Roger Caiazza
The basis of the emotion driven narrative that there is an existential threat of climate change is fueled by endless articles and opinion pieces in the mass media that conflate every extreme weather event with climate change. Remember climate is what you expect, and weather is what you get. This article describes how the hucksters incorrectly make the extreme weather devastation caused when a rare weather pattern caused the storm to stall into an example of worsening climate change when a hurricane in hurricane alley during the hurricane season occurred.
Good Energy Hype
I was prompted to write this post when I came across an opinion piece in the LA Times: Helene destroyed my hometown. I don’t want climate change stories of false hope by Anna Jane Joyner. She is the founder and chief executive of the “story support nonprofit” Good Energy. Last March I did an article about Irina Slaw’s article “Burn, Hollywood, burn” where Slav called out the blatant indoctrination and propaganda associated Good Energy – “Story support for the age of climate change”.
After noting that she had been checking on the weather and evacuation plans while preparing to board a plane on her way to NYC Climate Week Joyner writes:
The hurricane didn’t come for my partner and me this time, but it destroyed my hometown in the mountains of North Carolina. I’ve spent 20 years working on climate and I live between Los Angeles and the Gulf Coast of Alabama, where I’ve reckoned with the likelihood of one day losing our home. I’ve also accepted that worsening fires, droughts and heat waves could make Southern California unlivable. But Asheville was considered a climate haven. I’ve always told family members we can never sell our homes there. It is utterly unfathomable that it would be devastated first by one of the worst climate disasters in U.S. history. Helene showed us nowhere is safe.
Joyner went on to provide descriptions of the destruction caused by storm. This was followed by her attempt to link the storm to climate change and her climate change false hope argument:
Scientists estimate that climate change increased Hurricane Helene’s rainfall by up to 50% in parts of the Carolinas and Georgia, dumping more than 40 trillion gallons of water. At NYC Climate Week, the annual awareness event held alongside the U.N. General Assembly, the disconnect from this shattering reality was surreal. There were fancy parties, cheerful sun imagery and giant signs reading “HOPE.” The dominant theme was: We can solve this! We need to tell hopeful climate stories! But there’s no “solving” a hurricane wiping out western North Carolina, hundreds of miles from the sea. Only focusing on optimism is like telling a cancer patient that everything will be OK if they just stay positive. At best, it comes across as out of touch; at worst, it feels callous. Yes, we can still prevent the worst impacts and must demand our governments scale solutions and act urgently, but we cannot minimize the horrors unfolding now, or that it will get worse in the coming years.
If you thought the hyperbole could not get worse I have bad news:
Fossil fuel executives have known since the 1970s that burning oil, coal and gas would cause escalating climate catastrophes and worldwide suffering. Yet they lied, sacrificed our safety for their greed and just unleashed an apocalypse on my hometown. Their actions will condemn children today to a planet that’s more hell than Earth by the end of the century if we don’t stop them. It isn’t just a tragedy; it’s a crime against humanity.
Sorry to subject you to that. Joyner goes on to argue that more stories are needed and I am sure she will be happy to provide them to anyone with a deep wallet.
What’s happening in North Carolina doesn’t feel real. I have no emotional framework for this, no story to help me. Right now, what I desperately need are authentic stories that help us figure out how to be human in this changing world, to face this overwhelming crisis with bravery. Stories that help us navigate our very understandable fear, anxiety, grief, despair, uncertainty and anger in a way that allows us to feel seen. Stories that make us laugh — not in ignoring our reality, but in the midst of it — and stories that remind us there’s still so much beauty here to fight for. That capture how, in the living nightmare of climate disasters, people demonstrate extraordinary kindness and creativity, as they’re doing in Asheville and Black Mountain at this very moment. And we need stories that expose the guilt of the fossil fuel industry.
Reality
In the real world, her pessimism is unwarranted. A quick review of recent articles at Watts Up With That demonstrates that the devastation of the remnants of Helene in the Asheville region was an extreme weather event and not evidence of climate change.
Paul Homewood did a nice summary of the data for Hurricane Helene that was highlighted here. His description of the Asheville rain notes:
In Asheville, North Carolina, a total of 13.98 inches (35.52 centimeters) of rain fell from September 25 to 27, according to National Weather Service records. The storm swamped neighborhoods, damaged roads, caused landslides, knocked out electricity and cell service, and forced many residents to evacuate to temporary shelters. Record flood crests were observed on multiple rivers in the state. Flooding was widespread across the southern Appalachians; preliminary rainfall totals neared or exceeded 10 inches (25 centimeters) in parts of Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia.
Note that the 14 inches of rain occurred over three days. Joyner referenced a statement that climate change increased Hurricane Helene’s rainfall by up to 50% in parts of the Carolinas and Georgia. I found that the reference stated that “In one provisional rapid attribution statement, a trio of scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory said the rainfall over the 24 hours Helene moved through was made ‘up to 20 times more likely in these areas because of global warming.’” Comparing the 24 hours in this reference to the three-day storm total makes it clear that the storm motion was a major factor in the amount of rain and that the attribution analysis got that part wrong.
Charles Rotter’s article on the observations of Steve McIntyre and Andy Revkin about the real lessons to be learned from the storm completes the destruction of the arguments in Joyner’s op-ed. McIntyre explains that flood control dams were planned for some of the rivers that had devastating floods but were not built. Clearly there are negative consequences of building dams and positive benefits associated with keeping the rivers open. But if you want to prevent flood damage when you keep the rivers free of dams then you should take prudent actions. Revkin points out that was not the case:
Revkin also described a 1960 report “Floods on French Broad and Swannanoa Rivers around Asheville” explaining that this storm was not unexpected for experts:
Andy reported that the report stated that developments around Asheville “would cause these great floods of the past to be higher if they occurred again. Land fills and buildings in the flood plain and the many bridges across the streams have seriously reduced flood flow capacity.” “On the French Broad River a flood of the same discharge as the 1916 flood would today be 3 to 4 feet; higher between Pearson Bridge and West Asheville Viaduct than the actual flood elevation. On the Swannanoa River, a repetition of the 1916 flood would be up to 2. 5 feet higher today at Biltmore and up to 15 feet higher upstream from the Recreation Park dam.”
Anthony Watts described a couple of articles from Climate Realism that debunked the media claims about climate change effects on the storm in general. He shows that the claims of climate change worsening storms such as Helene just don’t hold up. Of particular note, is the reference to a massive flood in Asheville in 1916. Matthew Wielicki provides a good comparison of this storm and the 1916 storm. He found that the 1916 flood peaked at 23 feet. In this storm the peak was 24.7 feet.
Note that the 1960 report projected that if there was another 1916 storm that the flood would be between 3 to 4 higher because of development. Hurricane Helene flood waters peaked at less than two feet higher than the 1916 storm. The observed increase in the peak flood was due to development and not climate change.
Conclusion
Joyner concluded her article:
I need help making meaning of all this, and stories have always been how humans make sense of our world. But as I grieve an unimaginable loss, the last thing I want are optimistic stories about hope. As climate scientist Kate Marvel says: “We need courage, not hope, to face climate change.”
I find it difficult to sympathize with the grief of someone who provides Hollywood “story support for the age of climate change” because reality paints a different picture of the world. The data show that Helene was a rather typical hurricane in hurricane alley that occurred in the hurricane season. Devastating floods in Asheville have occurred before and evidence suggests that the greater flood peak was probably due to development. There is nothing to suggest that this is anything, but an extreme weather event. It certainly is no evidence of any kind of worsening climate change impacts.
In my opinion, the worst part of this is that the usual suspects are using this tragedy to call for US reductions in fossil fuel to prevent this from happening again. Putting aside the lack of a causal link between GHG emissions and specific weather events, the relative magnitude of US and global emissions and the rate of change of those emissions, the indisputable fact is that storms causing this kind of devastation have happened before and will happen again whatever is done to mitigate emissions. If nothing is done to adapt to this observed extreme weather, then the tragedy will inevitably reoccur. The monomaniacal emphasis on emission reductions is not in the best interests of society.
Roger Caiazza blogs on New York energy and environmental issues at Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York. This represents his opinion and not the opinion of any of his previous employers or any other company with which he has been associated.
What a surprise! A hurricane during hurricane season!!
As I see it, they got their 100 year flood 8 years late. When I was looking to buy my first house my father gave me much good advice including “make sure you’re not in a flood plain”.
Thats another misconception about 1 in 100.
The correct term is 1% probability every year . Doesnt matter if it was 50 years ago the probability for year 51 is still 1%.
The other misconception with these 1 in X years storys is that 1% is twice the rainfall of 2% probability. Its not , they can be 10- 15% more
Commented on a previous post on Helene.
It is OK to oppose flood control dams in order to preserve wild scenic mountain waterways. It is NOT ok to then allow construction up to their banks.
Patricia owned a ‘cabin’ (3 br, 3 bath) in a Chattahoochee National forest inholding in the north Georgia Blue Ridge mountains. Very near the wild scenic Toccoa River (great kayaking, tubing, fly fishing, forest service campgrounds with bear proof trash containers), about 10 miles before the river forms Lake Blue Ridge and a TVA hydro dam. There are ‘cabins’ along the river. But they are built about 15 feet up the mountainside exactly to avoid the flooding that North Carolina experienced. She owned it until she passed earlier this year—over 20 years. Never a problem. Ditto the only access road to the area, ASKA. Built at least 10 feet above the river everywhere.
There’s a reason the native Americans camped pretty far up from the banks of Boulder Creek in Colorado. Our leftist white city leaders on the other hand decided to build numerous city buildings just above flood stage levels. Maybe not in my lifetime, but this is just an accident waiting to happen.
In our 2013 floods, climate change was blamed for that event, but the largest flood of record still remains from 1896.
Denver and Pueblo’s greatest floods were also recorded over 100 years ago, and it’s just a matter of time for something similar to occur.
1925 Pueblo, 1965 Denver
1976 the Big Thompson flood, Estes Park to Loveland. 12″ of rain fell from a storm cell just outside of Estes Park. A 30′ wave of water came down the Big Thompson Canyon, literally scrubbing the canyon and towns in its path. Two days after the flood I delivered some lumber near Estes Park, and had to cross the canyon. The destruction was amazing, cars were reduced to less than a foot thick. 4-6 foot in diameter boulders stacked in corners with 25 foot trees protruding. Any building that remained was filled with brush and small trees.
Sorry, I still don’t get how the very good rules applied in the Chattahoochie National Forest have any bearing on the situation in an urban area contiuously occupied by European immigrants since the 1790s (and previously by the Cheroke since before De Soto). Asheville was settled on the river for water wheel power, drinking and for agriculture. The very same federal NF rules are applied in the nearby Pisgah national forest, and didn’t help Asheville a wit.
Rivers are tricky places. They don’t behave themselves. A section that has remained fairly predictable for many years can suddenly change in a day. Crystal on the Grand and Warm Springs on the Yampa formed rather suddenly to become very challenging rapids.
We were on the Middle Fork of the Salmon coming to a usually placid section at Lake Creek. The creek had flashed and the river no longer followed the gentle course of previous trips. It was now a chaotic torrent through the trees. It took quite some time to plot a course through the hazards.
When we moved to Columbus, Georgia in 1988 we found an apartment by the Chattahoochee. The river was a comfortable 30 or 40 feet below the community. Two years or so later it came within six feet of topping the bank and flooded far into Alabama.
My point is people tend to have little respect for what water can do. Living by a river is a pleasant prospect, but it always has and always will be a significant risk. Using tragedy to incite fear for the purpose of agenda is despicable. Instead, the responsible focus of journalism would be to point out the inherent risks and highlight practical measures to reduce the impacts of the unpredictable.
This claim is false. While the ASTA area perhaps hasn’t had flooded residences, the Chattohoochie river flood of 2009 devastated substantial portions of Georgia and Florida. Building codes in the National Forest area had absolutely no bearing on what happened down stream, when rainfall overcame flood control measures.
https://www.weather.gov/ffc/atlanta_floods_anniv
Good article!
Joyner: “As climate scientist Kate Marvel says: “We need courage, not hope, to face climate change.””
OK, I have summoned the courage to do nothing about emissions of CO2, CH4, N2O in the face of climate claims because incremental concentrations of trace non-condensing GHGs are simply not capable of driving any of the climate metrics – certainly not to a bad outcome.
Yes, adapt and protect to mitigate the impacts of bad weather – storms, floods, fire weather, etc. We know how to do that. We have no idea how to “mitigate” the climate trends themselves, and we don’t even know any trends well enough to tell that something bad is happening.
I lived for 12 years in west Virginia, with similar topography. The only flat land in the state is either flood plains next to the creeks and rivers, or where there was a strip mine. People that live along creeks need to talk to an old-timer who remembers when it floods and how high the water can rise. The county engineer is in the developer’s pocket so they will sign off on building permits in places where we shouldn’t build a house.
So sad to see people put such faith in building a bunch of windmills and solar panels. They seem to be taking on the role of Dagon, Molech and other idols in the Bible.
I read an interview with a meteorologist where the journalist asked about the affect of climate change. He said I think if the air was 1C warmer that could result in 4% more moisture in the air. That could result in more rain fall. I looked up a saturation vs temperature chart. In the mid 80’sF saturation is 3%. So the new saturation would be 3.1 %! So what
What is the link to the saturation vs temperature chart for H2O? I obtained a chart from
Universal Industrial Gases Inc. According to their chart, the saturation concentration for H2O at 85 deg. F is 43,400 ppmv. One cubic meter of this air would have 34.9 grams of H2O and about 0.75 grams of CO2.
Assume that if the amount of IR light absorbed by the H2O and CO2 is proportional to mass, then amount of the greenhouse effect (GHE) due to water is:
GHE for H2O = 43.9 g H20 / 34.9 g H2O + 0.75 g CO2 = 0.979 or 97.9%.
Based on this data and calculations and on that 71% of the earth’s surface is covered with H2O, I have concluded that the claim by the IPCC since1988 that CO2 is a cause of global warming is a deliberate lie and fraud. The purpose of this lie and fraud is to justify the UN’s grand scheme to transfer via the UNFCCC and the UN COP large amount funds the from rich donor countries to the poor countries to help them cope with global warming and climate change. The amount these funds is many, many millions of dollars.
Hopefully, this fraud can not go on forever.
Given that a cubic meter contains one million cubic centimeters, 43,400 parts per million seems a little high. At one gram per cc, that’s 43.4 kg of water. Or is my math wrong (very possible) ?
It’s parts per million by volume, not mass.
In water treatment, ppm, when used, is pounds of (whatever chemical) per pounds of water, not gallons of water.
Ppm is the equivalent of milligrams of (whatever chemical) per Liter of water only because the metric system uses the same standard, one cubic centimeter of water at a certain temperature, to define length, weight and volume.
The volume of one liter of water also weighs one million milligrams.
(Most here probably already knew that.)
Based on atomic physics,
H2O is a much better absorber of surface photons with many wavelengths, whereas CO2 absorbs mostly 14.8 micrometer photons, which are only 7% of all surface photons at 16 C surface temp, so “by weight” is nonsense.
CO2 absorbs less than 1% of surface photons, not 2.1%
In fact, the vast majority of surface photons are thermalized by colliding with vastly more abundant N2 and O2 air molecules.
A small fraction was absorbed, and of that small fraction, CO2 absorbed less than 1%
All surface photons are thermalized within 10 meters of the surface.
The wet airmass was stationary, due to surrounding pressures, over the affected area, which received about 14.5 inches of rainfall spread out over 3 days, an area that normally gets about 0.15 inches per day..
There were local winds from different directions, but they were due to rain creating vacuums, that were filled in.
Here is a graph from wiki scroll down https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_vapor
More to the point, the *daytime high* is not what is 1C warmer, it is the AVERAGE with most of the “increase” being poles and high latitudes, AND AT NIGHT.
IOW, COMPLETELY MEANINGLESS.
You missed my point. All I was trying to show is that small increases in temperature result in small increases in water vapor. Thus the climate change nonsense has minimal impact on rainfall
Keep the keyboard hotted up — now Milton is a’ comin’. May miss Appalachia, but sure as Joe’s always been a doofus, Joyner will be at it again by the end of the week.
Maybe federal help meant for Helene will be fully marshalled by then.
And. possibly, what you see know is all they’re gonna get. The puppeteers can’t find the strings to pull Joe or Kablahblah’s heads out.
Ex dem Tulsi Gabbard said a couple of days ago that the federal response failure in North Carolina reminds her of the failures in Maui.
Huh ? Tell her the local Maui County is primary agency.
Do they want Stasi level block cadres with extraordinary powers
Yes, they do.
‘up to 20 times more likely in these areas because of global warming.’
Such a dubious claim that even Joyner wouldn’t name who said it…
I have to laugh at the way the alarmists are quick to blame the oil executives for concealing the facts of the “gravity” of fossil fuel consumption when they supposedly knew this would lead to more severe storms. If there was so much concern about the issue, why didn’t consumers at all levels cut back on its use? Or maybe it’s been a case of them not being willing to sacrifice their operating practices and lifestyles to fall for yet another eco-theory.
Then there’s reality.
The “oil executives” never “knew” or espoused any such thing. The oil company scientists published (not hid) some of the same type of HYPOTHETICAL papers about the POSSIBILITY of some warming due to CO2 emissions.
So what?! Warmer IS BETTER, NOT WORSE. The “warmer = worse weather” garbage is pure fantasy – and THE EXACT SAME CLAIMS WERE MADE ABOUT “WORSE WEATHER” BEING THE RESULT OF THE *GLOBAL COOLING CRISIS.*
They had the “worse weather” mantra right the first time -cooler climate INCREASES TEMPERATURE DIFFERENTIALS which *will* make for more violent weather.
What they got WRONG -BOTH TIMES, is the ridiculous notion that human fossil fuel use is the cause of ANY OF IT.
Good article but it is missing considerable information. There is no way to tell if this was more impactful over NC then the 1916 storm. Why? For several reasons. Rainfall varies tremendously over relatively small areas in these kinds of storms. For instance Asheville only received 2.85 inches in the 1916 storm. However surrounding areas received over 23 inches. (See the Tennesee Valley report discussed and the rainfall maps.)
So one must check numerous locations and rivers. In the 1916 “The Catawba River was experiencing its own turmoil. A streamflow gauge in Mount Holly reached an estimated stage of 45.5 feet (almost double the record previously set in 1901) — an estimate, mind you, due to the fact that this gauge, too, had been completely washed away by the torrential waters” During Helena, the Swannanoa at Biltmore crested at 26′ according to Fox news, https://www.foxweather.com/extreme-weather/helene-flooding-extremen-asheville And per the TVA report, it was 26′ in 1791 and 21 feet in 1916. According to the TVA report the 1791 was considerably worse then the 1916 storm, with water marks on other rivers and personal reports that the high water marks were up to 6′ higher then many 1916 marks.
The french river flow guage in Asheville NC reported 24.66 feet on Sept 27th 2024 at 6 pm. Minor flood stage is 9.5 feet, so it crested at 15.16 feet above minor flood stage. The 1916 flood crested at 17 ‘above flood stage, almost 2′ higher. We have no records of what the 4 major hurricanes that all hit Florida from 1842 to 1848, did in Asheville NC, as it was only first a town in 1850 with a population of 500 people. (One was likely a cat5 and the another had a 20’ storm surge in Ceday Key, almost double Helena’s surge in the same area.)
The bottom line is nothing unprecedented happened, and there is no way to know which event was the worst. However the area should expect and plan for such storms to happen. Anything less is irresponsible and illogical.
Please don’t build any dams. That would inhibit healthy discussions.
Great assessment, David!!
Accurate weather records for North Carolina only go back around 150 years. What we know for sure is that there now have been 3 events very similar to this last one, in a 133 year period based on recorded river gauge readings. Spaced just over 100 years apart but these are the type of random events that can happen several times in a relatively short period………..then vanish for decades of even centuries.
The first one was during the Little Ice Age.
The 2nd one was before CO2 had increased very much.
The last one happened after the planet had (mostly beneficial) warmed +1 Deg. C.
What they all had in common was the same thing that still causes the vast majority of extreme weather………..natural variability of weather.
What happened before 1791 for the previous thousand years?
I would be money that there were several more like this, possibly more extreme.
Look at the topography, man!!
There’s not too many places on the planet better that are not far from and ocean, have ideal oragraphic lifting, deep ravines that are fed by swollen streams that converge into the same places.
The rain is captured from a very wide area, much from higher elevations and gravity gives it tremendous force flowing downward towards lower elevations…….where it collects/piles up in a small small area.
Until millions of years erode the mountains or much sooner, humans adapt with flood control measures this will repeat in ?? number of years.
Man is changing riverbeds and building in old riverbeds. Where the river flowed, it will return sooner or later. This is especially true if they are mountain rivers. Forecasts are often ignored and reservoirs are not emptied in time. The same has happened in Poland. The reservoir should not be filled before the heaviest rainfall, but the other way around to prevent overflow. In such cases, it is necessary to react promptly, and above all, do not underestimate the forecasts, which are now quite accurate.
Large cities in Poland have been saved by a large dry reservoir in the upper reaches of the Oder. Dikes need to be moved away from rivers and dry reservoirs built in the mountains in natural valleys. In Poland and the Czech Republic, the upper low brought locally up to 400 mm per square metre in the mountains in 3 days.
The updated forecast predicts that ex-hurricane #Kirk will hit central France and northwest of Spain
In many areas, gusts are expected to exceed 110 km/h, and extensive damage is possible. See accumulated wind gust map:
https://www.ventusky.com/?p=47.0;6.9;5&l=gust-ac&t=20241010/1500
Several years ago there was severe flooding in the Ottawa valley and around communities outside Montreal, my left liberal cousin, on Facebook asked what can we do to prevent this, I said stop building on flood plains, that got her back up. Everybody was treating this as an occurrence that had never happened before. My brother in law, who lived most of his life in the very town that had the worst flooding, said that this was a feature of his youth, they had to wear rubber boots to walk to school due to the flood waters and that it happened almost every spring.
Story Tip… Blame climate change
https://sarasotaheraldtribune-fl.newsmemory.com/?publink=0705069aa_134d492
Ugh. Naked propaganda at its finest.
Note how the same “sources” were undoubtedly exhibiting deafening silence during the longest period on record without a single major hurricane landfall in the US that followed the supposed “new normal” of the busy 2005 season.
One has to wonder what the damage Helene would have inflicted on any solar or wind farms in its path and the associated financial impact of their destruction.
More to the point how much LONGER resulting blackouts would last if they were foolish enough to rely on such solar or wind farms for any significant portion of their electricity generation.