"As the intensity of the heat wave, without reservation, was a key factor in the destructiveness of this derecho event - it raises the question about the possible role of manmade climate warming (from elevated greenhouse concentrations)"---Washington Post (6-30-12)
"Here in the US, we've seen a doubling in the frequency of record-breaking heat, relative to what we would expect from chance alone. So far this year, we're seeing those records broken at nearly 10 times the rate we would expect without global warming. So there is no question in my mind that the "signal" of climate change has now emerged in our day-to-day weather."---Dr. Michael Mann in The Guardian (7-3-12)
A huge branch plunged right through our kitchen roof during the recent derecho event, and we have a huge mess in the yard. Fortunately, it’s fixable; and as nobody was home, nobody was hurt when a 12 inch diameter branch plunged through the roof above the kitchen table.
My kitchen roof is just a little example of the cost of the more severe weather caused by climate change. We and our insurance company will have to pay thousands. That is nothing compared to the cost in lives from the derecho event. More than 20 people were killed by this huge derecho, and people are dying of the extreme temperatures that contributed to the derecho. Some old people were crushed to death as they slept in their beds. Our emergency 911 didn’t work for two days! Millions lost their electricity for days in 100 degree temperatures. Ironically, burning fossil fuels may have contributed to the destruction of our electric power!
Bad weather happens, and Virginians are surrounded by huge trees that demolish roofs and power lines; but the derecho event is an example of climate change---higher temperatures---making bad weather more severe. I wonder if any of the politicians or political operatives who deny global warming had a log pierce the ceiling where their children sleep, eat, and play?
I often watch CNN, and they constantly air commercials on behalf of the fossil-fuel interests. Probably FOX does too, but I never watch them any more. Perhaps the cable news won’t say much about climate change because their fossil-fuel sponsors would drop them. The fossil-fuel propagandists on T.V. say that fossil-fuels are "cheap," but they aren't telling people that part of the hidden cost of using fossil-fuels are expensive economic and human consequences from increasingly severe weather.
MSNBC tells more about climate change, and the Washington Post linked the June 29 derecho to climate change right on the front page of their on-line paper. The derecho was like a hurricane that began with thunderstorms in Iowa and raced like a tsunami south-east to the Atlantic coast with little warning. Repairs to power lines are slow because there was no time to hire repair crews from outside the area prior to the event and because many states were affected.
Here is an excellent article in the Washington Post (6-30-12) about the derecho, and it states that a factor was climate change:
As the intensity of the heat wave, without reservation, was a key factor in the destructiveness of this derecho event - it raises the question about the possible role of manmade climate warming (from elevated greenhouse concentrations). It’s a complicated, controversial question, but one that scientists will surely grapple with in case studies of this rare, extraordinary event.
I used to be a Republican; but when the fake Climategate provocation happened, I did some research and realized that my party was just lying to me. They thought that I was a fool, and I guess they were right. I realized that Republican politicians are persecuting the great scientists who are trying to protect us and show us how to transition to renewable energy.
Virginia’s mendacious Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and his climate-change denying crew were all rebuked by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on June 26, four days before the derecho. Here is my link to some sources on that related story. Be sure to read the Court’s ruling. They were very contemptuous of Cuccinelli's crew:
This is how science works. EPA is not required to re-prove the existence of the atom every time it approaches a scientific question.”---United States Court of Appeals
Cuccinelli complains that the EPA didn't do its own research, but whom does this Tea Party freak cite in his petition to the EPA for his “science”? Attorney General Cuccinelli cites the Kremlin’s official news agency RIA Novosti recycling the propaganda of Kremlin-friendly-Kommersant, which is owned by the Gazprom operative Alisher Usmanov. The Russian mogul is also big into mining nickel–like that notorious Canadian climate change denialist Steve McIntyre. Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but I do wonder.
Cuccinelli lives in Virginia, so his family was endangered by the derecho. This man even endangers his own children’s futures with his climate change denialism. When I see pictures of him with all his innocent children, I am reminded of the pictures of the propagandist Joseph Goebbels with his innocent children who were all destroyed by poison and their father's mendacity.
If Mr. Cuccinelli would listen to the scientist Michael Mann and tell Virginians the truth about the dangers of climate change, all our children would have a safer future. Cuccinelli is not some elderly politician who was educated before schools and universities taught about climate change, but he gets money for his campaigns from the fossil fuel interests. He also gets money for his campaigns from a business owned by his his father, who is a career lobbyist for the natural gas industry.
Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli should think of the kind of world he is leaving his children. Cuccinelli is a Catholic, and even the Vatican's prestigious Pontifical Academy of Sciences is hosting conferences about climate change. Shouldn't Attorney General Cuccinelli consider the opinions of scientists who advise his own church?
How dare Ken Cuccinelli subvert the office of Attorney General and turn it into a political police, the "sword and shield" of the fossil-fuel industry! How dare he persecute climate scientists and undermine our scientific agencies on behalf of domestic and foreign fossil-fuel companies! He should be a leader who protects the people, not a liar!
Here is what Dr. Michael Mann, who is being persecuted by Attorney General Cuccinelli, told the Guardian (7-3-12) in an excellent article about the link between climate change and the June 29 derecho:
Professor Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at the Penn State Department of Meteorology:
I like to use the analogy of loaded dice. Here in the US, we've seen a doubling in the frequency of record-breaking heat, relative to what we would expect from chance alone. So far this year, we're seeing those records broken at nearly 10 times the rate we would expect without global warming. So there is no question in my mind that the "signal" of climate change has now emerged in our day-to-day weather. We are seeing the loading of the random weather dice toward more "sixes". We are seeing and feeling climate change in the more extreme heat we are witnessing this summer, the outbreak of massive forest fires like the one engulfing Colorado over the past week, and more extreme weather events like the Derecho that knocked out power for millions in the eastern US during a record-breaking heat spell.
Good post.
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