Essay by Eric Worrall
My heart goes out to Om Prakash, who lost his family in a landslide disaster earlier this year. But it wasn’t climate change which killed his family.
‘Climate change killed my family’: Unusual monsoon hammers India’s Himachal
Record-breaking torrential rain leaves a trail of unprecedented devastation in northern India’s Himachal Pradesh state.
By Srishti Jaswal
Published On 25 Sep 202325 Sep 2023…
“It was raining intensely. Around 4am I heard a deafening crash. Just behind the house, the entire hill collapsed and unleashed a torrent of water and mud that destroyed everything. I survived, but my daughter, wife and my mother died in their sleep,” Prakash said.
…
“Due to global warming, the monsoon winds now carry more moisture from the sea along with dust and pollution from the plains. Himachal’s bowl-like topography captures those moisture-laden clouds. This leads to excess monsoon rainfall in less periods. The result is flooding,” Shukla explained.
…
Stopping the flow of rivers by dams in Himachal Pradesh has led to severe riverine disturbances, said Manshi Asher, co-founder of the environmental group Himdhara.
“When the water increases beyond the holding capacity of the dam, they open the floodgates without warning. The impact is visible in the form of landslides and floods,” she said.
The lack of comprehensive data on the environment in the region has also made the situation more dangerous.
…
Read more: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/9/25/climate-change-killed-my-family-unusual-monsoon-hammers-indias-himachal
I wonder what the original draft of that Al Jazeera story looked like?
In my opinion, someone involved in the chain of publication of that Al Jazeera story appears to have tried to tell the real story – uncontrolled building of dams, poor management of said dams, including abrupt releases of water without warning, and a lack of environmental data, have dramatically worsened the risk of landslides and floods.
But Al Jazeera decided to lead with climate change claims, which given the “lack of comprehensive data”, do not seem to be backed by solid evidence.
Even if CO2 is increasing rainfall, would reducing emissions fix the “landslides and floods” caused by poor water management? Or would focussing on water management issues be more likely to lead to an improved near term outcome?
If Al Jazeera had led with the dam management issue, I would have praised their handling of the story, even if it contained alarmist climate content. But instead of telling the story, in my opinion Al Jazeera have done a grave disservice to Om Prakash and others in his situation, by using Prakash’s tragedy as a prop to push their political climate agenda. You have to read the full article to read about the real root cause of local landslide and flood tragedies.
It is like the flooding in Libya, mismanaged dams.
The gods are angry with us, isn’t it obvious? No matter what….
“”Staggering’ green growth gives hope for 1.5C, says global energy chief””
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/26/staggering-green-growth-gives-hope-for-15c-says-global-energy-head
Staggering as in falling over…
It’s unwise to sleep in a spot with a high potential for disaster. That’s why smoke and carbon monoxide detectors are compulsory and doors have locks. Sure, the design, construction and management of dams might be faulty or haphazard but one is still responsible for the safety of their loved ones and themselves. While living on high ground can be a daily, year around inconvenience, death and dismemberment is even more inconvenient.
Climate change also killed my sister. It was leukemia, but it’s settled science that blood cell cancers have been made more frequent and severe by our CO2 sins. Based on my rapid climate attribution study that hasn’t been peer-reviewed but based on established scientific methods, the cancer was made 40 times more likely by your SUV.
The torrential rain originated from immense areas of paddy field in the neighbouring state – centred on Amritsar.
In the image attached, Amritsar is on the left, Himachal Pradesh on the right.
That weird grey/green colour on the ground in Amritsar is the rice paddies.
At that time of year, that water would have been extremely hot and evaporating rapidly.
At a guess, the job of the water would have been done by then and the paddies should have been dry.
(And the job of the collapsed dam(s) was to provide that water earlier in the season)
Hence: weather.
So you have a perfect storm – the advancing monsoon had an immense amount of fuel thrown at it as it came over Amritsar and then, as it climbed the hills/mountains of Himachal – dumped its load
It was all man-made – by the rice farmers.
OK, with a bit of bad-luck from the weather but farmers should be used to that.
But but but again: as you see in the image – it’s a story of mono-culture.
If they’d left a few more large stands of trees/forest among the paddies, those trees would have gently drained the build-up of atmospheric moisture – the moisture that caused the torrential rain when it was forced to go up the mountainsides.
Help! My dog ate my Climate Change.
Not only has there been record breaking rain in the India’s Himachal Pradesh state. The Western Cape and Cape Town have just seen the end of the rain season with a huge downpour. This is the sixth good winter despite the alarmist predictions of perpetual drought at the beginning of 2018. The largest dam containing over half the total water stored is currently at 115.6%. Strange but alarmists have not reviewed their claims. Perhaps it is because there is a drought of honesty among them.
“The science” is settled that all the flooding is caused by liberal tears over the imminent catastrophic global climate disaster (ok, I made it up, but it’s valid because I identify as a climate expert).
Climate Change: Simultaneously the universal excuse for government failure, and the excuse for more government.
What I don’t get is why all these climate refugees keep fleeing to the epicentres of climate change with all that localised CO2-
A nation without border control is like a house without a door: Tim Blair (msn.com)
“Just behind the house, the entire hill collapsed…”
Hills don’t collapse even in rain forests- if not disturbed. I bet that hill was disturbed- probably by sheep and other grazing, along with, maybe, removing wood and other brush for burning? Most likely before anyone lived in that area – that hill had sturdy trees on it holding the soil in place. It’s a common problem worldwide. Much of the Mediterranean landscape is eroded due to disturbance from logging and grazing.
“Why did this happen to me?” People want answers and they will blame anyone or anything that’s convenient. I feel for the survivors, but the flooding was a man-made disaster.
The St. Francis dam collapse in Calif. in 1928 had basically the same proximate cause. Except back then, we didn’t have climate change to blame.
It rains a lot there. Who knew?
india-annual-rainfall-map.png (850×960) (wordpress.com)
1889 Johnstown Flood https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnstown_Flood
If government organizations were to always take into account the known, past history of extreme weather events in a particular region, before approving the construction of dwellings and projects that would be affected by a repetition of such extreme events, and also ensure that any mitigation projects, such as dams and drainage, were sufficient to contain the worst known floods of the past, then there would be far less damage and loss of life.
Blaming such extreme weather events on global warming is equivalent to letting the government administrators, and/or project managers, ‘off the hook’.
I personally experienced an extreme flooding event in Brisbane, Australia, in 2011. As a result of a previous, devastating flood in 1974, the local government built a flood-mitigating dam to ensure such a disaster would not occur again.
Unfortunately, the dam was not sufficient to prevent the flooding that took place 27 years later. The flood mitigation dam was also mismanaged by the operators who didn’t release enough water in preparation for the predicted heavy rain.
A class action lawsuit followed. Here are the details for anyone interested.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-02/2011-brisbane-flood-class-action-payout-maurice-blackburn/101118556
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-05/brisbane-2011-floods-engineers-dam-management-wivenhoe/102038192
Time to dance to discourage the gods of rain and thunder.
An advance for humanity.