Once again, under a Republican President, a major American city is flooding and the sitting Administration seems ill-equipped to handle it. The 911 service in Houston has been overloaded, and Trump is spending the morning tweeting about his electoral college win, the border wall, and bragging about how good the people on the ground in Texas are, and how great the rescue efforts are. My guess is that will not in fact turn out to be the case. And who the hell sits around bragging about how good they are handling a disaster in the middle of a disaster??
Hold on a second--the area which was heavily affected by Harvey had absolutely *nothing* to do with Trump whatsoever so why are you dragging his name into it? Anyone who suffered in the general Houston area--make no mistake about it, I know people who live there right now--did so because Mayor Turner couldn't get his act together and order an evacuation like Abbott advised. Don't blame Federal officials, blame the local ones.
Everyone knew that flooding in that area was going to be disastrous--most of that area is low-lying land and in outlying areas of Houston the swamp still sits right next to developed housing. Like I said earlier, if you didn't get out then you chose what happened to you. Even my wife's cousin, who should have known better, decided to sit it out and now she has also had to evacuate because her house is flooded. *shrug* When people choose not to listen to me, the results are not my problem.
Once again, under a Republican President, a major American city is flooding and the sitting Administration seems ill-equipped to handle it. The 911 service in Houston has been overloaded, and Trump is spending the morning tweeting about his electoral college win, the border wall, and bragging about how good the people on the ground in Texas are, and how great the rescue efforts are. My guess is that will not in fact turn out to be the case. And who the hell sits around bragging about how good they are handling a disaster in the middle of a disaster??
Hold on a second--the area which was heavily affected by Harvey had absolutely *nothing* to do with Trump whatsoever so why are you dragging his name into it? Anyone who suffered in the general Houston area--make no mistake about it, I know people who live there right now--did so because Mayor Turner couldn't get his act together and order an evacuation like Abbott advised. Don't blame Federal officials, blame the local ones.
Everyone knew that flooding in that area was going to be disastrous--most of that area is low-lying land and in outlying areas of Houston the swamp still sits right next to developed housing. Like I said earlier, if you didn't get out then you chose what happened to you. Even my wife's cousin, who should have known better, decided to sit it out and now she has also had to evacuate because her house is flooded. *shrug* When people choose not to listen to me, the results are not my problem.
First of all, how do you evacuate a city of 2 million people on 2 or 3 days notice?? Indications seem to be an evacuation would have stranded more people on the road when the flooding hit.Second of all, I don't know if people realize this, but if you have no car, but more importantly, if you have no money to do so, you can't evacuate anywhere. Say you have a family of 4 and use your last $100 dollars to take the last bus out of Houston. Where do you go, where do you stay, how do you eat?? What about nursing homes?? The fact is, only the federal government has the resources to facilitate the help for something like this. We saw it in Katrina and we are seeing it here. No local government has the ability to deal with these issues.
Once again, under a Republican President, a major American city is flooding and the sitting Administration seems ill-equipped to handle it. The 911 service in Houston has been overloaded, and Trump is spending the morning tweeting about his electoral college win, the border wall, and bragging about how good the people on the ground in Texas are, and how great the rescue efforts are. My guess is that will not in fact turn out to be the case. And who the hell sits around bragging about how good they are handling a disaster in the middle of a disaster??
Hold on a second--the area which was heavily affected by Harvey had absolutely *nothing* to do with Trump whatsoever so why are you dragging his name into it? Anyone who suffered in the general Houston area--make no mistake about it, I know people who live there right now--did so because Mayor Turner couldn't get his act together and order an evacuation like Abbott advised. Don't blame Federal officials, blame the local ones.
Everyone knew that flooding in that area was going to be disastrous--most of that area is low-lying land and in outlying areas of Houston the swamp still sits right next to developed housing. Like I said earlier, if you didn't get out then you chose what happened to you. Even my wife's cousin, who should have known better, decided to sit it out and now she has also had to evacuate because her house is flooded. *shrug* When people choose not to listen to me, the results are not my problem.
First of all, how do you evacuate a city of 2 million people on 2 or 3 days notice?? Indications seem to be an evacuation would have stranded more people on the road when the flooding hit.Second of all, I don't know if people realize this, but if you have no car, but more importantly, if you have no money to do so, you can't evacuate anywhere. Say you have a family of 4 and use your last $100 dollars to take the last bus out of Houston. Where do you go, where do you stay, how do you eat?? What about nursing homes?? The fact is, only the federal government has the resources to facilitate the help for something like this. We saw it in Katrina and we are seeing it here. No local government has the ability to deal with these issues.
They do have the ability to ask for help though. Which is how it's supposed to work.
I'm kinda sick of having to listen to this b.s. about how we're supposed to come to the rescue of all these supposed poor people who are 'stuck' there. If I had the choice of staying and possibly dying or riding it out and taking my chances, I don't think I'd let being poor make my decision. I'm quite sure they know there will be programs to take care of them no matter where they end up. Are we supposed to move in the 101st Airborne and helicopter everybody out every time there's a possible disaster?
One of the reasons I've never been tempted to move to the coast is weather like this, btw. Michigan is pretty safe from the worst Mother Nature has to offer. Aside from the occasional blizzard of course...
I'm guessing if I lived there I would have heard about it. Unless you're a total hermit you have to get out of your house sometime. I can't imagine it wasn't a topic of interest at the local pub or even 7-11. If you are a total hermit you'd probably ride it out anyway.
First of all, how do you evacuate a city of 2 million people on 2 or 3 days notice?? Indications seem to be an evacuation would have stranded more people on the road when the flooding hit.Second of all, I don't know if people realize this, but if you have no car, but more importantly, if you have no money to do so, you can't evacuate anywhere. Say you have a family of 4 and use your last $100 dollars to take the last bus out of Houston. Where do you go, where do you stay, how do you eat?? What about nursing homes?? The fact is, only the federal government has the resources to facilitate the help for something like this. We saw it in Katrina and we are seeing it here. No local government has the ability to deal with these issues.
If you were smart, you would have developed a plan for just such a situation a couple of years ago; this is what "disaster preparedness" means. People get stranded on the roads, a situation which happened with Rita back in 2005, only when everyone is trying to evacuate all at the same time during a short time period--only fools do this. Instead, you get every school bus and charter bus in the greater metro area, you put people on them, and you get them out of the way. I didn't say evacuation would be easy or convenient, but sure as heck beats the alternative...unless the alternative is what you really want.
You would charge people to get on the evacuation bus? Seriously?
People in nursing homes get evacuated first and they get evacuated the moment the storm forms and might even remotely make landfall on your city. We knew about Harvey five days in advance--plenty of time to move people to San Antonio, Waco, Lufkin, etc.
Of course, people like Ray Nagin (mayor of New Orleans during Katrina) and Sylvester Turner (mayor of Houston during Harvey) probably *want* people to be completely dependent upon the Federal Government, given their party affiliation. Yes, Mayor Turner probably didn't order an evacuation because he remembered what a nightmare Rita's evacuation was, but he probably also didn't order one because Abbott wanted it and all events, regardless of their circumstances, are politicized these days. Why evacuate when you can somehow blame the situation on Abbot and/or Trump?
As per the article from the Texas Tribune I noted, no one should have been surprised at Harvey's impact because the City of Houston has been unprepared for a hurricane hit for years now, probably decades in some older neighborhoods where the drainage systems have not been updated since the 1970s.
Anyone who didn't know that Harvey was on its way is either so oblivious to events around them or so apathetic that we shouldn't waste time worrying about them. If you can't be bothered to pay attention then I see no reason to bother with you (not you, personally, of course, but the generic "you").
Hold on a second--the area which was heavily affected by Harvey had absolutely *nothing* to do with Trump whatsoever so why are you dragging his name into it?
He said here's the situation we have a republican president again and an administraton that seems unprepared again. That happened last time with Bush and Katrina.
The juries out on Trumps response but given that he has ignored climate science, cancelled Obama's orders that might help, has hired wildly unqualified people and even refused to put forward nominees for a lot of positions, and his general disdain for government and the rule of law we have a recipe for (further) disaster.
But yes technically the disaster response hasn't been botched YET.
Hold on a second--the area which was heavily affected by Harvey had absolutely *nothing* to do with Trump whatsoever so why are you dragging his name into it?
"The juries out on Trumps response but given that he has ignored climate science"
Because clearly if we'd just used less gasoline the last few years this hurricane would never have happened...
Hold on a second--the area which was heavily affected by Harvey had absolutely *nothing* to do with Trump whatsoever so why are you dragging his name into it?
"The juries out on Trumps response but given that he has ignored climate science"
Because clearly if we'd just used less gasoline the last few years this hurricane would never have happened...
None of us are going to be around to see it, but human beings are absolutely going to destroy the ability to live on this planet within the next 200-300 years. Massive chunks of the polar ice caps continue to break off. You MIGHT be able to convince alot of people to do something if it will affect their children or grandchildren. But no one really gives a shit about the fate of their great great great great grandchildren.
Burning gasoline isn't even as big an issue as the amount of methane being produced by cows for our meat.
Hold on a second--the area which was heavily affected by Harvey had absolutely *nothing* to do with Trump whatsoever so why are you dragging his name into it?
"The juries out on Trumps response but given that he has ignored climate science"
Because clearly if we'd just used less gasoline the last few years this hurricane would never have happened...
The hurricane may have happened but not been this much of a catastrophe bad. But science is clear climate change is due to humans. "Clean" Coal (there is no such thing) and oil refineries pumping waste into the air are big contributors.
Hold on a second--the area which was heavily affected by Harvey had absolutely *nothing* to do with Trump whatsoever so why are you dragging his name into it?
"The juries out on Trumps response but given that he has ignored climate science"
Because clearly if we'd just used less gasoline the last few years this hurricane would never have happened...
None of us are going to be around to see it, but human beings are absolutely going to destroy the ability to live on this planet within the next 200-300 years. Massive chunks of the polar ice caps continue to break off. You MIGHT be able to convince alot of people to do something if it will affect their children or grandchildren. But no one really gives a shit about the fate of their great great great great grandchildren.
Burning gasoline isn't even as big an issue as the amount of methane being produced by cows for our meat.
Life is stubborn. It is impossible for us to make a planet completely unlivable. People are both super stubborn and clever. Things will change certainly, and the transition will be hard, but life will endure. It always has. Heck Earth's climate hasn't even normalized since the last freeze. We are still technically in the tail end of an ice age.
Life is stubborn. It is impossible for us to make a planet completely unlivable. People are both super stubborn and clever. Things will change certainly, and the transition will be hard, but life will endure. It always has. Heck Earth's climate hasn't even normalized since the last freeze. We are still technically in the tail end of an ice age.
True there's life at the bottom of the marina trench and floating around high in the atmosphere etc, but that reminds me of a famous George Carlin bit.
The best part about climate change is how absolutely unprovable any of it is. It's also unprovable that any changes we make will make any difference. I guess if we do everything and the world is still around in 200 years that 'proves' it, eh? What if it were still around anyway? We wouldn't know would we? It just smells of scamming me out of my money to me. Color me a sceptic...
The best part about climate change is how absolutely unprovable any of it is. It's also unprovable that any changes we make will make any difference. I guess if we do everything and the world is still around in 200 years that 'proves' it, eh? What if it were still around anyway? We wouldn't know would we? It just smells of scamming me out of my money to me. Color me a sceptic...
The Liberals keep taking subtle jabs at Trump's policies.
Our Chief of Defense Staff (read head of the military) has taken part in The Capital's Pride Parade, along with the head of the Navy and Army.
Trudeau also participated, the first sitting prime minister to do so.
The Chief of defense says him being their wasn't political but an act of leadership. He wanted to show support for LGBTQ2 soldiers and invite others from the same community to join the forces. He wouldn't comment on Trump's band, just "we want excellent people -we have excellent people - and I am here to say, categorically, that if you're from LGBTQ2 community, you should consider the armed forces a great career."
I don't get how people can decide to do as the likes of the current US president dictate, against pretty much the whole scientific community's opinion, and do it in the hope of not getting scammed, really. You'd imagine that if scientists were so adept at scamming people they'd actually get some funding.
I don't get how people can decide to do as the likes of the current US president dictate, against pretty much the whole scientific community's opinion, and do it in the hope of not getting scammed, really. You'd imagine that if scientists were so adept at scamming people they'd actually get some funding.
They're not the ones scamming, at least not knowingly. The governments are the scammers. Scientists know there is no way to prove what they're assuming but it's become almost a religion now. It's about as provable as the existence of God.
"Surely if there's any chance of us being correct we have to do something about it, right?"
The scientific community seem to have been the one to come up with the concept of man-induced climate change though, from observations of rising levels of greenhouse gasses back in the late 19th century, and all the way to James Hansen's testimony in 1988 (and the preceding studies by the same and various other scientists).
I can't say I personally know of any way to prove the existence or non-existence of manmade global warming, and even if I did that wouldn't prove that whatever change we've caused can be reversed or mitigated through environmental action. I'm certainly not an expert on climatology and would gladly defer to one when it comes to such questions.
At my own level however, I can say that the recent rise in temperatures (say, over the last 40 years) certainly does seem to break with the trends established by previous data (from live records by NASA/NOAA as well as records reconstituted from ice sheets and other indicators of temperature). While it does not, in fact, prove the existence of manmade global warming, it does lend some credence to the hundred of people who've spent their life researching the matter and who are now shouting that climate change IS real AND caused by humans.
Hurricanes have a close relationship with temperature and get their power from water evaporating from the surface of the ocean. Of course the hurricane would've happened even without global warming, but global warming can kick those hurricanes up a couple of notches. And yes, humanity will probably endure. But a frightening amount of humans might not.
I don't feel like arguing with climate change deniers again. But calling the collected efforts of thousands of people from all over the world a scam is just wrong (not to mention rude). I mean, we're talking about decades of research in just about any field imaginable here.
Global warming isn't a religion, but denialism is quickly becoming one.
They're not the ones scamming, at least not knowingly. The governments are the scammers. Scientists know there is no way to prove what they're assuming but it's become almost a religion now. It's about as provable as the existence of God.
This doesn't seem a sensible basis on which to take decisions. There's very little in science that is absolutely proven, but that doesn't prevent us taking reasoned decisions about the way we believe the world works. For instance we don't know for certain how gravity works, but we can observe its effects in the real world and make extremely accurate predictions about how bodies will move - allowing us for instance to send spacecraft on journeys of many millions of miles.
To take a more relevant example to climate change, I note that there have been a number of comments in this thread recently about how people should have reacted once they knew their homes were in danger from Hurricane Harvey - from say 5 days before the storm arrived. Putting aside for a moment how easy or not it actually would be for everyone to respond, is it reasonable in theory to expect anyone to have taken any action? The prediction of how Harvey was going to develop and move is based on extremely complex modelling and was absolutely not 'proven', but simply a prediction. Climate change is similarly a prediction and most scientists would say that prediction already has better evidence for it than how a tropical storm will develop in the next week.
The level of proof already there for climate change really is on a par with forecasting the weather. There's an almost unprecedented degree of support for the theory of climate change among scientists - the remaining opposition to the theory is almost entirely driven now by non-scientists. If you're prepared to give any credence to the weather forecast when deciding what to wear when you go outside, is it really sensible to not give credence to a prediction that will radically affect the planet as a whole?
The predictions for the UK by 2050 are for a 2-3 degree C increase on a medium emissions scenario (which assumes that countries considerably reduce current emissions). Here's a relevant table from http://ukclimateprojections.metoffice.gov.uk/23673?emission=medium but there's a huge amount of data readily available for any country if you look for it.
That's a significant change just in my potential lifetime and I'm not exactly in the first flush of youth. Taking a more global perspective that extent of change will mean huge shifts in climate across the world, undoubtedly leading to conflicts over resources such as water and farmland as well as the disappearance of a lot of land due to rises in sea levels. I think we're already far too late to prevent those sorts of conflicts, but if we plan ahead and establish appropriate mechanisms now for managing changes in the future we can increase the chances of managing the conflicts relatively peacefully. The reason why the US pulling out of the Paris Agreement is so damaging is not because of the small direct effect that not reducing US emissions will make, but the disruption to the formation of those international mechanisms that are going to be needed to manage the impacts of climate change in our lifetimes - not some far distant hypothetical future.
He said here's the situation we have a republican president again and an administraton that seems unprepared again. That happened last time with Bush and Katrina.
The juries out on Trumps response but given that he has ignored climate science, cancelled Obama's orders that might help, has hired wildly unqualified people and even refused to put forward nominees for a lot of positions, and his general disdain for government and the rule of law we have a recipe for (further) disaster.
But yes technically the disaster response hasn't been botched YET.
The Federal response is irrelevant. Houston has been unprepared for a direct hurricane hit for years and that blame lies with city and State leaders; specifically, the past few mayors of Houston and former Governor Rick Perry, whom I never liked.
I concur--the disaster response has not been botched yet because of agencies like the Red Cross and the National Guard, in addition to private citizens with boats going out and looking for people.
People are still blaming Katrina on Bush? Really? The city leaders of New Orleans at the time should have ordered a mandatory evacuation at least two days ahead of the hurricane making landfall and State leaders had ignored Army Corps of Engineers advice about the levee system for years before that--Bush had almost nothing to do with Katrina whatsoever.
Don't muddy the waters with facts. Katrina was all Bush's fault. He saw an opportunity to kill a bunch of minorities and poor people. Being a Republican, of course he did it on purpose! Conservatives are all about killing people. Look at the millions of people they've killed by fighting Obamacare. The Democrats are our saviors. Only a complete moron or white supremacist can't see that!
Haha but yes Bush dropped the ball with Katrina. And good point MathSorceror about this mostly being local and state officials not adequately preparing in Houston. Back to Bush/Trump FEMA the f is Federal it's a federal agency and dropped the ball with Katrina. No he probably didn't do it on purpose but it seemed like it wasn't a big deal to them when it clearly was and by then things were really late.
I'm just saying Trump has put all the pins in a row for failure here - Trump hates government, he appoints morons, conspiracy theorists and people that are against the agency they are tasked with running. No exaggeration. His ignorant attitude towards science in general and climate science in general are troubling and have set things up for failure.
So far he hasn't screwed it up because well it's still on going and they are doing the best they can.
I'm going to go ahead and partially agree with you here. I figured Trump would look at trimming the fat from some of those agencies. I had no idea he was going to gut them as much as he has. What I don't see is what he plans to do with the money he's 'saving'. Are there any agencies other than defense where the budget has increased? I haven't received any refund check that's for sure...
Building a lean, efficient beaurocracy is beyond the scope of Presidents imho, but they can certainly help by promoting experts to relevant fields. TV seems to be very influential of Trump in particular, and on TV 'experts are often wrong', hence his distaste for experts. Being generous, he seems to judge competencies exclusively based on earnings/money, so he appoints people who have lots of money.
The US would be better off by far if they elected someone with a science background that has also studied poli-sci, but these people are not usually very charismatic, so they sit in think-tanks spitballing ideas at best.
Imho, the biggest government inefficiencies can be traced to non-scientific decision making, be it in policing, the enviroment or even international relations. Non-scientific reasoners might be right some of the time, because usually going against science means you are wrong.
I'm starting to suspect Trump was supposed to be a complete puppet, but on becoming President, he insists on furthering his own interests more than the party that got elected. I think Trump BSed the Republicans, and their name is being dragged through a pig pen atm because of it. Then again, Trump was openly racist during the election, maybe they knew what they were grtting, but to me it looks like long-term party suicide to keep supporting Trump.
First off: Allegedly FEMA is doing an extraordinary job working with state and municipal leaders to get everyone from harm. It maybe too early to tell, but give credit where credit is due. This is not a repeat of Katrina.
All three tiers of government are to blame for Houston's unpreparedness, but pointing fingers does not help with the relief. It also doesn't help form a plan for this to never happen again, or at least minimize the damaged caused. My only concern is since everyone is calling this a once in 500 year deal, nothing maybe done to prevent it in the future, as their saying it is so rare, it'll never happen again.
AND
North Korea, remember them? Just fired a missile over Japan. Good timing as Trump is distracted by a natural disaster.
The US would be better off by far if they elected someone with a science background that has also studied poli-sci, but these people are not usually very charismatic, so they sit in think-tanks spitballing ideas at best.
Imho, the biggest government inefficiencies can be traced to non-scientific decision making, be it in policing, the enviroment or even international relations. Non-scientific reasoners might be right some of the time, because usually going against science means you are wrong.
I think it's more than just lack of charisma. There are a lot of things in politics that are unquantifiable and illogical. I think scientists, in general, fear the emotions of everyday people and just don't understand them.
Americans for some reason want their politicians to be religious. Or parties want their candidates to be religious. Probably not a lot of hardcore scientists are religious and charismatic and extroverts interested in being in the public eye. There is probably a reason the Republican party is as antiscience as it is. Jjstraka had the results a few pages back that majority of Republicans were against higher education.
Comments
Everyone knew that flooding in that area was going to be disastrous--most of that area is low-lying land and in outlying areas of Houston the swamp still sits right next to developed housing. Like I said earlier, if you didn't get out then you chose what happened to you. Even my wife's cousin, who should have known better, decided to sit it out and now she has also had to evacuate because her house is flooded. *shrug* When people choose not to listen to me, the results are not my problem.
The Texas Tribune ran a piece in December of last year detailing how the Houston area was completely unprepared for a direct hurricane hit. Like I said, no one should have been surprised at the flooding there.
I'm kinda sick of having to listen to this b.s. about how we're supposed to come to the rescue of all these supposed poor people who are 'stuck' there. If I had the choice of staying and possibly dying or riding it out and taking my chances, I don't think I'd let being poor make my decision. I'm quite sure they know there will be programs to take care of them no matter where they end up. Are we supposed to move in the 101st Airborne and helicopter everybody out every time there's a possible disaster?
One of the reasons I've never been tempted to move to the coast is weather like this, btw. Michigan is pretty safe from the worst Mother Nature has to offer. Aside from the occasional blizzard of course...
Would you have seen it coming if you hadn't heard about it from the news?
You would charge people to get on the evacuation bus? Seriously?
People in nursing homes get evacuated first and they get evacuated the moment the storm forms and might even remotely make landfall on your city. We knew about Harvey five days in advance--plenty of time to move people to San Antonio, Waco, Lufkin, etc.
Of course, people like Ray Nagin (mayor of New Orleans during Katrina) and Sylvester Turner (mayor of Houston during Harvey) probably *want* people to be completely dependent upon the Federal Government, given their party affiliation. Yes, Mayor Turner probably didn't order an evacuation because he remembered what a nightmare Rita's evacuation was, but he probably also didn't order one because Abbott wanted it and all events, regardless of their circumstances, are politicized these days. Why evacuate when you can somehow blame the situation on Abbot and/or Trump?
As per the article from the Texas Tribune I noted, no one should have been surprised at Harvey's impact because the City of Houston has been unprepared for a hurricane hit for years now, probably decades in some older neighborhoods where the drainage systems have not been updated since the 1970s.
Anyone who didn't know that Harvey was on its way is either so oblivious to events around them or so apathetic that we shouldn't waste time worrying about them. If you can't be bothered to pay attention then I see no reason to bother with you (not you, personally, of course, but the generic "you").
The juries out on Trumps response but given that he has ignored climate science, cancelled Obama's orders that might help, has hired wildly unqualified people and even refused to put forward nominees for a lot of positions, and his general disdain for government and the rule of law we have a recipe for (further) disaster.
But yes technically the disaster response hasn't been botched YET.
Burning gasoline isn't even as big an issue as the amount of methane being produced by cows for our meat.
But science is clear climate change is due to humans. "Clean" Coal (there is no such thing) and oil refineries pumping waste into the air are big contributors.
"The Planet will be just fine. The people are f&cked."
The Liberals keep taking subtle jabs at Trump's policies.
Our Chief of Defense Staff (read head of the military) has taken part in The Capital's Pride Parade, along with the head of the Navy and Army.
Trudeau also participated, the first sitting prime minister to do so.
The Chief of defense says him being their wasn't political but an act of leadership. He wanted to show support for LGBTQ2 soldiers and invite others from the same community to join the forces. He wouldn't comment on Trump's band, just "we want excellent people -we have excellent people - and I am here to say, categorically, that if you're from LGBTQ2 community, you should consider the armed forces a great career."
You'd imagine that if scientists were so adept at scamming people they'd actually get some funding.
"Surely if there's any chance of us being correct we have to do something about it, right?"
Messiah Complex anybody????
I can't say I personally know of any way to prove the existence or non-existence of manmade global warming, and even if I did that wouldn't prove that whatever change we've caused can be reversed or mitigated through environmental action. I'm certainly not an expert on climatology and would gladly defer to one when it comes to such questions.
At my own level however, I can say that the recent rise in temperatures (say, over the last 40 years) certainly does seem to break with the trends established by previous data (from live records by NASA/NOAA as well as records reconstituted from ice sheets and other indicators of temperature). While it does not, in fact, prove the existence of manmade global warming, it does lend some credence to the hundred of people who've spent their life researching the matter and who are now shouting that climate change IS real AND caused by humans.
If a politician wants votes, he or she will not ask people to make sacrifices.
It is against a politician's personal interest to advocate limiting greenhouse gas emissions.
I don't feel like arguing with climate change deniers again. But calling the collected efforts of thousands of people from all over the world a scam is just wrong (not to mention rude). I mean, we're talking about decades of research in just about any field imaginable here.
Global warming isn't a religion, but denialism is quickly becoming one.
To take a more relevant example to climate change, I note that there have been a number of comments in this thread recently about how people should have reacted once they knew their homes were in danger from Hurricane Harvey - from say 5 days before the storm arrived. Putting aside for a moment how easy or not it actually would be for everyone to respond, is it reasonable in theory to expect anyone to have taken any action? The prediction of how Harvey was going to develop and move is based on extremely complex modelling and was absolutely not 'proven', but simply a prediction. Climate change is similarly a prediction and most scientists would say that prediction already has better evidence for it than how a tropical storm will develop in the next week.
The level of proof already there for climate change really is on a par with forecasting the weather. There's an almost unprecedented degree of support for the theory of climate change among scientists - the remaining opposition to the theory is almost entirely driven now by non-scientists. If you're prepared to give any credence to the weather forecast when deciding what to wear when you go outside, is it really sensible to not give credence to a prediction that will radically affect the planet as a whole?
The predictions for the UK by 2050 are for a 2-3 degree C increase on a medium emissions scenario (which assumes that countries considerably reduce current emissions). Here's a relevant table from http://ukclimateprojections.metoffice.gov.uk/23673?emission=medium but there's a huge amount of data readily available for any country if you look for it.
That's a significant change just in my potential lifetime and I'm not exactly in the first flush of youth. Taking a more global perspective that extent of change will mean huge shifts in climate across the world, undoubtedly leading to conflicts over resources such as water and farmland as well as the disappearance of a lot of land due to rises in sea levels. I think we're already far too late to prevent those sorts of conflicts, but if we plan ahead and establish appropriate mechanisms now for managing changes in the future we can increase the chances of managing the conflicts relatively peacefully. The reason why the US pulling out of the Paris Agreement is so damaging is not because of the small direct effect that not reducing US emissions will make, but the disruption to the formation of those international mechanisms that are going to be needed to manage the impacts of climate change in our lifetimes - not some far distant hypothetical future.
Confounds the Science - (Parody of) Sound of Silence
I concur--the disaster response has not been botched yet because of agencies like the Red Cross and the National Guard, in addition to private citizens with boats going out and looking for people.
People are still blaming Katrina on Bush? Really? The city leaders of New Orleans at the time should have ordered a mandatory evacuation at least two days ahead of the hurricane making landfall and State leaders had ignored Army Corps of Engineers advice about the levee system for years before that--Bush had almost nothing to do with Katrina whatsoever.
Don't muddy the waters with facts. Katrina was all Bush's fault. He saw an opportunity to kill a bunch of minorities and poor people. Being a Republican, of course he did it on purpose! Conservatives are all about killing people. Look at the millions of people they've killed by fighting Obamacare. The Democrats are our saviors. Only a complete moron or white supremacist can't see that!
I'm just saying Trump has put all the pins in a row for failure here - Trump hates government, he appoints morons, conspiracy theorists and people that are against the agency they are tasked with running. No exaggeration. His ignorant attitude towards science in general and climate science in general are troubling and have set things up for failure.
So far he hasn't screwed it up because well it's still on going and they are doing the best they can.
I'm going to go ahead and partially agree with you here. I figured Trump would look at trimming the fat from some of those agencies. I had no idea he was going to gut them as much as he has. What I don't see is what he plans to do with the money he's 'saving'. Are there any agencies other than defense where the budget has increased? I haven't received any refund check that's for sure...
The US would be better off by far if they elected someone with a science background that has also studied poli-sci, but these people are not usually very charismatic, so they sit in think-tanks spitballing ideas at best.
Imho, the biggest government inefficiencies can be traced to non-scientific decision making, be it in policing, the enviroment or even international relations. Non-scientific reasoners might be right some of the time, because usually going against science means you are wrong.
I'm starting to suspect Trump was supposed to be a complete puppet, but on becoming President, he insists on furthering his own interests more than the party that got elected. I think Trump BSed the Republicans, and their name is being dragged through a pig pen atm because of it. Then again, Trump was openly racist during the election, maybe they knew what they were grtting, but to me it looks like long-term party suicide to keep supporting Trump.
All three tiers of government are to blame for Houston's unpreparedness, but pointing fingers does not help with the relief. It also doesn't help form a plan for this to never happen again, or at least minimize the damaged caused. My only concern is since everyone is calling this a once in 500 year deal, nothing maybe done to prevent it in the future, as their saying it is so rare, it'll never happen again.
AND
North Korea, remember them? Just fired a missile over Japan. Good timing as Trump is distracted by a natural disaster.