Guest essay by Eric Worrall
As Hurricane Harvey survivors struggle with the aftermath, the cleanup, with power outages and portable generators, reporters far away in comfortable offices in New York think they have a solution to their problems; a new carbon tax.
We Don’t Deny Harvey, So Why Deny Climate Change?
Nicholas Kristof SEPT. 2, 2017
Imagine that after the 9/11 attacks, the conversation had been limited to the tragedy in Lower Manhattan, the heroism of rescuers and the high heels of the visiting first lady — without addressing the risks of future terrorism.
That’s how we have viewed Hurricane Harvey in Houston, as a gripping human drama but without adequate discussion of how climate change increases risks of such cataclysms. We can’t have an intelligent conversation about Harvey without also discussing climate change.
…
Remember also that we in the rich world are the lucky ones. We lose homes to climate change, but in much of the world families lose something far more precious: their babies. Climate change increases risks of war, instability, disease and hunger in vulnerable parts of the globe, and I was seared while reporting in Madagascar about children starving apparently as a consequence of climate change.
An obvious first step is to embrace the Paris climate accord. A second step would be to put a price on carbon, perhaps through a carbon tax to pay for tax cuts or disaster relief.
We also must adapt to a new normal — and that’s something Democratic and Republican politicians alike are afraid to do. We keep building in vulnerable coastal areas and on flood plains, pretty much daring Mother Nature to whack us.
…
A week and a half ago, Republicans and Democrats traveled to see the solar eclipse and gazed upward at the appointed hour, because they believed scientific predictions about what would unfold. Why can’t we all similarly respect scientists’ predictions about our cooking of our only planet?
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/02/opinion/sunday/hurricane-harvey-climate-change.html
I once had to power my home for a week from a portable generator, thanks to outages caused by a major tropical storm. A portable generator is an expensive way to produce power, but its better than letting the food spoil.
The last thing people in that situation need is higher fuel bills.
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Yessiree. Benevolent Taxation for the purpose of redistribution. The new form of World Communisim. Refute it at every turn folks. A single World Collective Government (which will form if World Redistribution of Income happens) will only lead to clan wars the likes we have never seen. Why? Because the human species is built to own what is theirs of their own sweat and blood and is genetically built to kill whoever tries to take it from them. In a nutshell, leave the animal kingdom alone to work it out for themselves, else it is necessary to cage it if the natural order is not to the liking of addled minded folks. World Distribution of Income is exactly that, a cage for each of us.
Confusing orbital mechanics with climate predictions is merely expressing one’s profound ignorance of both.
“…….We keep building in vulnerable coastal areas and on flood plains, pretty much daring Mother Nature to whack us…….”.
Yup, and she does. This is the one statement (and the only one) that I agree with.
If the rich, private and coorporate, have enough money to pay to build on sand, let them also carry the personal insurance, all of it, to keep themselves from losing the investment. Stupid is as stupid does and in the US, those who are stupid have the right to make dumb decisions in their pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness. But they have NO right to force the rest of us to pay for the consequences. Which is exactly what we all do right now through our own insurance and FEMA. Irritates me.
“Why can’t we all similarly respect scientists’ predictions about our cooking of our only planet?”
This is your brain on science.
This is your science in the hands of liberals.
“Cooking the planet”? I THOUGHT I smelled something burning!
Hey, there’s a movie idea: “Honey, I cooked the planet!”
😎
Actually what you smelled was me letting the planet cook my burgers.
(I’m not a good cook.)
This piece by Kristoff just leaves one breathless at the stellar quality of the new generation’s journalists. (/sarc)
Babies are dying 😪 and “apparently” it’s all down to climate change.”
He never ceases to demonstrate he’s dumb as a post. That the NYT keeps him on is a rather savage indictment of its editorial staff.
“Why can’t we all similarly respect scientists’ predictions about our cooking of our only planet? ”
The answer should be self evident; when hurricanes (like Harvey) can be predicted by “Climate Scientists” more than 6 months in advance (like Lunar eclipses), they’ll get a bit more respect. When they can do it 10 years in advance, they’ll get more respect. When they start doing it 100 years in advance, I imagine you’ll be using them as examples instead of whining about the fact they just get laughed at these days.
Mods: Thanks for cleaning that up. Sorry for the inconvenience.
For the curious, I made several egregious formatting errors in my haste and general outrage with what the NYT chose (and I do mean “chose”) to publish. Our gracious moderator very successfully stuck to the original intent of the comment without editorial bias of any kind.
My earlier comment should be used as an example of why a person should never type angry.
Dear Mr Worrall
Are we to infer from Mr Kristof’s article that there were no hurricanes before the industrial revolution?
On the other hand, computer aided global warming can only come after the invention of computers, which requires an industrial revolution.
Therefore the industrial revolution caused CAGW.
DP
Hmmm….I think (could be wrong) that the thermometers was invented before the industrial revolution.
Without mass producing thermometers via the industrial revolution, just how do we know what the temperature of the globe was way back then? How widely distributed and used were they? How often were the readings recorded?
Lots and lots we don’t know about the past.
Lot’s we can learn about different aspects of the past.
“Global temperatures”? No.
Stop using taxpayer dollars to pay the trearing readers.
Typo!!
“Lot’s we can learn about different aspects of the past.”
Should ahve been:
“Lot’s we can learn about different aspects of the past from tree rings.
In the opinion of those on the left, money becomes imbued with magical powers when it’s taken by government.
It becomes capable of breaking the laws of physics and economics.
“Imagine that after the 9/11 attacks, the conversation had been limited to the tragedy in Lower Manhattan, the heroism of rescuers and the high heels of the visiting first lady — without addressing the risks of future terrorism.”
Just to show how out of touch the NYT writer is with reality, he only references the 911 attacks on Manhattan ignoring the fact that the plane attacks included the Pentagon and a plane crash in Pa because of some brave passengers preventing another attack in Washington.
Is New York the only important place where Americans died? Sad writer for the NYT ignores others? One would think the editor would have picked up that egregious omission.
This gives a picture of the typical self centered liberal elites only thinking selfishly about themselves, their agenda, and their neighborhoods.
Furthermore the NYT policy regarding emigration and allowing migrants in un-vetted is deplorable with reckless abandon just to get more Democrat votes and places the country in greater risk for another 911 event. What is the nonsense about claiming ” addressing the risks of future terrorism” when the NYT is against any measure to lower the risk.
I have seen nothing but resistance from the NYT being against every measure to make us safer.
Meanwhile, the GFS forecast for Hurricane Irma takes out all of the Leeward Islands and the Bahamas as a Cat5 and then hits North Carolina, again as a Cat5 so next week-end to Tuesday will be CAGW 24/7.
https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/
What I think everyone is missing here is that the entire premise of his article is false from the get go. If the theory of terrorism was not fully proven, if there were logical explanations for events other than “terrorism” and specifically for the brand of terrorism that was responsible for 9/11, then we might have something similar to what is happening between the skeptics and the statists. For example, if there was good proof that the disaster of 9/11 could have been caused by the refraction of the sun’s rays, then the author’s argument would be valid and logical. But 97% of scientists agree that islamist terrorists were responsible for 9/11. (sarcasm) No one really disagrees with that. That data has been proven over and over again, with similar events occurring over and over since that time.
But the theory of man-made catastrophic climate change is debatable, has not been proven over and over again, there are other logical theories for the changing climate, and only very few people really believe in man-made catastrophic climate change. Let alone, that taxing the victims of climate, for using the energy resources necessary to counter the changing climate, will in fact stop the climate from changing.
Nicolas Kristof is a cretin.
“We Don’t Deny Harvey, So Why Deny Climate Change?”
This rubbish from the media is only increasing scepticism. Does the author (NK) really think hurricanes didn’t exist before climate change? Learn something about global warming nonsense before making ridiculous claims. Only shows how ignorant the author is and beyond their scientific understanding.
1) The presence of hurricanes or any one weather related event say nothing about global warming / climate change or how much humans may have changed it in any way.
2) Nobody can deny something that is completely misunderstood by the questioner.
3) Nobody denies climate change, so call the term something else to avoid this continued misunderstanding. Only used in media/alarmists to avoid confrontation/debate and immediately shows the person up for what they are, IGNORANT CHARLATAN.
4) Only alarmists have tried to deny climate change by altering history to show little or no change.
5) Sceptics mainly deny climate change as regards to how much human influence.
6) Sceptics don’t deny weather so why are you?
7) Not one scientist/person on the planet can show the difference between a natural historical hurricane or hurricane with some extra CO2 molecules in the atmosphere.
“Straw man” argument if there was ever one.