Harvey As ‘Global Warning’

Houston: A Global Warning; The devastation of Hurricane Harvey marks a turning point and raises the terrible possibility that we’ve entered the age of climate chaos

Jeff Goodell, August 31, 2017 (Rolling Stone)

“…[T]he horrific damage wrought by Hurricane Harvey was an almost entirely man-made catastrophe, one fingerprinted by all-too-human neglect, corruption and denial…[Hurricane Harvey’s biblical torrent was] the worst rainfall event ever in the continental U.S…[and] it's wrong to dismiss Harvey as a purely "natural" event…

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…[T]hanks to increasing carbon pollution, the waters in the Gulf of Mexico, over which Harvey formed, were about five degrees higher [in temperature] than average…[so] there is more water vapor in the air…[and] the warmer waters tend to intensify a hurricane's gales…[Also, the Gulf’s higher sea levels] mean bigger storm surges… In the 1990s, climate scientist Wallace Broecker said that the Earth's climate was ‘an angry beast’ and that by dumping massive quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere, we were ‘poking it with sticks’…Harvey is the third 500-year flood to hit the Houston area in the past three years…

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…Eventually, taxpayers in Kansas will get tired of bailing out people who live on the coast, and disaster-relief funds will dry up. As seas rise, mortgage companies will stop writing 30-year loans for homes by the sea. Bond ratings for cities will fall. Coastal roads will be washed away. Airports will be flooded. And the great coastal retreat will begin…We've spent 40 years denying the risks of climate change, thinking that if we can just get everyone to buy a Prius and recycle their plastic, everything will be OK. The message of Hurricane Harvey is that it will not be OK…Mother Nature is coming for us.” click here for more

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