Gore links Iowa floods and tornadoes to climate change, but makes a basic error on global temperature to evaporation linkage, plus he misses the real reason behind imagined tornado increases.
[Excerpt: In a recent article in the Des Moines Register, Al ] Gore attributed the historic floods that devastated Iowa in June to man-made emissions causing more water to evaporate from oceans, increasing average humidity worldwide. “In 66 of your 99 counties, the flood damage was truly historic.” Gore told the crowd of 1,000 Democratic donors. “No one has ever seen a flood like this.” Gore also blamed climate change for increased tornadoes, including the one that leveled much of Parkersburg earlier this year. “Yes, we’ve always had tornadoes in Iowa and in Tennessee,” he said. “But they’re coming more frequently and they’re stronger.”
UAH satellite derived global temperature data. Click for a larger image
Current value for August 2008 is -0.010°C
According to our current scientific understanding of the water cycle and water vapor on Earth, the average residence time of water molecules in the troposphere (where evaporation and most weather occurs) is about 10 days.
Since the global temperature trend has been a negative slope since 2007, and is currently near the zero anomaly line, and with the short residence time of water vapor in the water cycle, Gore’s claimed “warming” could not be responsible for increased water vapor. If anything, water vapor in the water cycle would be less now.
Gore clearly doesn’t understand basic meteorology, much less climate.
Then there is Gore’s claim of “Yes, we’ve always had tornadoes in Iowa and in Tennessee,” he said. “But they’re coming more frequently and they’re stronger.” Well, the graph below says otherwise.
Graph from NWS/NOAA. Smaller (F1) tornadoes seem to be on the increase, but not larger ones (F2-F5). This is likely due to increased reporting from Doppler Radar, storm chasers, and news gathering. Small tornadoes that once went unnoticed are now often reported, and make the news.
Gore is flat wrong.
References:
1) Climatologist dismisses extreme weather predictions due to man-made warming as ‘complete nonsense’ – By Hydro-climatologist Stewart Franks, an Associate Professor of Environmental Engineering at the University of Newcastle in Australia. (LINK)
2) Another scientist dismisses fearmongers: Midwest Floods and ‘Completely Unjustified’ Climate Change Fear Mongering – June 22, 2008 – By Mike Smith is a certified consulting meteorologist and a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society He is CEO of WeatherData Services, Inc., an AccuWeather Company, based in Wichita.) (LINK)
3) U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) report shows Hurricanes declining, NO increases in drought, tornadoes, thunderstorms, heat-waves – June 20, 2008 – (LINK)
4) Going Down: Death Rates Due to Extreme Weather Events (LINK)
5) Analysis in peer-reviewed journal finds COLD PERIODS – not warm periods – see INCREASE in floods, droughts, storms, famine – April 24, 2008 – (LINK)
6) Increasing tornadoes or better information gathering? – February 8th, 2008 – (LINK)
Anthony:
Although warming has leveled off for about a decade, it’s leveled off at a WARM temperature. So although the connections Gore tries to make are tennuos at best, your criticism is just wrong.
REPLY: Leonard, I think maybe you missed something really important. or perhaps I need to clarify.
The June 2008 global temperature anomaly (when the floods occurred) was less than in June 1988, when Jim Hansen “sounded the alarm” before congress about “global warming”. Explain then how that June 2008 global temperature value is “leveled off to a WARM temperature”, and how it affected the short term water vapor evaporation then.
See this:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/07/02/what-a-difference-20-years-makes/
-Anthony
Iowa just happened to be right in the middle of where very cold spring air from the north was meeting the warm air from the south. Large supercell thunderstorms built at the confluence and heavy rain ensued. The system continued for weeks and thunderstorms continued building afterward since there was so much moisture on the ground.
The only unusual thing about it was how much below normal the cool air from the north was (2.0C below normal for the month of June immdeiately north of Iowa) and how long the weather system lasted. So if anything, it was cooling that caused it.
There he goes again, making like an ambulance chaser, seeking to cash in on anyone else’s misfortune. The environmental activism that Gore represents is going to find it to be rough going in the near future as Americans turn their attention to financial concerns.
The data does not support the AGW argument and yet stil the zealots flock to websites like this desperate to make a link.
The initial comment on the article is easily dealt with by Anthony…it appears that some people just dont’t want to understand.
The fact that Gore will not allow scientists into his speaking engagements says it all.
A dumb, stupid or downright corrupt media are responsible for this, it has gone on far too long.
In the UK we now have a Ministry for “Climate Change”….it is about as credible as Monty Python’s famous sketch of the “Ministry of Silly Walks”.
James
Every time Gore opens his mouth he makes erroneous or misleading statements,
whats new? It used to be called lying or fraud. Now lying and fraud are considered
o.k. as long as it’s done for the greater good.
Remember we are just the little people we don’t understand all this.
Better to let a failed politician with delusions tell us how to do it the right
and moral way.
Off topic but a good read about saint Al’s beloved carbon trading.
You know the one, same one that’s about to tank in the E.U.
http://darrenrickard.blogspot.com/2008/01/carbon-credit-trading-puts-global.html
He’s still stuck with the belief that warmer temperatures would raise the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere such that the feedback from water vapor would multiply the initial forcing of temperature by CO2, and that simply hasn’t happened. Neither relative nor absolute humidity kept up with the temperature rise and it illustrates a huge flaw of the models.
Of course, we’re cooling now, and lots of the warmistas haven’t adjusted. Why didn’t he just blame in on the La Nina, which is taking the heat for the recent global cooling? I’m tellin’ ya, the dissonance crescendoes.
====================================
Misguided government is ultimately responsible for this AGW fear and it is further perpetrated and exploited by greedy people (Gore), corporations, scientific organizations or other institutions. Unfortunately government will eventually have to correct the mess that will cause more of a mess!
Carbon cap and trade=junk bonds
No one is going to sink dollars into this unless they can use the loss as a tax write-off. In this day and age of poor returns and reckless investments, my hunch is that there will be lots more caution. At the very least, cap and trade schemes are ripe territory for corruption, and right now, voters aren’t in a forgiving mood after bailing out poorly run and reckless banks. If Gore comes begging with hat in hand to bail out his company, I will be the first to suggest tar and feathers.
Al Gore (and others) no longer recognize different magnitudes, locations, and time scales at which the “warming” occurred or is supposed to occur. They don’t want to know or look at any details. They find it unnecessary. The debate (and science) is over.
He clearly doesn’t find it necessary to look whether the temporal “fingerprint” of any argument works and his Democratic Party comrades on the dinner are the least likely to tell him about these subtleties.
So the words “[global] warming” are used as universal, binary, qualitative, non-quantifiable magic words, much like God (or Devil?) was used in many religions. God and global warming are omnipresent (global) and omnipotent, except that God does all the good things and global warming does all the bad things.
I guess they won’t be interested in the time intervals in which the observed warming or non-warming could or couldn’t affect tornadoes or the time scales associated with the water cycle. What’s important for them is that there are many other people who believe the same beliefs about the omnipotency of global warming – even though the latter hasn’t existed at least for 10 years which is why it couldn’t have been responsible for any changes that occurred in the last decade.
It’s a new form of religion.
IceFree: Have you noticed that Democrat candidates/holders of high office are serial liars? Clinton, Gore, Obama, Biden, Reid, Pelosi, Frank, Dodd, Boxer, Waxman, come to mind.
Why is anyone really surprised that Al Gore makes inaccurate statements about the weather and climate??? If you objectively look at his biography he clearly does not have the educational background and training to make any statements about the climate, let alone be the self-appointed Mother Teresa of the Global Warming movement. As a boy he worked on the Gore’s family tobacco farm. After high school he earned an undergraduate degree in journalism and then served in Vietnam. He later went to law school and then became a career politician. How does someone with that biography become qualified to comment on the climate?
Al Gore is as predictable as the weather.
After stripping away the ignorant comments and ideas on both sides of this issue we are left with the realization that (gasp) it is really about money and worse, partisan politics.
Taxing greater polluters at a higher rate, and rewarding those who pollute less is an anathema to Repostriches. It is entirely predictable (yet disheartening) to have this turned into a political issue when it should be a cultural one.
None of us will be on this planet when the effects of action or inaction by this generation or the next are felt. The legacy we leave to our descendants should be the driving force behind any effort to mitigate the damage done by climage change.
Those who are most vocal about the issue have only a political or financial stake in the outcome, and I find that despicable. To all reading this, examine your own motives honestly. Why do you care about global warming? If it is a political or financial issue for you, then you have joined the Repostrich club.
Ostriches put their heads in the sand when confronted with a crisis.
Repostriches stick theirs in quite a different place altogether.
Easton, MD Star Democrat – September 29, 2008
(Reporting on a panel presentation by scientists from Horn Point Laboratory and the Program Manager for Climate Change Policy of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.)
“In Maryland, temperature records suggest the average temperature has increased over the last 100 years and it has increased even more significantly over the last 30 years. The annualtemperature increase is about 1 degree F per year and about 1.8 degree F per year in waters of the Chesapeake Bay.”
Seems it’s two orders of magnitude worse than even Al thought. Chesapeake Blue Crabs in a few years will be red when caught.
Anthony,
It is unfortunately not a matter of Al Gore not understanding this or that. Rather, it is a matter of not letting any inconvenient fact come in the way of his AGW/ACC dogma. Nothing is allowed to be seen as questioning the message, not even last year’s UK High Court ruling that found Gore’s movie to contain 9 outright falsehoods and 3 gross misrepresentations. So what you wind up with is a mantric chant telling us that “the earth is flat because it is round”.
Someone posted this link here:
http://darrenrickard.blogspot.com/2008/01/carbon-credit-trading-puts-global.html
And it is something I wrote a while back.
I am based in New Zealand and I am very concerned about Gore and his mates and their continued brainwashing of the left media and a large amount of the population, including our politicians.
I am heartened to see though that there are thinking individuals such as Anthony that are writing about the truth on this “climate change” scam.
We have gone way past you guys in lunacy here and have passed this bill under urgency weeks before an election that will tax us for emitting carbon:
http://darrenrickard.blogspot.com/2008/09/why-ets-bill-is-fundamentally-flawed.html
It will cost Kiwis at least 6000 kiwi dollars per family each per year.
The global warming religion is about tax and control NOT science and people like Gore need to be exposed for the liars that they clearly are.
Finally, here is a “humorous” take on where all this madness might take us.
Good on you Tony for making a stand.
Regards, Darren from Political Animal
And no one has ever altered the courses of rivers before, and built cities in flood plains…
about RIDGE RESIDENT’s comment – I’ve been reading but not participating for a long time but this idiotic comment just deserves a rebuttal. So here I am.
“Repostriches stick theirs in quite a different place altogether.”
And liberals feel rather than think. There’s no climate crisis, you are conflating feelings and emotions with facts.
What part of it hasn’t warmed in 10 years and climate isn’t following the computer climate models don’t you get?
What part of “Gore doesn’t understand basic meteorology” don’t you get?
Apparently you don’t either. Why debate facts when labeling, name calling, and other juvie tactics that are the mainstay of liberals works for you?
Nature is gonna kick you in the butt.
As Bill points out, slightly cooler-than-normal weather in the Great Plains will make thunderstorms worse, provided there is still the same amount of warm moist air from the Gulf and cyclonic energy in low pressure storm fronts. Ironically, for those who drink the kool-aid, this will just be further proof of ‘global warming.’ What they don’t get is that warmer air is more stable air, as is drier air versus humid air. I used to live in the Valley in California, off Hwy 99, before I moved to the Southeast. I can count on one hand the number of times I saw thunderstorms there in one summer. Here, in North Carolina, they are a regular (if not regular enough) occurrance. The entire difference is the waters to which each state is located near. Warm humid air makes for better storm conditions than cooler drier air. But when the two clash in that great mixing bowl of the Great Plains, the results are explosive. If the upper atmosphere cools (not ‘global warming) and the lower atmosphere warms (due to surface warming), then we could really see some sights, but it still will not be due to global warming. Temperature, humidity, and pressure…those differences make all our weather.
The only ‘green’ Al Gore has his eyes on is the kind with dead presidents on top side.
As mentioned by Kim (10:48:11) relative humidity has not kept up with temperature. NASA data shows decreasing relative humidity at all levels since 1948.
here
If Dr. Singer is correct that water vapor and CO2 are responsible for 95% and 3.6% of the Greenhouse Effect, respectively, then the entire 30% increase in atmospheric CO2 since 1880 is swamped by declining humidity. Based on this one could argue that the Greenhouse Effect has weakened since 1948.
here
Ridge Resident,
First, everybody has a political stake in anything that affects this nation or this globe, including you, so spare us the lecture on partisan politics. We’re not the ones agitating for biofuels that are starving people because of higher global food prices, or the ones who want to tax energy companies via the ‘carbon tax’ so that everybody’s electricty bills are higher, nor the ones that want to deface private property in the name of ‘global warming.’ You base your assumptions on global warming being a fact. Well, what if it isn’t? What if you and Gore and Hansen and all that crowd are wrong? Have you ever considered that, even just hypothetically? If you are, it makes all this nonsense I mentioned above an enormous burden on global society and a rip-off for the American taxpayer. As for me, it is about money too. I like having some. Higher food and energy prices do not do that for me. The way we are going now, people like me will have to have food stamps just to buy groceries, but at least your conscience will be assuaged by the fact that we have somehow stopped global warming. Reasonable people can disagree on the facts, but you illustrate that you are not reasonable because you are gripped by the fear that AGW generates. If none of us are left? That could happen even without global warming. And just in case you hadn’t noticed, insulting people does little to help them in listening and understanding your point of view. Since I haven’t seen you on here before, unless you are using an alias, I assume you are new here; therefore, you really haven’t earned the right, if it can be earned at all, to speak to the ‘regulars’ around here like that. It’s called respect, look it up in the time you haven’t devoted to acting like an idiot.
Ridge Resident, assuming your message is refering to CO2 as a pollutant, its effect and magnitude of effect needs to be determined. What many of us sceptics don’t like about the current state of affairs is the religious faith Lubos points out as necessary to believe what Gore et al purvey. It is obvious to those paying attention that much of the ‘measured’ warming is due to affected measurement by UHI and adjustments to these questionable measurements. If you want people to agree to throw Trillions of dollars at a problem, it is best to determine if it is a problem, and what is the cost to what benefit. It is obvious too that Gore’s fantasy is not going to come true from CO2 in the next few millenia. This isn’t putting one’s head in the sand, it is becoming educated enough to make a determination rather than following with blind faith someone who wants your money if you will only believe in their scam. Your reward for doing thus is being able to think you are a concerned citizen, the secret is you don’t have to pay for it, you can think what you like, so far. Gore’s genius, is to choose an indeterminable
threat, advertize it well, and figure out how to capitalize on it.
The Carbon Trading collapse will make the current market turmoil look like playschool by comparison.
I am not sure a single sentence in the Des Moines Register is a reliable source. Nor do I trust graphs from ICECAP with no context. Kim, you may want to revise the difference between relative and specific humidity.
The audio of the speech is available from here. The ‘climate’ section is fairly short and starts at about 33 minutes in.
At no point does Mr Gore explicitly attribute these specific floods to climate change, however he points out that the floods form part of a pattern of ‘500 year’ flooding records being broken around the world in recent years. If you load a dice to roll more sixes, it is impossible to attribute any individual six to the loading of the dice, nonetheless, sixes become more common.
Here’s the relevant passage: “The scientists have warned us for years that the accumulation of global warming pollution in the atmosphere is trapping more of sun’s heat and raising temperatures and in the process evaporation more moisture off the oceans and the warmer air holds more of the moisture. The average humidity worldwide, everywhere in the world, has gone up dramatically and when storm conditions present themselves more rainfall and snowfall falls at the same time and it causes historic flooding.”
Has Gore got the science right? it seems so.
We identify a significant global-scale increase in surface specific humidity that is attributable mainly to human influence. Specific humidity is found to have increased in response to rising temperatures, with relative humidity remaining approximately constant. These changes may have important implications, because atmospheric humidity is a key variable in determining the geographical distribution and maximum intensity of precipitation, the potential maximum intensity of tropical storms.
Hope this is useful.
REPLY: Sorry but you’re wrong. The data cited in that paper from Phil Jones et al is only to 1999-2000 in the graphs and tables. Thus your assertion that it is relevant to the present flooding issue is wrong. The fact is that we are globally cooler now, your argument and Gore’s simply don’t hold up with current data.
“Specific humidity is found to have increased in response to rising temperatures, with relative humidity remaining approximately constant.” Thus with the cooler temperature of the present, we have less specific humidity, including June 2008 when flooding happened. – Anthony
Gore botched the science badly. – Anthony
This article of mine sets out some relevant information particularly the point that severity of storms is linked to increased differentials and not higher or lower temperatures overall.
Hence the important factor is the RATE of warming or cooling which dictates the size of temperature differentials that can develop.
We are currently in a global cooling mode so if we are getting more or bigger storms and precipitation then that is a reflection of the speed of cooling.
http://co2sceptics.com/news.php?id=1458
For keeping abreast of the catastrophic European climate change, I refer people to ccnet and register for the periodic newsletters: http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/cccmenu.html
Stephen Wilde’s post makes me ask this Q:
Is there any study which explores the relative effect of solar radiation changes at the poles, as opposed to the equator? i.e. Does an increase or decrease of solar energy input to the poles have a greater or lesser effect than at the equator Q.mark.
Bobby Lane,
Global warming is not a fact; so you win.
Paddy (11:52:28) :
Yes I have, this whole election cycle is the first time I have really taken a close look at American politics. I think Americans are going to have to have a real hard look at
them and hopefully vote most of them out.
Being a Canadian I have learned much about the American politics in the last few years. Unlike many Canadians I am Fan and supporter of the American people. I think the U.S. Constitution is one of the greatest things to ever have been written.
Don’t let any one ever take it any from you.
The Great Flood of 1993 is just a dim memory for the dim-wit Algore.
Bobby, the price of field corn is up approx. $0.03/lb over the early aughts. Do you really think this will lead to worldwide starvation?
Context: composed from NASA data.
The whole theory on which the GW zealots place their misplaced faith, the so-called “hockey stick” theory, has been well and truly debunked. Even the zealots have admitted that.
iceFree (14:35:05) :
The Constitution has fallen into disuse in the USofA. Would you like to have it.
Robert Wood,
Uhh…okay…thanks! What do I win? *prays silently for a hot blonde model and/or a Ferrari*
Actually, I keep up just fine with the climate changes, and more, in Europe via http://www.eureferendum.com
Also, that site gives you a good perspective as to how climate policies currently in effect, or being implemented soon, are affecting European economies. It’s a great way to look forwards to what we may have here in the United States. It’s actually the policies anyway that make more of a difference than the climate, though if the climate change were severe enough chaos would break out and policies would be irrelevant. I am much more worried anyway about us causing our own disaster through foolish policies based on bad science than I am from comets and meteors.
The odd thing is that none of this is anything new. Not even really bad stuff like ‘500-year floods’ are really new either. There’s been much worse weather historically, like the drop-off from the Eocene to the present period. So if we have a little warming or a little cooling here and there, that’s really nothing comparatively. Anyway, I am close to rambling now.
Considering 500 years ago there was no one keeping records in the American midwest, all we can go on are SWAGs. Also, the measure of flooding seems to be how much dollar damage it does. So according to that. Inflation causes more dangerous floods.
Our dopey Prime Minister Helen Clark wants New Zealand to be a “world leader” on “Climate Change”.
She LOVES Al Gorey.
For a light-hearted look at what our future under the carbon cloak might be:
http://shareinvestornz.blogspot.com/2007/09/of-tulip-bulbs-and-tooth-fairies.html
Those of us who are sensible and are on the right side of the argument need to retain a sense of humour because this push from the socialists to grab more of our money by way of carbon taxes is a joke.
How does that help the environment?
It simply doesn’t.
Moderators,
A longish piece I just posted, as a response to Kum Dollison, got stuck in the filter. Can you fish it out pweeeeze?
Ice Free,
“I think the U.S. Constitution is one of the greatest things to ever have been written.
Don’t let any one ever take it any from you.”
Thanks for the thought. We’re not using it anymore, perhaps we should sell it. Oh yeah, we just did.
Ed Scott (15:15:32)
Hey Ed we will do a trade you can have our wonderful, Canadian charter of rights and freedoms.
It’s and long read and can be twisted to suit just anything you can think of it’s so vague.
But Look on the bright side Ed, maybe your new president will write you a new one!!!
Discrediting someone based solely on a press report of a speech seems an odd use of time. The most one can say is that the version of what Al Gore said as reported by the Des Moines Recorder got the science wrong. If you listen to the audio you discover that the press description does not match what Gore actually said (no surprise there). Elsewhere he has taken pains to be clear that individual extreme events cannot be explicitly linked to GW. And I don’t quite get the relevance of the global temperature record to disproving that higher humidity was a factor in the floods – surely one would need to know the temperature and humidity record for the Ohio region, which are unlikely exactly to match the global trend.
In fact Gore’s point is that specific humidity tracks temperature quite closely and that humidity drives precipitation, causing more floods. This seems uncontroversial.
The data cited in that paper from Phil Jones et al is only to 1999-2000 in the graphs and tables. Thus your assertion that it is relevant to the present flooding issue is wrong. The fact is that we are globally cooler now
The Jones et al paper found a long term rising trend in the humidity since 1975 and this matches the trend in average global temperatures which have risen about 0.5C in the same period. To repeat – this was Gore’s point – we have increased, over a period of decades, the likelihood of severe flooding events. In this context the temperature change since the end of the study and the date of the floods (UAH average for 2000 : 0.04C, July 2008 : 0.06C) is not significant.
hope that’s clear,
JP.
REPLY: Yes your position is clear, thank you. However Gore was speaking to the present, speaking about the present “historical flooding” in Iowa and the present global temperature is cooler. thus following your lead from the paper, global water vapor is less that in the period leading up to 1999-2000 for which they have data.
BTW It’s Iowa not Ohio.
There’s no link to water vapor and the Iowa flooding, and there’s no link to increased tornadoes. Gore is clearly wrong on both counts and no amount of propping up or nitpicking on a press report’s accuracy is going to change that. Gore refuses to debate ANYBODY, so all we have are occasional press reports. In fact this press report was quite the exception, he usually doesn’t allow press. In this case he couldn’t control the venue since he was an invited guest. The man doesn’t play by any sort of rules except his own. He says what he wants, then keeps the press out of many events, (see here: http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/03/al-gore-says-no.html ) and refuses debate and the tough questions.
He’s also selling carbon credits to himself to offset his footprint. Combine that with his lack of debate or even to take questions, and the man has no integrity. Zero, nada, zilch. He’s a charlatan.
We’ll see if he demands a retraction for the presumed error in reporting. If one is done, then I’ll change my story to match.
“The Jones et al paper found a long term rising trend in the humidity since 1975 and this matches the trend in average global temperatures which have risen about 0.5C in the same period.” Ok fine, no dispute there, rising temps means rising humidity, basic meteorology.
“And I don’t quite get the relevance of the global temperature record to disproving that higher humidity was a factor in the floods -” Ok careful now…are you going to argue that LOWER tempertures, which is what we’ve had since 2007 don’t translate into lower humidity? Again basic meteorology.
No link, period, between supposed water vapor trend increases since 1975, and the present when the flooding occurred because of two simple facts:
1) Cooler global temperature since 2007, near zero anomaly i.e. “normal”
2) Average residence time of water vapor is 10 days
You talk about “an odd use of time.” I’d say that trying to defend a propagandist such as Gore is an odd use of yours. But in deference to your wishes, I certainly won’t waste any more time on the issue debating it. – Anthony
Darren Rickard (15:44:07)
New Zealand is the world leader in CH4 catchment bags for bovines.
My wife and I vacationed in New Zealand for 5 weeks in 1974-75. The Franz Joseph and Fox glaciers had receded by 1,000 feet at that time.
We were impressed with the rainfall. The day before we arrived at Milford Sound, there was 8 inches of rainfall in one hour. The trees literally slid into the Sound due to the water saturation of the soil.
iceFree (16:12:49) :
Considering Mark Steyn’s recent experience with the Canadian charter of rights and freedoms, we have to give your offer some thought. Our Constitution is “alive” and flexible and if this is insufficient to validate the personal beliefs of the SCOTUS judges, they have the option of relying on other constitutions, such as Zimbabwe’s.
Ridge Resident (12:33:23) :
Wrote:
“Ostriches put their heads in the sand when confronted with a crisis.”
No they don’t. Can’t you people get any scientific observation right?
Still, you are very likely right about ‘partisan’ politics, assuming you mean that all politicians and their supporting bureaucrats (broadest use of the term) are partisan supporters of their own importance and income sources. And that most of them have no interest at all in the other 99% of humankind except as sources of their own wealth.
Just in case you think this is some sort of attach on US politics – it isn’t. The ‘standard’ of politician around the world seems to be slipping ever lower (from a very low starting point) wherever you look. In my opinion putting any trust in any of them will likely be a very big mistake – even to the point of guaranteeing the early arrival of the very problems you would not wish for as “The legacy we leave to our descendants ….” as you phrase it.
My guess is that our present kids, not some possible generation of future grandchildren or great grandchildren, will experience the results of the current rush to tax and control well before the vague target dates set for the proposed catastrophe.
In which case, if they have any sense, our kids won’t have many kids. I guess that means the problem will be solved.
Global records should be taken with a grain of salt. Each record doesn’t amount to increased 6’s when you roll the dice. Each record should be compared to itself since each area lives in its own local or regional weather and climate system. How often a 6 appears in Kentucky cannot be compared to how often a 6 appears in Oregon. Hearing about or recording more records has nothing to do with whether or not there is an increase of records. That’s a media and active recording effect, not necessarily a global climate change effect.
An analogy can be made with autism. Is the rate increasing or are we better at detecting it? Or is it because we changed the definition (which we did)? Each 10 years a record is being set for the percentage of children being diagnosed with autism. But that does not mean it is actually increasing.
John Philip,
I just thought I’d point out that since the trend you cite is from 1975 to now, that pretty much tracks the PDO (Pacific Decadal Oscillation) in its ‘Warm’ phase. It has now, just this year, flipped back to ‘Cool’ so we’ll see if specific surface humidity tracks along with it, as well as temperatures. If so, then we’ll know that “global warming” is not to blame for it, nor we.
Anyway, your point and Gore’s on specific surface humidity is irrelevant. For humidity to have any GW effect it needs to be much higher in the atmosphere, and whatever effect the Sun had on evaporation as it reached its zenith in cycle 23 during 2001 is now pretty much kaput in comparison.
So, really, the only two specific points you have to make are that you don’t trust the DMR (or people on here) and that Gore did not, in that article, explicitly link global warming and catastrophic flooding. Well, since you’re into “research,” let me be of some assistance to you: http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=23668
There is Gore’s Congressional testimony of 2007 on global warming, where, amongst other things, he says as to the dangers of it:
“First of all, there is no longer any serious debate over the basic points that make up the consensus on global warming. The ten warmest years on record have all been since 1990. Globally, 2005 was the hottest of all. In the United States, 2006 was the warmest year ever. The winter months of December 2006 through February 2007 make up the warmest winter on record. These rising temperatures have been accompanied by many changes. Hurricanes are getting stronger. Sea levels are rising. Droughts are becoming longer and more intense. Mountain glaciers are receding around the world.
New evidence shows that it may be even worse than we thought. For example, a recent study published by the University of Alaska-Fairbanks indicates that methane is leaking from the Siberian permafrost at five times the predicted levels. Methane is 23 times as potent a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide and there are billions of tons underneath the permafrost.”
So, yes, Al Gore does explicitly link man-made global warming and natural catastrophes, the former causing the latter. Which leaves the only valid point you have ever made in your entire series of arguments as that you don’t trust the DMR, though you don’t exactly say why. Are they known for false reports on many subjects? Like Anthony, I am waiting for Gore to demand a retraction. But I won’t hold my breath. His Congressional testimony already proves the point.
Mr Tom said (12:16:43) :
“As a boy he worked on the Gore’s family tobacco farm. After high school he earned an undergraduate degree in journalism and then served in Vietnam. He later went to law school and then became a career politician. How does someone with that biography become qualified to comment on the climate?”
There are two answers to that question:
(i) Everyone is qualified to comment on any subject they want. If they talk rubbish they run the risk of it being exposed as rubbish, but they have every right to express their opinion.
(ii) The lack of formal qualifications in a subject is not a bar to knowledge. There is no difference between someone who studies and understands a subject then passes an exam and someone else who studies and understands the same subject to the same extent but does not sit an exam.
It is the substance of what someone says which determines whether his opinions deserve to be followed by others. If St Al spoke good sense his lack of formal qualifications would not stop it being good sense. As it is he spouts nonsense and it is the fact that it is nonsense that makes it nonsense, his lack of formal qualifications does not make it either more or less nonsensical.
John Philip(s):
Rather than show relative humidity anomalies, how about simply showing actual relative humidity: click
nice link to a graph http://climate-skeptic.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/09/25/hansen_forecast_1988.jpg contributed by Bobby Lane on another link.
Not sure if John Philips checks things related to the sun.
Paddy (11:52:28) :
IceFree: Have you noticed that Democrat candidates/holders of high office are serial liars? Clinton, Gore, Obama, Biden, Reid, Pelosi, Frank, Dodd, Boxer, Waxman, come to mind.
I was surprised that comment got past the moderators, having, as it does, nothing to do with science. I could make counter-arguments about some whopper liars of the other persuasion, but, again, that would have nothing to do with science.
Ed Scott, as Glaciers do, they lose size, to a greater or lesser extent as natural temperature fluctuations occur.
As the name might suggest though, this happens at a slow pace-just like Al Gores thoughtless processes.
I understand he may have lost alot of his carbon credit scams in in Lehman Bros collapse, proving that there is fairness in the universe.
Come back to New Zealand, it has stopped raining now…
But what would you do if they´d cheated you out of the Presidency?
Well, I’m sure dubya would have felt ever so bad if that had happened. #B^1
(Fortunately for democracy it did not.)
Leonard Ornstein (09:34:47) :”it’s leveled off at a WARM temperature.”
Citation?
History will have the last laugh with respect to Al Gore. It won’t be long before empirical evidence so completely overwhelms Al Gore’s lies, and he becomes nothing but a SNL parody. It takes a pretty big fool to make a giant bet against the Sun and the Pacific Ocean.
[…] http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/10/05/gore-demonstrates-he-doesnt-understand-basic-meteorology-much-… […]
Here comes the Climate Czar…stay tuned for November!
The trouble is they will believe him.
I hope the lad has not wasted that $3 million or so:
“AUSTRALIANS are getting bored with climate change, and many still doubt whether it is actually happening, a new survey has revealed.”
Aussies ‘bored’ with climate change
The Australian
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24455802-12377,00.html
It’s a wee bit unfair to Al Gore because he is actually repeating what many climatologists have already been saying. Notably Kevin Trenberth, who very often feeds the the press misleading speculation as if it was fact, stated that an apparent 3% increase in water vapor was due to warming and he helpfully guided journalists into linking that to the flooding. Of course he must have known it was nonsense but he said it anyway and many others copied him. Other climatologists have also linked the tornadoes and indeed virtually every other natural events to AGW seemingly on the basis that if it’s bad it must be mankind’s fault.
Also Gore was also fully “advised” on his factually incorrect documentary by some of the biggest names in climate science. So is he really to blame for listening to the scientists and promoting loudly what they say? We don’t actually expect politicians to get the science right but we do have a right to expect scientists to be honest. You are all hitting the wrong target. If Alexander Cockburn is correct that Gore has been a long-time lobbyist for nuclear power then that’s an area to focus your vitriol but if he genuinely believes what he is saying then it’s purely because the scientists are lying to him.
And the character that complained about democrats being serial liars must have been in a cave for the last 8 years and missed all the rather more serious lying from the other side. Yes politicians lie – all of them! Wow is that news to some of you? But anyone complaining about carbon taxes potentially screwing up the economy is a bit late: It’s screwed already. And it had nothing whatsoever to do with the greens or socialism, it was caused by the unchecked free market capitalism so beloved by modern economists and conservative voters. You just can’t escape that fact.
JamesG (02:53:01) I agree wholeheartedly with everything you say except that this housing mess was caused by poor regulations promulgated by Clinton. When Bush, supported by McCain, attempted to regulate the mess, Democrats like Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, and Chuck Schumer blocked them, supported by industry insiders presently and previously advising Obama. This mess is the Democrats’ fault.
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And Lehman’s demise was most likely aided by the fact that they’d been advised by Hansen and Gore, and were a world leader in the carbon trading schemes. That the carbon market is unsettled has a lot to do with unsettling in the market in general, and most likely, particularly in Europe, which is collapsing as I write. Well, the markets and the Euro are.
Historians may place some of the blame for this on the speculative bubble which is represented by all the carbon schemes.
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I think much of Gore’s logic is subject to question. I do not buy into the whole global warming concept because it is frankly very questionable science. I think anyone who links short term climate events to a long term trend is just playing a public relations game.
http://www.shareswatch.com.au/blog/
John Phillips,
How does one actually calculate what a “five hundred year flood” is anyway? Presumably one uses statistics to look at the variation around the mean and figures it out using standard deviations. Of course this assumes that conditions during the test period from which you took your initial data have held steady for five hundred years and have only recently began to change. In other words, your evidence assumes your conclusion.
kim (03:36:43) :
“JamesG (02:53:01) I agree wholeheartedly with everything you say except that this housing mess was caused by poor regulations promulgated by Clinton. When Bush, supported by McCain, attempted to regulate the mess, Democrats like Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, and Chuck Schumer blocked them, supported by industry insiders presently and previously advising Obama. This mess is the Democrats’ fault.”
Fairly or unfairly, presidents get credit and blame for what happens on their watch with regard to the economy. The nineties will rightly be remembered as a time of economic prosperity; the aughts will not.
I would be interested in reading any links you might have establishing that Clinton’s inadequate regulations caused the sub-prime lending crisis. Most reasonable people agree that Greenspan, under Bush, left the cash spigot on too long before exiting the stage, that Wall Street’s “new” “financial instruments,” abetted by an administration that looked the other way, were duplicitous, and that McCain neither understood what was happening when inappropriate home loans were being handed out by the tens of thousands and then traded on Wall Street by reckless investment bankers nor took any steps to address the growing bubble and the aftermath once it burst.
In terms of honesty, one could argue that national debt is inherently dishonest. By that measure, the TRILLIONS in new debt racked up during the last eight years is an astonishing instance of dishonesty.
Whether one is on the political left or right, Al Gore’s campaign of disinformation, whether knowing or unknowing, is not good. His juggernaut of AGW is likely to continue to distract national governments, and many people, from the true challenges posed by the coming cold.
“But what would you do if they´d cheated you out of the Presidency?”
Well, I will take a shot at your rhetorical question. Dick Nixon, who is the last person to be cheated out of the presidency that we know about, didn’t take it very well, and it released a dark side in him that did him no great service in the end.
Yes he is, since he flatly refuses to listen to anyone with an alternate theory, or with contrary evidence.
Harold Ambler (05:44:03) It was Clintonian regulations loosening the requirements for loans that set the juggernaut down the hill.
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kim (07:52:03) :
“Harold Ambler (05:44:03) It was Clintonian regulations loosening the requirements for loans that set the juggernaut down the hill.”
Citation please. I would need a news article, not an opinion article. If you provide a link, then we can argue about that.
In the meantime, I would compare monetary policy to driving a vehicle. Sometimes government needs to put on the brakes, and sometimes just releasing the brakes is enough. Sometimes government even needs to step on the accelerator. Clinton, for all his manifest sins, had a nuanced understanding of markets and regulations. There is a reason he left office with a budget surplus.
When one occupant of the White House, i.e. Bush, takes the wheel, it is up to him or her to determine what needs to be done — at that moment in time. Saying that the previous drive tapped the accelerator five miles back won’t do. Bush has driven us into several ditches.
Again some what of topic but a great read just the same.
On October 2, Poland persuaded Greece to join its dissenting group, which also comprises Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia. Under EU rules, decisions can be blocked by a given number of member states, and the Poles have constructed such a ‘blocking minority’
http://web.mac.com/sinfonia1/Global_Warming_Politics/A_Hot_Topic_Blog/Entries/2008/10/5_Poles_To_Freeze_Brussels%E2%80%99_Sprouts_.html
Gore speaks as a nuncio of the Environmentalism faith (Thank you very much Freeman Dyson) . His “utterings” (or “mutterings”) (or bulls) have resulted in a new definition for the verb “gored,” in that this process is verbal, whereas the traditional bull accomplishes it physically.
I live in Iowa and my hometown was engulfed in the floods. A five hundred year flood is a misnomer. It really means there is a 1 in 500 chance to have a flood of that magnitude for that year.
Last winter was cold and we had very large snows that did not melt. My town received more than 6 feet of snow over the winter. It melted late which caused most farmers to delay planting because of the soil moisture. A rainy spring kept the soil moisture and rivers high.
The system that spawned a tornado in western Iowa that hit a Boy Scout camp was responsible for dropping up to 10 inches of rain overnight in northern Iowa. The Iowa and Cedar River basins were the main ones affected with the large snowfall, soil moisture and large rainfall.
Waterloo and Cedar Rapids were affected by the Cedar River. Iowa City was affected by the Iowa River. The rivers join near Columbus Junction and continue as the Iowa River from there to the Mississippi River. My hometown, Oakville, was inundated by the river when the levee failed. Levees also failed for Illinois towns of Keithsburg, Gulfport and New Boston. Failures also occurred in Missouri.
Cedar Rapids was only expecting a 20 foot flood, which they raised to 22 then 25 feet. The final level was estimated at 32 feet. Nearly the entire downtown was affected. Homes nearly a mile away were hit.
At Oakville, every building had water. The town was covered between 4 to 10 feet. Over 22,000 acres of farmland were wiped out. It has been estimated 30% of the farmland in the state was adversely affected by the wet spring and floods.
A colder winter, heavy snowfalls, spring rains and heavy summer thunderstorms all combined to cause the floods. We have had cold winters before, heavy snowfalls before, spring rains before and heavy thunderstorms before. This combination was what caused the flooding.
This summer was cooler than normal and September was warmer than normal.
Harold Ambler. This piece in that well known Republican bastion called the NY Times, lays the root of the problem at Fannie and Freddie to Clinton’s “encouraging” them to loosen the qualifications to get a home mortgage. This allowed (some say forced) people lending the money to do away with time honored parameters of what you needed to have to qualify for a loan in order to allow low income people to get a home. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DE7DB153EF933A0575AC0A96F958260&scp=1&sq=Fannie%20Mae%20Eases%20Credit%20To%20Aid%20Mortgage%20Lending&st=cse
While Bush has made some real bonehead mistakes, this article shows his attempt to force some oversight on Freddie and Fannie back in 2003.
http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid=%7B74DABC67-B059-465E-AF68-6DB22EB961CD%7D
Gore doesn’t have to understand meteorology…not as long as MSM is pumping out articles like this:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/09/28/what.matters.meltdown/index.html
And for those that think that Gore is somehow an “innocent” in all this, and is just accepting what some bad scientists are telling him, you need to do a little research on what Gore is involved in these days, and how his personal wealth managed to climb from approx. $800K to roughly $1.2B dollars in 8yrs. These aren’t smears…these are facts. This man is evil, and should be tried for crimes against humanity.
JimB
JamesG [snip] . The financial collapse has nothing to do with the “free market” failure. It is because of intervention in it by governments that has caused it. The latest because of government’s allowing people to borrow money for houses they couldn’t pay back, Fannie and Freddie are evidence of that.
The GW nonsense IS about socialism and the Greens and the influence and control they want to gain by draining us of taxes.
That is what socialism is about.
It is bloody evil.
Good job, Anthony. You just have to keep after this continuously for the benefit of us metereological illiterates, because “Chicken Little” Gore is going to take advantage of any major weather event to spread his alarmist propaganda. This man is unconscionable in his disregard for the truth.
Al Gore doesn’t care whether he tells the truth or not. His goal is to scare the hell out of everyone so that they will do whatever he says to correct the preceived global warming that he truelly believes in. To him the end justifies the means. If you keep repeating a lie long enough people will start believing it.
How does one actually calculate what a “five hundred year flood” is anyway?
Think of it this way: Flooding is generally local. There are fifty states. Assuming a state-by stat evaluation, there’s a 10% chance of a five hundred year flood every year.
You have to deduct to include multi-state events, but you get the general idea. #B^1
I will resist refuting some of the silly economic notions I have just read. (Just take it that I am a liberal voting GOP largely for economic reasons and leave it at that. Free the Enterprise 350 million.)
Al Gore is a mouse studying to be a rat. So far he has only achieved obese mouse.
Well, I will take a shot at your rhetorical question. Dick Nixon, who is the last person to be cheated out of the presidency that we know about, didn’t take it very well, and it released a dark side in him that did him no great service in the end.
However he did not challenge the formal results for the good of the country. And we can’t really be 100% sure.
The one time I can figure that the election was outright stolen was Tilden-Hayes. Hays was 18 EV behind with 19 EV “in dispute”. So GOP congress decided that all 19 be made into a single block (what a crock!) and awarded the block to Hayes (in return for Jim Crow).
The damage Nixon did to the US was NOTHING compared with what over 80 years of legalized apartheid did.
I wasn’t going to infest Mr Watts’ lovely blog with anything about the financial meltdown, but people seem to be determined to debate it, so here goes.
If you are in the business of making a profit by lending money you are well advised to lend only to those who can repay you.
Lending for house purchase involves two elements of security – a charge over the property and the personal covenant of the borrower. A borrower who cannot afford to repay does not cause a problem if the property provides sufficient security. Equally, a property worth nothing is not a problem provided the owner pays his mortgage loan.
Good practice requires two limits to the amount advanced: (i) the repayments should be an affordable proportion of the borrower’s likely income (therefore the amount advanced should be limited to the capital sum which such an income can afford to repay) and (ii) the property used as security should be worth substantially more than the amount advanced (because there are costs associated with repossession and sale and a forced sale often results in a lower than average price being achieved).
If you lend without due regard to these two factors you run the risk of making a loss on the transaction.
Two factors caused vast amounts of bad lending in the USA: (i) the Community Regeneration Act which requires banks to lend to all sectors of society (not all President Clinton’s fault, it was introduced by President Carter and expanded by President Clinton) and (ii) lending purely on the basis of property valuations in a rising property market. The first factor paid insufficient regard to the value of the borrower’s covenant to repay and the second paid insufficient regard to the true value of the property offered as security.
The first factor was caused wholly by government intervention in the market. The second was caused wholly by market forces, forces which had been skewed by the effect of the first factor in that artificially bringing buyers into a market they cannot afford creates apparent demand which forces up prices.
The next stage of the problem was the selling-on of loans and the use of them as security for other debt. A bank with a lending book of $100million bringing a maximum return of $8million a year appears healthy, so they package up thousands of mortgage loans and commercial loans and sell the right to receive the future income. If you have advanced $100million and have the right on paper to a return of 12.5% someone will be tempted to pay you your capital investment ($100million) and 10 years of interest against an average loan life of 20 years. So you sell for $180million, repay the $100million of capital you had to expend and go out for a very nice dinner indeed.
The problem comes when the toxic bad loans start to default. Not only does the purchaser of the loans receive a reduced income but he repossesses properties and finds he can’t sell them for their book value. The investment of $180million can lose substantial value almost overnight. Once the loan book has been sold, re-sold, broken into bits, packaged with other bank’s books, sold again and used as security for commercial lending no one can value any package of loans with confidence.
Greedy speculators invested in loan books containing vast tracts of toxic waste and will never get their money back. They are to blame for not valuing what they were buying with sufficient care. That is not a fault of the market, it is the market in operation. If you are stupid enough to buy a 20 year old Ford Escort for the price of a new Mercedes you have only yourself to blame for not sending a mechanic to examine the car.
And all the time the US government had regulators in place to oversee how these markets were operating and issue warnings and guidance if bad practices were developing. The regulators were in place precisely because a raw market can allow spivs and speculators to distort true values.
Was there a failure of the market? Yes, of course there was. Was the market alone to blame? Absolutely not, it was distorted by the CRA. That is not a criticism of the policy behind the CRA, and here I have to be blunt. The CRA was enacted not because American banks did not lend to those on the margin of being able to afford their own home but because American banks did not lend to those on the margin who were of dark pigmentation (not all banks, but enough to make it a genuine matter of governmental concern). It was designed by President Carter as a necessary civil rights measure, albeit one which would distort the market.
To prevent the distortion being amplified through securitisation of marginal loans, regulators had the power to intervene. But they did not intervene. They sat back, as did both the White House and Congress, while house-price inflation and a general credit bubble gave the impression of ever increasing wealth. Eventually it had to unfold because a bubble is just a bubble and every bubble bursts eventually. This one has burst and left banks and investment houses holding untold billions of poor security.
The market is partly to blame because all markets have the capacity to be used by the unscrupulous to the detriment of the impecunious. Any suggestion that the problem is the fault of the market being too free is a self-defeating proposition. The market was not free, it was overseen by regulators with massive powers. If only they had seen fit to do their job the bubble would have been identified and countered many years ago.
There.
Nothing to do with weather stations, global warming, climate change or cricket. But jolly good stuff anyway.
Oh … and now there is no money. This is one reason for that:
http://thefatbigot.blogspot.com/2008/10/where-has-all-money-gone.html
That seems to be fairly stated.
Ad to it the fact that banks had default insurance — but then all the defaults caused the default insurance companies to go bust and the banks were left holding the bag.
Nice wrapup of the banking/loan issue. Free markets praying on stupid people who can be convinced that they can get more than what they can afford, while regulators sit on their hands, can affect smart people who have always paid their bills but are trying to float a loan till their product gets sold and they can pay off operating expenses. But even then, really smart people should salt away profits so that operating expenses can be covered the next year till produce gets to market. That means that share holders need to learn to live with smaller dividends so that these companies can keep more of their profits for coming expenses. Basically, everyone needs to act smarter and learn to live with less by saving more. I would put it in a mattress or other equally secure place if you are going to use it within the next 6 months.
Regardless of my raw attempt to summarize the issue, the above summary by FatBigot seems like a good one to me.
Bobby Lane wrote:
“[…]And just in case you hadn’t noticed, insulting people does little to help them in listening and understanding your point of view. Since I haven’t seen you on here before, unless you are using an alias, I assume you are new here; therefore, you really haven’t earned the right, if it can be earned at all, to speak to the ‘regulars’ around here like that. It’s called respect, look it up in the time you haven’t devoted to acting like an idiot.”
Aww, ya got me. I had no intention of showing any respect, because I really don’t have any for the “regulars” here. I just happened to be browsing blogs and checked this out to see what it was about and saw an opportunity to stir the hive. Unfortunately for me, there is little sport in it. Maybe, if it weren’t so easy, I might pursue the “right” to comment here.
Instead, I’ll devote my energy and money where it could really make a difference, writing to Congress about the issue and supporting legislators and executives who have the vision to tackle this very real problem head-on.
So I’ll leave you to revel in your sense of superiority and with a wonderful article and video by David Elliot Cohen that showcases the photography of Gary Braasch. Enjoy, and au revoir.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/09/28/what.matters.meltdown/index.html#cnnSTCText
REPLY: Pay him no mind, he’s just a sometimes writer to the local alternative weekly. He always acts this way. – Anthony
Fat Bigot, great explanation of the housing crises except Carter and Clinton shouldn’t have intervened because of a failure of black people to get loans.
I suspect a large number were not allowed to borrow money simply because they couldn’t afford to service one, and that should have been that.
Politics and the free market just don’t go well together.
“If Alexander Cockburn is correct that Gore has been a long-time lobbyist for nuclear power then that’s an area to focus your vitriol but if he genuinely believes what he is saying then it’s purely because the scientists are lying to him.”
I would certainly like to think that someone that came so close to being president was not that gullable. I used to like Al Gore, but since he lost that election he has not been the same person.. now he has joined the darkside:)
Kim
Just to be clear I don’t blame Democrats or Republicans, conservatives or liberals, for the market failure. I blame new-wave economists brought up on the Washington consensus and free-market dogma because, just like the socialist economists before them they think the system will works fine without human checks and balances. When in fact it always fails inevitably by human greed and dogma and the need to believe what you want to believe. However, you’ll find after very little searching, that it was liberals like Krugman, Stiglitz etc who warned the world. Conservatives on the other hand seemed to believe in the tooth fairy eg “deficits don’t matter”, “the only problem is a wordwide savings glut”, “the debt is a sign of confidence in America”, “compare the gdp to debt ratios”, etc, etc. All blah blah blah!
pKatt
Yes politicians ARE gullible and stupid as well as being liars. Sometimes they have wars for no apparent reason except perhaps to increase their popularity. Worse, the even more stupid and gullible voting population, in patriotic fervor, fall for the ruse every time.
And you guys who say that the free-market works are correct because everything does eventually fall back to it’s true value. However that correction takes too long and cuts too deep when it comes. When it comes then every economist – like fatbigot above – turn out to be marvelously wise after the event like economists always are just after they’ve been mightily wrong.
JamesG, the fault for the collapse lie fairly and squarely on your federal government for allowing people who couldn’t afford to borrow money do just that AND on those borrowing it.
The Wall Street types just went along on the taxpayer subsidized ride.
“It really means there is a 1 in 500 chance to have a flood of that magnitude for that year.”
Yeah, under the conditions that are prevelant during the measurement period. I just don’t believe that the conditions last for 500 years. I think that a statement like “the increase in prevalence of 500 year floods” is a circular argument, for the reasons I gave above.
Darren (01:13:49) The Boston Fed report in 1992, which purported to show that blacks were disproportionately being denied mortgages and upon which the subsequent, tragically mistaken, policy was erected, had fatally flawed analysis of the data. When the errors were corrected it showed that there wasn’t any racial discrimination in the mortgage market at all. And on this the horribly flawed policy was based. Kenneth Fritsch, at climateaudit makes an analogy with poor climate policy flowing from terribly flawed analysis of data.
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The moral of the story then KIm?
Do your research properly…