size of golf balls and larger.
Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and West Virginia all reported their wettest April in history. Kentucky received an average of 11.88 inches of precipitation — nearly three times its long-term average for the month — breaking the state’s previous record by more than four inches.
…
The 30-year-average for April tornadoes nationwide is 135. The monthly record was 542.
The preliminary number of tornadoes reported in April 2011 is 875.
Single day events saw Wisconsin experience its largest monthly April tornado outbreak in history on April 9, and an EF-4 twister ripped a 21-mile path across the city of St. Louis on April 22.
But it was the multi-day outbreaks that generated the most devastation.
From April 14 to April 16, there were 329 preliminary tornado reports across 16 states with the final tally expected to be around 155, making it one of the largest outbreaks of any month in history.
States of emergency were declared in Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and North Carolina.
North Carolina bore the brunt with at least 30 confirmed tornadoes destroying hundreds of homes and businesses and resulting in at least 24 deaths, marking the three days as the largest tornado outbreak to ever hit the state, and the second deadliest outbreak on record for North Carolina.
…
Under a warming climate, Antarctica is becoming greener as grasses are finding better conditions under which to take root while warming waters and declining krill populations are resulting in declining penguin populations. An analysis of glaciers in the southern half of South America finds them melting at the fastest pace in the last 350 years.
And earlier spring blooms are impacting the timing of ecological cycles while changes in rainfall patterns are influencing the migratory habits of some bird species.
…
Meanwhile a study focusing on methane releases from hydraulic fracturing, an increasingly controversial process used in the drilling extraction of natural gas, found that such releases may contribute as much or more than coal to global warming.
Natural gas has been gaining widespread favor amongst politicians in both parties in the U.S. considering its large natural stores in the country, relatively easy access, minimal regulation, and lower costs particularly when compared against rising oil prices.
Read the whole post — mind-blowing shit and that’s a run down for just the month of April.
A tsunami of climate-changing terror.
Everyday Life and ‘Global Weirding’
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As Joplin, Missouri, gleans through horrific wreckage, the rest of us must beware of a new life style.
From Reuters:
Heavy rains, deep snowfalls, monster floods and killing droughts are signs of a “new normal” of extreme U.S. weather events fueled by climate change, scientists and government planners said on Wednesday.
“It’s a new normal and I really do think that global weirding is the best way to describe what we’re seeing,” climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe of Texas Tech University told reporters.
“We are used to certain conditions and there’s a lot going on these days that is not what we’re used to, that is outside our current frame of reference,” Hayhoe said on a conference call with other experts, organized by the non-profit Union of Concerned Scientists.
The much-used catch tip, ‘new normal,’ is much, much worse than it sounds.
(Illustration found here).
And this new normal is becoming more and more apparent, even if barely seen.
The city of Chicago, Ill., is trying to cope.
From the New York Times:
Climate scientists have told city planners that based on current trends, Chicago will feel more like Baton Rouge than a Northern metropolis before the end of this century.
So, Chicago is getting ready for a wetter, steamier future.
Public alleyways are being repaved with materials that are permeable to water.
The white oak, the state tree of Illinois, has been banned from city planting lists, and swamp oaks and sweet gum trees from the South have been given new priority.
Thermal radar is being used to map the city’s hottest spots, which are then targets for pavement removal and the addition of vegetation to roofs.
And air-conditioners are being considered for all 750 public schools, which until now have been heated but rarely cooled.
“Cities adapt or they go away,” said Aaron N. Durnbaugh, deputy commissioner of Chicago’s Department of Environment.
“Climate change is happening in both real and dramatic ways, but also in slow, pervasive ways. We can handle it, but we do need to acknowledge it.
We are on a 50-year cycle, but we need to get going.”
The crisis-problem might be climate change is coming faster than anticipated, in what’s called “the velocity of climate change,” where some places might be overwhelmed by a warming environment than others, these changes could be unsurmountable in the time left.
Last week, in a response to this kind of chatter, 17 Nobel laureates published a memorandum, calling for “fundamental transformation and innovation in all spheres and at all scales in order to stop and reverse global environmental change.”
From Real Climate and the gist of the Stockholm Memorandum:
Science makes clear that we are transgressing planetary boundaries that have kept civilization safe for the past 10,000 years. [...]
We can no longer exclude the possibility that our collective actions will trigger tipping points, risking abrupt and irreversible consequences for human communities and ecological systems.
We cannot continue on our current path.
The time for procrastination is over.
We cannot afford the luxury of denial.
Even as a study confirms that Arctic storms are getting stronger and crazier — “One of the most ominous threats of global warming today is from rising sea levels” — those peoples way-down under have already experienced this threat.
The Australian Climate Commission issued a report Monday saying that sea rise due to climate change will bring massive problems to the region.
Although the rise looks dinky, the result is enormous.
“A plausible estimate of the amount of sea-level rise by 2100 compared to 2000 is 0.5 to one metre,” the report says.
”While a sea-level rise of 0.5 metre … may not seem like a matter for much concern, such modest levels of sea-level rise can lead to unexpectedly large increases in the frequency of extreme high sea-level events,” it said.
The sea-level forecast is higher than the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s top range of 0.18m to 0.76m.
As we witness these changes, the unwashed mass of US peoples are ignorant.
From a Yale University study from last year (h/t Skeptical Science):
The report titled “Americans’ Knowledge of Climate Change” found that only 57 percent know what the greenhouse effect is, only 45 percent of Americans understand that carbon dioxide traps heat from the Earth’s surface, and just 50 percent understand that global warming is caused mostly by human activities. Large majorities incorrectly think that the hole in the ozone layer and aerosol spray cans cause global warming.
Meanwhile, 75 percent of Americans have never heard of the related problems of ocean acidification or coral bleaching.
…
Americans also recognize their own limited understanding.
Only 1 in 10 say that they are “very well-informed” about climate change, and 75 percent say they would like to know more about the issue.
Likewise, 75 percent say that schools should teach children about climate change and 68 percent would welcome a national program to teach Americans more about the issue.
Please, before we go screaming into the night.
Whipped-Up-Wind as Weather
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As someone growing up in the US deep south, anytime there’s any mention of tornadoes gives me a deep, frightfully-shocked desire to run, run far away — even just reading about crazed funnel-clouds gives me heart ache.
And once again, according to CNN:
Residents in Joplin, Missouri, braced for news of fatalities Monday after a vicious tornado flattened buildings, tossed cars and hurled debris up to 70 miles away.
“I would say 75% of the town is virtually gone,” said Kathy Dennis of the American Red Cross.
(Illustration found here).
The AP is reporting at about 4 a.m. (PST) of at least 89 deaths in Joplin from the tornado, which cut a path nearly six miles long and more than a half-mile wide through the center of town.
And that total is expected to rise as the search begins in earnest in daylight.
The line of storms stretched across the Midwest, causing goodly damage in Minnesota, especially in areas around Minneapolis, where at least one person reported died, and sweeping through Wisconsin and on into Ohio.
And there’s some things that are mandatory in a tornado, and some that aren’t: Myth: Windows should be opened before a tornado approaches to equalize pressure and minimize damage.
FACT: Opening windows allows damaging winds to enter the structure. Leave the windows alone; instead, immediately go to a safe place.
Alabama, my birthplace and upbringing, suffered last month with 238 deaths and insured losses estimated at $2.45 billion to $4.2 billion during a horrible spade of tornadoes which tore across the deep south, killing another 108 people.
From USATODAY and Alabama’s woes:
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has taken 70,120 applications for assistance in Alabama as of last week, said Rita Egan, a FEMA spokeswoman.
The agency has approved about $39 million, $28 million of it for temporary housing, she said.
…
“We aren’t prepared for this type of loss,” Bates (Jeff Bates, student services coordinator at Auburn Montgomery’s School of Business) said. “This will be the greatest rebuilding effort Alabama has seen since the Civil War. FEMA and insurance payouts will help, but most people that have insurance don’t have complete coverage.”
And the whole shebang is going to just get worse.
From Climate Progress earlier this month:
Multiple scientific studies find that indeed the weather has become more extreme, as expected, and that it is extremely likely that humans are a contributing cause (see “Two seminal Nature papers join growing body of evidence that human emissions fuel extreme weather, flooding that harm humans and the environment” and links therein).
Beyond that, as Dr. Kevin Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, explained here last year:
“There is a systematic influence on all of these weather events now-a-days because of the fact that there is this extra water vapor lurking around in the atmosphere than there used to be say 30 years ago.
It’s about a 4 percent extra amount, it invigorates the storms, it provides plenty of moisture for these storms.”
He told the NYT, “It’s not the right question to ask if this storm or that storm is due to global warming, or is it natural variability. Nowadays, there’s always an element of both.”
Beyond the horrible weather is the horrible GOP, which through their nefarious actions will/are making the situation far worse.
Not only are these assholes in denial of climate change, even in their own states, and in their hell-bent desire to slash budgets, have cut the very agencies which are most-essential in combating horrors such as tornadoes.
Even trying to cut funding for weather satellites…
Run for the bunkers!
Climate-nator Terminated
Filed Under Environment, Musings | Leave a Comment
What’s love got to do with it, do with it?
And what’s up with all these high-profile people doing the nasty in a most-outrageous and public way, turning the manly phrase, ‘gettin’ a little,’ into a big wave of shame.
Maybe one can understand the French, seemingly always ready for a little touchy-feely; shit, stuff like that seems to be part of their national heritage, but rape — dude, no matter your homeland, use some damn control and put that french fry back in your drawers.
Hot-sauce financier Dominique Strauss-Kahn is set to be released on bond today — he’s been indicted on seven criminal charges: two counts of criminal sexual act; two counts of sexual abuse; and one count each of attempt to commit rape, unlawful imprisonment and forcible touching.
That last one is more-than ugly — asshole!
What’s up with all this sexual tomfoolery?
Gail Collins in her New York Times column this week says the problem might be the far-right side of a un-zipped fly.
The meat:
Which brings us to sex.
What is it with Republicans lately?
Is there something about being a leader of the family-values party that makes you want to go out and commit adultery?
They certainly don’t have a lock on the infidelity market, and heaven knows we all remember John Edwards. But, lately, the G.O.P. has shown a genius for putting a peculiar, newsworthy spin on illicit sex.
A married congressman hunting for babes is bad.
A married congressman hunting for babes by posting a half-naked photo of himself on the Internet is Republican.
A married governor who fathers an illegitimate child is awful.
A married governor who fathers an illegitimate child by a staff member of the family home and then fails to mention it to his wife for more than 10 years is Republican.
A married senator who has an affair with an employee is a jerk.
A married senator who has an affair with an employee who is the wife of his chief of staff, and whose adultery is the subject of ongoing discussion at his Congressional prayer group, is Republican.
Of course, the ‘married governor‘ mentioned above is my own former governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who opened a can of tasteless worms this week when he announced he’d fathered a child via the household help.
And he kept the whole thing a secret for more than a decade.
Maria has cut and run, slamming the door hard with a panel of divorce lawyers — no one can blame her, except Fox News.
And Arnold’s new movie career has also been put on hold while events play out — what a shitty mess.
The big loser here, however, is climate change.
Despite all the bullshit, Arnold was a climate change go-to-guy, and I hadn’t really given much thought about what he’d accomplished during his tenure until I ran across this piece in Rolling Stone, which served up a nasty reminder that there are few such people around these days.
The money graph:
So if we’re going to get all moral about Arnold, how about adding this to the mix: when it came to advancing the cause of clean energy and climate change awareness during his eight years as governor of California, Schwarzeneger made every other politician — including President Obama — look like a girly-man. Schwarzenegger made energy and climate issues his number one priority during his eight years in office, and although he didn’t kow-tow to environmental dogma, he also never flinched from a fight with Big Oil and Big Coal.
More important, he was the one politician in America who most clearly understood that dealing with climate change is the greatest challenge we face as a civilization.
And he had no patience for anti-scientific morons and Tea Bagger denialsim.
During a recent talk, Schwarzenegger compared the current debate on whether or not humans are causing global climate change to the old debate about the merits of bodybuilding:
“People literally believed that bodybuilding would make you musclebound, stupid, narcissistic, and gay.”
Shame on shame.
Dream and Reality
Filed Under Economy, Finance, Media | Leave a Comment
US peoples are a resilient breed.
The great American Dream still lives, but only within a nightmare of sleepless fantasy.
James Truslow Adams coined the phrase, American Dream, in his 1931 book, The Epic of America: “that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.”
This dream fueled the US for nearly 50 years, especially from the notorious baby boomers, who pushed the myth concept onto their offspring with a vengeance.
(Illustration found here).
Despite all the current bad financial and economic news, a good chunk of US peoples are still clinging to that high-august hope of making it good in America.
From USATODAY/Gallup Poll out this week, seven in 10 Americans say those high fuel prices are sharply cutting into their financial situation with 21 percent claiming the impact is so dramatic their standard of living is jeopardized.
And the outlook ain’t too bright either:
The poll found widespread pessimism that gas prices will stop rising.
Just 9 percent say they believe prices have peaked for the year, while 27 percent say they expect prices will jump 75 cents or more.
Average price where consumers say prices will peak: $4.50 a gallon.
We done peaked, I guess, up here in northern California — way peaked.
And with all the shit, the American Dream is still alive, though, on life support.
From CNNMoney this morning:
Only 32 percent of Americans consider their own personal finances excellent or good, a nine point decline from last year and 23 points lower than 2007, before the economy tanked, according to a new poll from the Pew Charitable Trusts.
At the same time, 68 percent of respondents feel they have achieved or will achieve the American dream.
But when asked if their kids will have a higher standard of living than they currently enjoy, only 47 percent said yes.
That’s down from 62 percent in 2009.
…
Eighty-three percent of Americans support a government role in promoting upward economic mobility. Ninety-one percent of Democrats, 84 percent of independents and 73 percent of Republicans say so.
And 58 percent think government could do even more to keep them from falling behind.
The big problem: government don’t give a big doo-doo.
Americans don’t think the government is doing a particularly good job of it.
Eighty percent say the government is ineffective at helping the poor and middle class.
Thirty-seven percent say the government is pursuing the wrong polices, while 43 percent say the government is inefficiently performing the correct policies.
No shit sherlock.
The big, and the big word is ‘big,’ problem is jobs.
Although a lot of US businesses are slowly recovering and making a little money, they’re not hiring as the financial landscape has shifted — and even with more than 13 million people searching for work, and though U.S. companies have made about $940 billion since since 2008, the cash flow is going elsewhere, creating a wide gap between capital spending and employment.
Corporate investment will climb 11 percent this year while employment only rises 1.7 percent.
I.e, the old saying: Jobs is job one — bullSHIT.
Unemployment is different now.
In fact, the big difference is the powers-that-be have apparently forgotten a major problem within the US economy — jobs just ain’t so politically cute any more.
Not surprisingly, the media has dramatically shifted away from stories on jobs and employment — a good reason is the GOP/Tea Party election chime last November away from anything but the deficit — articles on jobs has dropped nearly 70 percent since last summer, while articles on the deficit have doubled over the same time.
The horror is today’s employment situation is different than in the last half century.
In a rare jobs’ post from The Atlantic:
Unemployment duration ain’t what it used to be.
In 1982, the last time unemployment tipped double digits, joblessness was more of a short-term affair. Across these four categories, the plurality of folks were unemployed for fewer than five weeks.
In 2011, by contrast, about half the jobless have been out of work for at least 27 weeks.
Just as striking, the number of people unemployed for less than five weeks remained under its historical average even during the worst months of the recession.
In 1982, unemployment was a terrible cold, measured in weeks and maybe months.
Today it’s pneumonia.
One year after the recession hit, layoffs fell below their historical average.
So what kept unemployment in double digits throughout 2010?
Job openings, which had fallen more than 50 percent from 2007, rebounded moderately.
But hires, which had fallen more than 20 percent, didn’t recover.
The upshot is that the production economy thawed.
But the labor economy froze.
And the political will to fix the labor market faded in 2010.
The press was partly complicit in this fade-out effect.
But it’s hard to blame the media too much for resisting to write feverishly about nonexistent efforts to fix a static unemployment problem.
Operative words there: nonexistent efforts to fix…
No one in DC seems to give a shit.
And the dream is indeed just that — a nightmare in a fine-tailored suit.