Arguments
Welcome to the Rest of Our Lives
Posted on 15 July 2012 by greenman3610
An excellent new video from Climate Crocks weaves together several of the concepts we've examined this week. Much of the United States has been experiencing numerous extreme weather events, including record heat, intense storms, droughts, and wildfires over the past month. While we can't attribute these individual weather events to global warming, we do know these types of events will occur more frequently and with more intensity as climate change continues. These are some of the hidden costs of carbon emissions which we are currently subsidizing.
In this video, Peter Sinclair juxtaposes these extreme weather events and their costs with the recent arguments from Exxon-Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson that we should simply adapt to them rather than trying to prevent them from happening. Sit back and watch the types of climate-related damages we can expect in the future, and our ability to brush those concerns aside with a foolish call for adaption instead of mitigation.
Extreme precipitation in the UK is appearing as long predicted and blame apportionment for ignoring advice of scientists and planners has commenced, as evidenced in this article:
Caroline Spelman's deep cuts to flood defences begin to look foolish"
Sooner or later, corporate risk assessments will need to explicitly include the effects of global warming, making it darn hard to deny its existence, and somewhat harder to avoid advocating action to mitigate its effects.
Excerpt:
Insurers could be sued both by emitters that are trying to pass on liability, or by investors claiming they did not adequately disclose risks to the market. In 2010, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) asked companies to report how climate change may affect profitability, potentially opening the The courts have yet to rule on whether greenhouse gas emitters can be tied to climate events. way for investor lawsuits.
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In a 2009 report, Swiss Re argued “that climate change-related liability will develop more quickly than asbestos-related claims and [we] believe the frequency and sustainability of climate change-related litigation could become a significant issue within the next couple of years.”
The asbestos claims took about 40 years from the first lawsuits in the 1950s to the eventual payouts, of up to $265 billion, in the 1990s, according to Swiss Re. The first climate change lawsuits were filed in 2004. But whatever the time frame or outcome, the threat of litigation is already having an impact by making companies more cautious about talking about climate change, according to several observers.
“Acknowledging climate risk would be a risk for [any] company in an American context,” says Andreas Spiegel, at Swiss Re. “There is the risk that the company or the managers would be held liable for their actions in relation to that.”
A lot of folks have confidently predicted that insurance companies will form a sort of "reality check" on climate change for the general population, given their focus on risk. But insurance companies in the US are squeezed; it seems some at least are trying to prolong their published ignorance of the problem for as long as possible. And really, can anybody blame them? What a mess they're facing already.
Conservation of energy? Improbability of perfect distribution of extra energy in the atmosphere?
Unless you're prepared to effectively contradict (saying "I doubt it" won't work) the fundamental physics of the situation you're claiming that an important "law" even farther down-- at the very bottom of physics-- is rotten. You can't do that, right? Or, you could show how additional energy in the atmosphere will be perfectly homogeneous. Atmospheric energy is not homogeneous now so that doesn't seem very likely.
Let's put it another way. Walk into a wall at 1mph. Ouch, a little. Do it again at 2mph; oh, well, a bloody nose is not so bad. 5mph-- jeepers, who'd of thought it would feel so hard? 15mph isn't so fast either, but you might be killed depending on how your head bonks into the bricks. If your body could present its entire surface area to the wall simultaneously things would be ok up to quite a speed but unfortunately we're not constructed with the geometry of a sheet of plywood; bits of us stick out.
I'll also mention my personal experience with adaptation. Unlike the more common solar feeds to the grid which provide less valuable power prior to peak needs in the evening, I have solar charged batteries which provide power when needed. The batteries ran my fridge for the 48 hours that my power was out. The second night was uncomfortable at 84 degrees especially for my guests, who were not used to it. My well water is electric from the grid but I used maybe 50 gallons out of 400 or so of stored water for drinking, flushing, and cleaning. Batteries however are not suitable for everyday use, that technology is coming, but not here yet. Instead they are ideal for emergencies like this along with judicious use of generators.
Infrastructure needs to change. West Virginia electric distribution was poor with entire towns losing their main feeds over mountains. All radio stations except maybe 2 or 3 were knocked off the air. But people seemed to get by ok other than running out of gasoline and ice. Cell service worked where it is available (not everywhere due to mountains). Community pot luck meals were very common. At the other extreme, very urban Arlington VA had no useful cell phone service, no electric phones, no cable or internet other than very spotty cell service, no 911 service for at least a day, no traffic lights, and little gasoline. I live in between those two and had very few infrastructure problems.
Regarding more record highs than lows, the stations collecting record highs are not corrected for urbanization, so some of the increased ratio of record highs to record lows is due to urbanization. My own guess is a relatively small portion, maybe 1/4 or so. Another portion of the record highs are short records, not extending back to the 1930's or previous. Again that's a relatively small portion. The Norton, Kansas example from the video is neither. Their 118 beat the their 116 measured in 1936.
Actually, "derecho" means "straight ahead"; it's "derecha" that means "right". You have to listen hard when getting directions in Spanish-speaking countries. See here.
The wind-storm name derecho comes from the straight-ahead meaning.
In English the word "right" can also be confusing. The important difference between "Go right at the junction ahead" and "Go right ahead at the junction" must confuse non-native speakers.