A recent post at Axios, “How America is adapting to climate extremes,” claims that recent infrastructure hardening projects across America are necessitated by worsening extreme weather due to climate change. This is false. For one, weather is not becoming more extreme or deadly. Infrastructure hardening and maintenance is important regardless of climate conditions because all infrastructure wears down over time and eventually bad weather will happen. It is better to be safe and plan ahead than be sorry later.
The Axios post is full of fearmongering about the weather, starting by saying that even if we attempted to decarbonize, “many communities are already facing more frequent or intense climate extremes, prompting officials to invest in infrastructure designed to reduce future damage.”
Weather patterns change over time regardless of any human influence, but it is simply not true that climate change is causing more climate extremes. If anything, most of the United States has seen a moderating of extremes, including fewer extremely hot days compared to the early twentieth century, and less drought. One can view a state-by-state analysis of weather in the United States at ClimateataGlance.com. States are added as the site is updated.
One of the examples the Axios article uses to demonstrate weather is getting worse in the United States is the deadly flooding in Texas last year and this year. They interview an ex-Obama administration staffer, Alice Hall, who says that Texas improving water handling afterwards is “an example of Republican-led states adapting after disaster,” and absurdly claims that U.S. infrastructure is “built for a climate that essentially no longer exists.”
Here, Hall demonstrates either her ignorance or her ideological commitment. Hall is partially right, however, because Texas was negligent to not better prepare for flooding of the Guadalupe River based on the known history of past flood events. Flooding, including extreme and deadly flooding, has occurred frequently in the past on the Guadalupe River. Texas hydrologists told CBS Texas at the time that “based on past events, this kind of outcome was a known risk.”
As Anthony Watts pointed out in the Climate Realism post about the floods, the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority has put out entire safety guides decades before this event, describing the area as “one of the three most dangerous regions in the U.S.A. for flash floods.” The Texas Hill Country is known as Flash Flood Alley.
What’s more, data show that not only are flash floods not unprecedented in Texas, but overall they have become less frequent since the 1990s. (See figure below)
It is embarrassing that Hall and Axios are either not aware of the data or are intentionally ignoring it.
Average warming in the United States is estimated to have been less than two degrees Fahrenheit since 1895, that is hardly such colossal change that one could say our infrastructure “was built for a climate that essentially no longer exists,” as Hall claimed.
Hurricanes are another example that Axios brings up, but again, actual data show that hurricanes are not making landfall more in the United States, nor are they becoming more powerful. If we are trying to use anecdotal weather as proof, last year saw no hurricane landfalls in the United States for the first time in a decade.
It is a bit absurd that Axios implies that weather-hardening infrastructure wasn’t necessary, or was less needed, in the past. I am sure that would be news to Galveston, circa 1900. Their entire community was destroyed, practically wiped off the map, and more than 8,000 people died.
They also make the non-sequitur comment that some communities are pursuing infrastructure improvement “despite federal funding constraints and the Trump administration’s push to scrub references to climate change from government websites.” Communities do not need to see the federal government hype climate alarmism in order to improve their infrastructure against the bad weather they have always suffered from, at least they shouldn’t. If infrastructure needs replacement or fortification, that should be a priority for the city or town.
Many of the improved materials and building technologies currently available were unavailable when much of our infrastructure was built decades ago. In addition, infrastructure weakens or erodes with age and use, especially infrastructure designed and constructed when populations were much lower. Infrastructure improvements and maintenance are necessary, if for no other reason than to simply keep up with the demands placed on infrastructure from growing populations and expanded urban centers. We can do better now, and should. Such investments in infrastructure upgrades just make sense, and not because weather is so much more extreme.
Axios would serve its readers better if it did not push fact-barren climate propaganda. Weather is not getting worse, but even so, hardening and improving infrastructure is always a good investment for the future.
