So far, the only climate refugees I’ve ever seen in reality are the ones that travel from NYC, Boston, Minneapolis, and other cold winter locations to escape to Florida and Arizona during November-March.
I have to laugh at this though:
Climate disruption will be the defining issue of this century and probably for centuries to come. No famine, no war, no plague, not even natural disasters will compare with the impacts of this event on human civilization.
Story here
Yeah sure, just a few years ago nobody was talking about “climate disruption”. Now we have another hockey stick. Funny how when we had weather disasters before nobody knew it was actually climate disruption and not simply plain old weather. See this Google ngram graph plotting the frequency of use of the phrase “climate disruption”.
h/t to reader GregO
May I ask the obvious question? Thanks,
How did they eliminate weather? I don’t want crickets for an answer.
What total balderdash. Why did I even read it?
Living around 200 miles east of Portland and near the same elevation, the climate change going on this year in the northwest is definitely toward cooling. With temperatures 10 – 15 degrees F. below normal, we are 2 to 3 weeks behind in the normal growth of local crops. And, this evening (Thursday, June 9, 2011) the setting sun produced a beautiful sun dog which doesn’t happen here very often in June.
The runoff this year is of epic proportions. This is basically all statement with no facts presented. The writer Kat West should be sent back to school for retraining and rehab. We should not let these polluters of fact get away unchallenged. Looks OK to me.
http://lakepowell.water-data.com/
Oregon, in October, when not as many heating vents or A/Cs affect thermometer stations, shows no trend:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Lxqre8hMG3M/Sxso3kv4_3I/AAAAAAAAAzw/CBf3FV_DuRE/s1600-h/weatherOregoncooling.gif
Find your own state here on Glenn Morton’s blog: http://themigrantmind.blogspot.com/2009/12/hundred-years-of-october-cooling.html
Perhaps they can be housed in all the unused tents that were purchased for the UN-predicted millions of climate refugees that were sure to appear by 2010.
And here I thought that being a hardcore skeptic of anthropogenic climate disruption/change/global warming (or whatever) here in western Oregon pretty much defined me as a climate change refugee. So when y’all come out here to take our water, bring your money because Salem needs it for windmill payola.
If you hack around on this link:
http://lakepowell.water-data.com/
Excellence in civil engineering to manage the water from up north and irrigation, and modern energy technology enabling air-conditioning have made the desert southwest a great place to live. It is beautiful here in the Phoenix Arizona area for example. It’s where I call home. However, I was born and raised in Portland, Oregon and visit my family there often.
I will not be fleeing Phoenix anytime soon due to Climate Disruption. This year for example has been fabulous.
It is well known that Oregonians are, in general, somewhat less than amenable to outsiders moving into their state. However, the idea that “disruptive” climate change as a direct result of human activity will drive climate refugees to relocate to Oregon to escape climate calamity is laughable in the extreme. However, its dreary climate (in western Oregon) can only be attractive to a few. In addition, since “climate disruption” will supposedly cause increased precipitation somewhere and since that somewhere will, supposedly, not be in places like the southwest US, then “climate disruption” will result in even more dreary weather in the state.
The important question to the rest of us is, how will this “climate disruption” affect the production of the state’s excellent pinot noir wine? That is my major concern.
Never, in the history of mann (sic) has anyone moved to Portland for climate.
Also, how can anyone take global warming seriously when Phoenix, Tampa, and Memphis have hockey teams and Portland does not? Seriously, folks.
I will be fleeing Tucson this summer and will take a short refuge in Portland. The AGW here in the desert is unbearable in August, but climate disruption fortunately calms down in the winter months, so I will be back.
How and where do we start? First, our bright-line test should be “no new money for old ways.” Let’s draw a line in the sand and commit through all our planning and investments to integrated land use, transportation, [etc.]….
Warning, don’t no one make a move until Portland has installed that
current liberal fetishsustainability-sustaining “light rail” line!Wow. Portland must be some sort of paradise.
I missed the obvious when last there. Seemed like another constipated liberal city living off the the dying remnants of the people who actually built the place.
This is another (humourous) example of the central conceit which animates the moral vanity brigade: It’s all about them. Everything that really matters is going to happen in their lifetime because, after all, they are so important. It’s the “Age of Aquarius” and 7,000 people doing TM simultaneously to alter the consciousness of the planet all over again. There’s a certain 2005 book whose first line was “It’s not about you”. If only our fantasist, alarmist friends could learn this one lesson then half (all?) of the rubbish, agit-prop that masquerades as journalism or informed comment would vanish in an instant.
n.b – Portland’s proposed one “light rail” line with its two car limit, because otherwise, if it stops, it blocks real traffic.
NikFromNYC says:
June 9, 2011 at 10:16 pm
“Find your own state here on Glenn Morton’s blog: http://themigrantmind.blogspot.com/2009/12/hundred-years-of-october-cooling.html”
Looking at the graphs I see no indication of the US exiting the LIA. No warming trend except slight for Nevada and Utah but the Nation as a whole shows maybe some minor warming since LIA.
Each state and the country as a whole looks pretty flat temp wise.
WT……?
The Mad Dhog lives in Portland doesn’t he?
I saw an interview with Prince Phillip who has just turned 90. He said that he cares for the environment but that you didn’t need to be a “bunny hugger” to do that. Are you listening, Prince Charles?
It was -1.2C in parts of Scotland last night. June 9th.
Meanwhile in the real world:
Record snowpack has recently been indicated in the Western US.
http://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/ftpref/data/water/wcs/gis/maps/WestwideSWErecord.pdf
Why are we being constantly told that climate disruption is here and climate disruption is expected in decades time. The only disruption from drought is record breaking snowpack levels in the West. Remember how Australia was supposed have more frequent droughts???? Their dams weren’t told.
“I have to laugh at this though: ”
Please don’t laugh, some of us have to live in the same state as these crackpot green shirts.
Thanks
JK
Last winter there were several days when it was much colder in Portland, OR, than Minneapolis, MN. I’m sure Portlanders provide their own share of “climate change refugees.”
The population of Britain in 1940 was 46million. It is now 62million. The extra 16million people are supported on food and goods imported from overseas. The UK economy grew during the period in line with a similar growth in the consumption of energy. Therefore if we roll back the energy consumption to where it was in 1940 we will need to roll back the economy to where it was in 1940 and that means reducing the population by 16million people. If that ain’t disruption I don’t know what is.
On my very first visit to Portland some years ago we landed in pouring rain.
After getting my bags and stepping outside to get a cab it was still throwing it down. I turned to a kid standing next to me and I said ” Hey kid does it always rain like this in Portland?”.
He looked back at me and said ” How the hell should I know I’m only ten years old”.
Old one I know *grin* but I have been back on many occasions and it is always raining. I don’t plan on being a refugee there, that’s for sure.
I’ve just spoken to an Aussie pilot I met in the bar here in Heathrow Airport. Apparently Brisbane had its coldest day ever yesterday at 8C. 46F.
Personally I am a climate refugee to the Northwest, I moved to North Idaho to escape the horrific heat of my native Texas, so far I have been delighted, as both Texas has gotten worse(hotter) and Idaho better (colder), however I fail to see what global warming has to do with this.
The old joke goes: “People in Portland don’t tan in the summer, they rust.”
The Moving Finger Writes, And Having Writ, Moves On, Nothing to See Here. (The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, modified)
Passing from Global Warming, through Climate Change, to Extreme Climate Events, to Severe Climate Disruption, we see how the terminolgy shifts to encompass an even greater number of phenomena such as abnormal cooling arising from global warming.
The next logical term is “Increased Average Normality”, whereby every imaginable circumstance of climate can be blamed on the Moving Finger of Man.
IAN = Increased Average Normality. You read it here first.
Utterly assinine, to characterize the article as being balderdash being far too charitable.
Someone needs to tell them that the current fetish is that “Global Warming” will cause more rain, not less. So that sidbar to the picture that says it’s going to cause droughts needs to be replaced. That is history not in keeping with the current dogma (and heavy rain / snows…) Someone needs to tell the AGW History Revision Team that they are being too slow with the airbrush…
“Beaverton Valley Times”, this is made up right, like the Onion?
I was born in Portland 60 some years ago! I moved out at age 5 and I am still trying to get the webs out from between my toes!
My sister is a climate refugee doing the Idaho / Arizona loop each year. They used to call them Snow Birds!
From the article:
“The Northwest, with our temperate weather and abundant water, will not be immune to climate change impacts, by any means. In fact, we may be a victim of our own success.”
Notice the word “our” in there? And what success is she talking about? Does she really believe that she or anyone else has anything to do with creating the climate there. Perhaps she is a god in her own mind.
Semi-OT: this morning’s news in the NW is full of a story about long-term decrease in snowpack. “Don’t be fooled by the recent increase”, they say; “it can’t represent a cycle because we know everything in Nature moves in infinite linear trends.”
I took the trouble to purchase the original USGS article, and their graph shows something very different from a linear long-term trend.
http://polistrasmill.blogspot.com/2011/06/snowpack-vs-global-warming.html
Gee here I and wife are excited about 70F in the coming week. The Portland Rose Festival is having a hard time getting roses for the floats. If I was worried about “Climate Refugees” I’d b e Worried about Canadians heading south….
“If the climate disruption is nice this weekend, I’m going to go play 18 holes of golf”.
Sorry, it just doesn’t have the same nice ring the old term had.
Snake Oil comes in many package.
Droughts happen.
In some places populations increase between droughts.
Nature’s cyclical behavior may be disruptive to some human lives.
It is less clear that some human lives can disrupt natures cycles.
# Why did I even read it?
There is one big reason to really care about this stuff. People are using arguments based on “climate disruption” to spend real public money. When Wisconsin’s new governor nixed a high speed rail line, one of the arguments that was thrown at me was that WI NEEDED the rail line to handle all of the increased population that will come north when the south becomes uninhabitable! The person was adamant. I was dumbstruck.
There really are people who think that way, and there are more of them than you think, and they are influencing public policy.
The mathematical equivalent of an “infinite linear trend” is a curve (yet saying so would weaken their argument). Very few things in Nature are a straight line, and even those are certainly not for long. Even this “climate change disruption” meme isn’t going to endure; they’ll find a new, more hysterical term to represent their agenda.
Portland has a major problem with a volcano and a fault line off shore. Either one of those can/will cause “disruption”in the area. If the fault gives a tsunami will disrupt areas inland for miles. And it gives way on a regular basis. If the volcano blows will all bets are off. They need to worry about those not climate.
NikFromNYC says:
June 9, 2011 at 10:16 pm
“Thanks for the October graphs. It is always fun to see important factual information that the Warmista would not discuss to save their lives.”
To Mike Davis, here in Central Florida we still call them “Snow Birds.” There are so many of them that they are clearly visible, like a new flock arriving. Grocery stores are packed with upscale people in their seventies and eighties.
Actually, it is the $200,000 a bed flop house they just built for the homeless with yoga and painting classes. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703937104576303033608531702.html
Portland, the city of moonbats. Everyone here is nuts, and Eugene is even worse. Eugene, what an ironic name! I sometimes use the phrase “The Peoples Republic of Portland”, in reference to the “Peoples Republic of Kalifornia” where many moonbats migrated from, in derision. I have recently started seeing bumper stickers with that and a red star. The owners display them with community pride! Truelly and honestly a large percentage of the population thinks that Marxism is a good idea, what pathetic fools they are.
What about Canada? It’s cold here. And we don’t get a lot of earthquakes or tornadoes. Plus, climate, ahem, disruption will extend the geographical area of the grain belt and and allow us to grow more kinds of fruits and vegetables up north. Maybe we should build a really big fence around the contry, eh?
DavidM
June 10, 2011 at 5:44 am
###
Sorry, it isn’t. And this is one of the more conservative rags here!
http://www.beavertonvalleytimes.com/news/index.php
I hate it here. I want to go back to the desert were I belong. Too bad that the project I am working on is so exciting, that I de-Gault-ed to work on it. Maybe in a year or two …..
If you like constant rain in winter, and a nanny state to rival California, then you would like Portland.
Portlanders love Goth and their city.
I was there for a couple of weeks in March this year. It stopped raining for two days out of 14. Cold, too. Normal for most of the winter and early spring.
Amusing article, but Portlanders seem to love it there.
We get this stuff nearly every day.
Kat is typical of nearly every bureaucrat in Oregon government agencies related to anything land use, transportation, sustainability, environment, planning etc.
We have a heavily dominating, disproporianate concentration of lunatics where most states have a few spattering s of kooks.
Here is another one today.
http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2011/06/snowpack_declines_in_northern.html
Snowpack declines in Northern Rockies, Upper Columbia region ‘almost unprecedented’ in last 800 years, study says.
Assuming this is a medium to long wave cooling trend the Pac NW will go into a depopulation trend.
ShrNfr says:
June 10, 2011 at 7:51 am
Actually, it is the $200,000 a bed flop house they just built for the homeless with yoga and painting classes. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703937104576303033608531702.html
Yes, the Portland branch of these sensitives are indeed well aware of their close kin, The Homeless, as well as their personal future situation – perhaps striking them tomorrow?. At least when the members of their Wisconsin blood line aren’t also emphasizing their nearly indistinguishable resemblance to full-fledged Zombies there in Wisc., where they recently demonstrated “in the face of” a Gov. Scott Walker – Special Olympics event, apparently due to their unjust exclusion from the Special Olympics!
There IS a reason that the NW cities of Portland and Seattle lead the country in the number of cases of Depression and Suicide… They are both hot beds od neo-socialist belief. The climate rusts their brains, and the average discussion varies from Pol Potism through KimIL Sungism, to Maoism on the left edge of Leftisms, to Bolshevism, Musolini- Corporate- socialism and finally national socialism on the right edge of Leftism.
The only common thing is they are ALL Socialists.
The last time we had real climate change Portland would have been a poor choice of destinations to flock to. It was buried under hundreds of feet of water.
http://hugefloods.com/ColumbiaGorge.html
http://geo-nsdi.er.usgs.gov/metadata/open-file/03-408/metadata.faq.html
And will be again. When we have real climate change.
The only thing we have to worry about ‘climate change’ in PDX is those water hogs in SOCAL who will use it as an excuse to revive the proposal that they had in the `60’s to pipe “excess water” from the Columbia River to SOCAL.
It may be that behind such stories is a subliminal awareness that if they don’t keep up the hype the whole story will collapse – since there’s nothing in people’s lives that supports the notion of runaway warming.
So what’s wrong with selling a tiny fraction of excess water to anyone?
Or giving it away to farmers like legislative bill would have provided for an Orewgon county rich in farmland but no water.
Oregon Democrat legislators killed a bill that would have done so.
As for the truth about the snow pack trends
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/marka/swe.na.1976-2008.gif
A couple years ago I constructed this composite of all 448 snotel and snow course sites with complete records across western North America (Arizona to Alaska) between 1976 and 2008. This does not even include 2011, a very big year for snowpack in the West. Hopefully this demonstrates that all the alarm about the decline in snowpack is not justified.
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/marka/swe.na.1976-2008.gif
-mark albright
WA State Climatologist (1987-2003)
FYI:
http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/framingham/2011/06/snow_pile_lives_on_in_framingh.html
Not the NW, but if the Humid Continental NE has this, imagine the Marine West Coast NW someday. It’s all about precip amount combined with slight cooling.
Kat West
Director, Office of Sustainability
kathleen.s.west@multco.us
Here is a link to the snotel summary of western U S precipitation data real time for this date . Examples: Snow water equivalent for Utah=570% of normal water content. Nevada= 500%, Great Basin=494%, California=394%, Wyoming=368%.
Link:
http://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/reports/UpdateReport.html?textReport=Summary+of+Western+US&textRptKey=35&textFormat=SNOTEL+Snow%2FPrecipitation+Update+Report&StateList=Select+a+State&RegionList=Select+a+Region+or+Basin&SpecialList=35&MonthList=June&DayList=10&YearList=2011&FormatList=N0&OutputFormatList=HTML&textMonth=June&textDay=10&CompYearList=select+a+year
Its amazing what strange mental images some people can brainwash themselves to believe. Living in Western Oregon can do that to you. Consider “Sometimes A Great Notion…” Fishing is great up there, I’ll give it that.
http://www.timberlinelodge.com/conditions/
Link represents actual conditions. Weather IS NOT climate. a selected dataset is …………