Morning Read: “The weather has changed”
Is this what climate change looks like?
Sometimes the debate over climate change can seem pretty academic, pretty abstract.
This morning, Jon Alexander in the Glens Falls Post Star is reporting on the clean-up efforts now underway in the Adirondack town of Thurman, where flash floods wiped out dozens of roads and bridges.
The people commenting in his story aren’t environmentalists or policy wonks or journalists. They are nuts-and-bolts guys, the folks who have to make hard-headed decisions about the world we live in.
Usually, I don’t excerpt such long sections of a story, but this passage from the Post Star warrants being read in full context.
While the town is taking the initial steps toward repairing its 34 damaged roads, county officials are now assessing how climate change is changing the way they do business.
“The books we’ve always used to design culverts, you can throw them all out,” said Dave Wick, district manager of the Warren County Soil and Water Conservation District. “Global warming is changing everything.”
The state Department of Transportation considers any storm that produces 4 inches of rain in an hour to be a 100-year event, but the May 28 storm saw 6 inches of rain fall in less than an hour.
The size of a culvert required at a particular site is determined by a combination of hydrological analysis and a century of historical precipitation data compiled by DOT and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
And it’s that data that may no longer be relevant, officials said.
“The snowfall and rainfall models we use are no longer correct,” said Warren County engineer Todd Beadnell. “The weather has changed.”
I’m seeing more and more of this kind of language, from business leaders, from engineers, from people like Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin, who say it’s time to stop debating the “ifs” and start talking about what practical steps we need to take now that climate change is here.
A regular reader of the In Box also sent me this link from Elizabeth Kolbert, environmental writer for the New Yorker, who makes much the same point.
So what do you think? Does it raise new alarms that we’re hearing about global warming not from greenies and tree-huggers, but from the guys wearing hard hats?
Add this to the long list of issues liberals tried to warn people about and the minions of evil tried to convince everyone that liberals are Chicken Littles.
What will global warming cost us? Well, to start with it is costing the Town of Thurman (population 1,199) about $7 million in road repairs from ONE rainstorm alone. Gonna be hard paying down our deficit as our infrastructure crumbles around us. Hard to pay your increasing property taxes if you can’t use the road in front of your house to get to work.
Go ahead drive your big gas guzzler! Hemi, he he he!
And I see at least one GOP presidential hopeful is campaigning (in part) on the idea that climate change isn’t real. Of course there are still those who believe the world is flat and all those photos of Earth from outer space are fakes. Maybe the GOP should be called the HITS party (Heads In The Sand).
At my age I’ve learned that a “knee jerk” reaction to a first time problem is probably a bad idea!
Gary – the data on this has been building for many many years. This isnt a “first time problem”. Its just the latest local example. It would be great though if this event got the frog out of the pot.
Seriously, we have very short memories. First off the climate is always changing, always has, always will. Second, 50 years ago we got a LOT more snow and rain than we did over the last 30 years. Look in your old local papers and you’ll see the stories. Third, do not for a second think that our beloved and esteemed highway engineers don’t use the bare minimum required for culverts, etc.
As for climate change and what we can do about it, hey, give me an affordable alternative to the traditional pickup truck/suv suitable for life in the sticks and, better yet, figure out a way to get 100 mpg with it and I’m on board with ya. If your answer is hamstringing the US while China and India continue to belch CO2 into the air…sorry, you lost me.
Yupper, nasty weather lately. End of the world? I doubt it.
All this past spring I keep remembering a passage I read or heard cited from Bill McKibben’s latest book, “Eaarth”. It referred to rural town’s in Vermont, but could be true in the North Country , or in (with a few changes) Missouri, or Arizona, or anywhere. It went something like, “A town builds a bridge over a creek with the understanding that it will have to be replaced in fifty years or so, and might get washed out sometime before then. But when that bridge, and many others in the town, get washed out every five years, there is going to come a point when you can no longer afford to replace them.”
Or build stronger bridges and culverts, and hope for the best, I guess.
I still don’t here any revival in attempts to actually combat climate change. I wonder if all the energy is now directed into simply coping with it’s consequences.
At least the climate change deniers have lost all public credibility.
As if.
So what, exactly, is the point of all this?
Roads and bridges haven’t been properly maintained and replaced when needed. Same goes for the levies and dams. People build where they shouldn’t build. They want to be close to water or have a view from the side of a mountain or hill.
No one wants to control the population, so more and more people consume more and more resources and in the process create more and more pollution. Not only do they create more and more pollution, more and more people means that when disasters strike, more and more people will be killed or injured.
Global Warming, Climate Change, call it what you will. As I have said before, the climate is always changing. It always has and it always will. Maybe the next Ice Age is just around the corner. Maybe the Sun will blow up tomorrow and the Earth and everything on it will not even be a memory. One thing is certain, pollution is bad with or without Global Warming, and more and more people is a prescription for disaster.
It never ceases to amaze me that people really believe that the dramatic changes in climate being experienced around the world are no big deal.
I understand that there will be those who don’t live in low-lying areas who don’t care that flooding is becoming a lot more of a problem, or those who don’t ice fish could care less about the loss of local ice, or with the constant drum beat from ORDA about what great skiing there is every single year, how people can forget that we’ve lost so much snow cover and the Adirondack culture it engenders.
But the bottom line is these things are happening, they are being caused by human interference with the closed Earth ecosystem. This is not fantasy, it’s not chicken little, it’s the truth, attested to again and again by the leading minds in science around the world, and disparaged by the same old conservative ‘know-nothing’ crowd. Newt is right, deniers have lost all credibility, not just on this issue, but personally – at this point it’s hard to consider deniers serious thinkers.
It would be helpful if our leaders and those in the media stopped pretending that there was a debate about these issues – there is not – at least not anymore of a debate than we have whether or not evolution is real. Want to debate if we should do anything about it? Fine. But we don’t debate seriously in the media whether or not evolution is real, or the Holocaust, or that cigarettes cause health problems, so why this?
Objective science tells us that we have a problem. Pretending we don’t have to have better design on culverts (Thurman is mentioned here, but Bolton and Lake George Village have also had to redesign their runoff systems in recent years), that we won’t enjoy the winter economies we used to have, or that we don’t have to reconfigure our contribution to warming is ignorance, plain and simple.
Yeah, the climate is always changing. BUT, it’s the speed and scale that is the concern – so maybe it’s time to stop with the catch-phrases.
That we had more snow 50 years ago is not the concern, it’s that the snow we used to have now falls as rain. No more October snowstorms, no more March snowstorms, no more slow melting of the snow pack we do build. Instead of no thaws, or one thaw each winter we now experience three, sometimes more, the ground is no longer frozen as long, the ground becomes over-saturated in spring, etc.
Finally, I love to hear the folks with their ‘I need a pick-up’ nonsense. I’ve lived in the country – real country – practically my whole life and never once owned a pick-up. Perhaps you are not aware that your pick-up costs you a LOT more in gas than owning a small all wheel drive car and renting a truck or paying for delivery when you need it would. Unless you use it for business, you own a truck because you want to, not because you have to.
John – I agree with you about the truck thing in so far as I see most trucks looking pristine, with their beds as shiny and untouched as anything.
My truck is always full of rocks, brush, dirt, garbage, boats, etc. One thing though: I did buy a really tiny truck, with just a four cylinder engine. People told me I’d regret not having more power, but I never have.
If you pass a beater pick-up laboring up through the Cascades at about 40 miles an hour, that’s me…
Brian, NCPR
“stop debating the “ifs” and start talking about what practical steps we need to take now that climate change is here.”
It’s like saying, “the debate over whether or not the sun comes up in the east is over”.
No argument here. The climate is changing. Man didn’t cause it. Man can’t stop it. Oh, there will be some mis-leaders who think they can – for a price, of course.
You can paraphrase Bill O’Reilly summarizing the the current state of science in the GOP.
Sun comes up, sun goes down. Tide comes in tide goes out. No one can explain that. Where did the moon come from? Why doesn’t Mars have a moon?
One would hope that most people have an inkling of why the Sun rises and sets and why tides come in and go out. And, it’s easy enough to find out how many moons circle Mars.
Sure the climate has changed in the past and will change in the future. But that doesn’t mean the cause of the climate change was the same every time. How can a tiny increase in a trace gas cause the climate to change? Well…..how can a small amount of weight placed on one end of a balanced teeter totter cause the tt to become unbalanced? Teeter totter is balanced, teeter totter is unbalanced. No one can explain that.
Unfortunately, it seems that for a significant proportion of current conservatives, science, and the evidence that supports a particular theory doesn’t matter anymore. It’s now the ideology that matters because that is the only way you can get elected to public office in the GOP and TP.
Also, forget about “American Exceptionalism” when it comes to climate change. I guess we are more than willing to forgo leadership in the world these days.
“Unfortunately, it seems that for a significant proportion of current conservatives, science, and the evidence that supports a particular theory doesn’t matter anymore.”
Unfortunately, it seems a significant proportion of liberals have substituted political activists for scientists.
“how can a small amount of weight placed on one end of a balanced teeter totter cause the tt to become unbalanced? Teeter totter is balanced, teeter totter is unbalanced. No one can explain that.”
Liberals can. All you have to do is drive a Chevy volt, and the teeter totter is balanced again.
JDM – precisely. Not a single science or evidence-based argument from you. Thanks for supporting my point.
JDM – you could read the science – there are many versions that have been made accessible to non-scientists. The national academy of science has some excellent articles.
http://dels-old.nas.edu/climatechange/
Reading right-wing blogs isnt the same thing.
The NAS booklet “Understanding and Responding to Climate Change” is well written. Unfortunately, if you deny the data, the evidence, the science…it’s not going to change your mind.
A man stepping out a a pristine BMW along side my old ford pick-up asked me how many miles per gallon i got.
It wasn’t inquisitive as much as it was snotty, so i remarked in the same tone looking his car up and down.
“where do you put the plywood?”
A four cylander p/u can not deliver a ton and a half of stone, and delivery adds $50. at least.
If i had to pay for a lumber delivery of a small amount of large, or long, or heavy material, i could not afford to stay in business.
Can’t we all play together more nicely. Nothing is ever so cut and dry.
Pragmatic is the key word. I think pragmatic people need to just ignore the ideologues and start figuring out how to address what’s happening in the real world. Even in conservative Warren County, they’re recognizing that.
Part two of the fake science of “man-made” global warming, is to pass some fake legislation, take a bunch of tax-payer money, and basically do nothing.
Ten years from the climate will change the other way, on its own, and the liberals will claim that their law to drive a Chevy Volt made it happen.
Don’t think so? Some of us were around in 1975 when the same group had the world believing we were running out of oil.
The old adage about “fool me once” should have kicked in, but it apparently has not.
Go ahead and believe man is making the climate change. Whatta ya gonna do about it? Raise taxes??
People have a right to make personal purchasing decisions however they choose, buying a car or a truck is not a moral decision. The green movement will make a big mistake if it becomes another nanny scold over what people drive or if they recycle in the right way.
I think energy however is probably under priced, the only thing that has reduced energy consumption in the US has been changes in the price of energy, finger pointing about trucks etc to me is just not right. I drive a four cylinder little car that gets around 35mpg on the highway I do that because I like the car and I want to spend a little less on gas not because I think I am doing something for the planet. I have also owned trucks, but I don’t think people should have to justify how they live if it is an honest living. I just hate to see things like if you drive a big truck or not suddenly become some sort of political decision.
“Global warming is changing everything”, HOW? How is global warming responsible for our snowfall last winter or the rains we experienced this spring? Maybe certain groups of people want to use it to push their agenda. There is an old saying, “Figures can lie and liars can figure!” I do not honestly believe last winter and this spring had anything to do with global warming! As one weather person stated, “It was merely a perfect storm.”
This issue of trucks gets right to the heart of our problem with energy economics. We’re stuck in the past when people could afford a vehicle (and the enormous vehicle infrastructure) they didn’t really need.
People who need a ton and a half of stone once a year or so (and our economy should be so lucky) don’t need a truck; people who don’t carry plywood (and with housing starts and remodeling down that’s more people than ever) don’t need a truck. The vast majority of Americans, even in the country, don’t need a truck, they need a small trailer they use once and a while.
If you need it for business, good for you – pick the right tool for the job, and maybe a truck is it. As I said above, I’m talking about people who don’t need a truck for their business.
And I agree small trucks are handy and there is nothing wrong with having a small truck; they are after all often smaller and more efficient than many of today’s cars.
But, if you NEEDED a truck to live in the country, we’d all drive trucks.
“What will global warming cost us? Well, to start with it is costing the Town of Thurman (population 1,199) about $7 million in road repairs from ONE rainstorm alone. Gonna be hard paying down our deficit as our infrastructure crumbles around us.”
Wow, what a stretch. There is no evidence that this one storm had anything to do with global warming, or global climate change.
Knuck, if we start to make local decisions based on no real data or information we can really expect our property taxes to rise.
Sure let’s pass a law that requires everyone to put all their homes on stilts just in case!
Brian, if people in the media continue to make the spurious link between local weather events and global climate change (despite any evidence) that will divert our focus away from what we do have to do to combat global climate change. We need to decrease emissions. You can put in larger culverts if you think it is cost effective but I wouldn’t base that decision on global climate models. You can’t find any guidance there as far as I know.
Go ahead and believe man is making the climate change.
A good scientist doesn’t use the word “belief”. They accept or reject based on evidence that can be independently verified. I have no interest in what a scientist “believes”. I want to see the evidence that supports their hypothesis or theory.
Regarding the thread about trucks, perhaps it time to require one obtain a “certificate of need” before owning a truck?
I need a truck for my business. I remember a day when people owned trucks because they couldn’t afford a car. The evolution of the truck has turned the market upside down as today’s trucks have a many or more features than luxury cars. I do not know how people afford some of these trucks. I long for the day when trucks were trucks.
Hey John, I don’t know what your version of “the country” is, but for me it involves farm animals, feed, fencing, lumber, logs, dirt, stone, concrete, hay, engines, trash and hauling a stock trailer with 50 sheep in it or 3 horses or some cows. Kindly refrain form deciding for the rest of us what we “need”. No one makes a staton wagon anymore, so we have an Explorer. I had a Toyota pu with 4 banger till the rust did it in and I discovered the days of $14K new Toyotas went out with Vanilla Ice and Steve Urkle. So now it’s a $500.00 1/2 ton Ford and I hope to get a 68 Chevy dump truck too for use on the farm.
FWIW- I shake my head too when I see the 1 ton dually diesel that’s never had anything bigger than a set of golf clubs in the back. But my personal arrogance doesn;t extend to the point of deciding what someone else “needs”.
PNELBA: “A good scientist doesn’t use the word “belief”.”
I am with you on this one.
In February 2007, the IPCC released a summary of the forthcoming Fourth Assessment Report. According to this summary, the Fourth Assessment Report finds that human actions are “very likely” the cause of global warming, meaning a 90% or greater probability.
In other words, they believe it to be true.
from wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change#Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Climate_Change_.28IPCC.29_2007
“certificate of need” ????
I can only pray for humanity when i hear things like this.
I shouldn’t have to prove anything i do with need, to the acceptance of others. I think and act on need, or perceived need everyday, and i am the sole judge of that perception. I am fully aware of the difference between need and want. My kids need milk, but i don’t want the plastic jug. When i can buy milk in something else, where i live, i’ll do it because it does not need to be in plastic. Stop putting all the responsibility on the end user while letting the producers scoot free and clear. If you don’t want a wastefull product on the market- then they should not be manufactured, but that’s another ball of wax eh? How long did it take after compact flourescents hit the market to stop production all together of innefecient incandescents? Please, we do very little based on what’s good for anyone but ourselves it seems.
I really hope that was sarcasm i missunderstood!
JDM that is a conclusion based on interpretation of scientific evidence and the application of a statistical probability, not a belief.
ps- blame it on Texas, they started the- trucks need to be like cadillacs- craze.
In my day, heat and radio were options when you bought a truck.
JDM – going to wikipedia is at least a step in the right direction :-)
If we lived on what we really needed we would all live as the Amish do. None of what we do is based on what we really need it is based on our personal choices; just as it should be in land of liberty and personal freedom.
If someone can afford a truck and afford the gas for a truck they have every right to drive as big of a truck as they want and they are not immoral for doing so, that idea is just silly.
PNELBA:
“application of a statistical probability, not a belief.”
what did Mark Twain say about statisticians?
Love the Amish
It’s odd that you mention Mark Twain. I’ve been reading quite a bit of Mark Twain lately and one thing I’ve learned about him is that while he may have been a humorist, he was not a science denier. BTW, Sam Clemens had some quite humorist things to say about religion also. I suggest you read “The Bible According to Mark Twain” although you might want to read his “Letters from the Earth” first.
We all know; and maybe this is where the anger comes from, that telling working people what to drive will not impact the elites and political class; and it will not impact climate change. Al gore and Donald trump will still fly around in private jets that burn more fuel than 150 giant trucks, guys in Washington and wall street will all still have two massive homes etc. and on and on. Then they will wag there finger at some north country guy who makes 45k a year and enjoys a big truck and a snowmobile.
Is fighting global warming becoming another elitist issue?
If I was a Republican that is sure the way I would spin it, maybe this global warming crusade is a smokescreen to implement government power and control over our most basic individual decisions?
We will emit less carbon when carbon based energy is more expensive than non carbon based energy, no policy will really matter until that happens.
“… maybe this global warming crusade is a smokescreen to implement government power and control over our most basic individual decisions?”
Mervel,
in my opinion this is the basis of 99% of all governmental actions, in the proverbial nutshell.
Greenwashing is a term we should all get familiar with.
JDM and his ilk deny human-caused climate change because denying human-cause climate change drives liberals crazy, which is more important to them than whether it’s true or not, because it results in their being attacked for their “principles,” which makes them feel victimized and angry, which is what they get off on.
Hey, it’s a hobby.
I’d rather ice fish.
This thread really says something about the ability to conduct a public discourse these days. I wrote 7 graphs about climate change and one challenging the notion someone else made that you NEED a truck if you live in the country. It’s devolved into claiming I want to take away people’s trucks, or that I am trying to be the arbiter of what people drive.
For the record, I could care less what you drive and there are plenty of good reasons to drive a big truck. But I believe it won’t be long before all these shiny trucks the size of two cars that it’s people’s god-given right to drive will be gone, the victim of an unrelenting economy where people will no longer be able to invest in their own status. It’s likely our grandchildren and their children will see them as nothing but an obnoxious ostentatious display of wealth they will never enjoy.
And that’s what it really comes down to. Most of these enormous trucks that have never carried more than groceries are simply status symbols for the redneck fashion conscious.
I spent the first half of my life on a mountain farm. I learned to drive a tractor, run a chainsaw, and slaughter hogs before I owned my first car.
I’ve never owned a truck, because like most Americans, I don’t need one.
While it’s clear many don’t think beyond their own selves, I take pride in at least recognizing that I don’t want to be a consumerist status-driven road and resource hog.
I’m confident there is a growing portion of Americans who are more concerned about their communities than themselves who agree.
Mervel said “None of what we do is based on what we really need it is based on our personal choices; just as it should be in land of liberty and personal freedom.”
Boy is that optimistic! First, because our “personal choices” are more and more shaped by marketing techniques that have us all manipulated like never before. And second, because more and more, the “genius of the marketplace” manages to make sure that a lot of choices completely unavailable. Like a four-cylinder pick up truck. Like a car with crank up windows. I haven’t bought a new car in a while, but the last I looked, you couldn’t buy a Toyota without a CD player, air conditioning, electric windows, mirrors and locks, cruise control, etc., etc. And when I told the dealer I wanted the basic model, without the trip computer, tinted windows, mag wheels, etc, etc, they had to special order it.
And has anyone noticed that mattress manufacturers no longer make a mattress you can flip?
Yeah, freedom of choice! Personal liberty! Errr…
Ai-yi-yi-yi-yi!
Okay, the truck thing. Some people need a truck for work, but many people buy a truck as a commuter vehicle and NEVER use it as a truck. They just think it looks cool. That is just stupid Most people don’t need the biggest truck with the most horsepower available and monster mud tires or 4wd. I have owned several 2wd Toyota pick-ups and I have driven them in the worst of weather without ever having an accident. People told me “you can’t lay a sheet of plywood flat on the bed in that. And they were right. Never-the-less I moved many sheets of plywood.
John Warren’s point about a trailer is absolutely right. A trailer works great for most jobs and you can pull it with your car.
And most of you don’t need 4wd. It used to be that everyone drove rear wheel drive sedans and they still got wherever they needed to be.
But there are MANY ways to SAVE MONEY, while at the same time causing less pollution whether you believe in “global warming” or not. Here’s one for all of you who mow an acre of lawn — mow half, or a quarter as much lawn and turn the rest into a wild-flower meadow or a vegetable garden. Or maybe stop using your leaf blower and rake your lawn by hand.
Saving money, reducing our use of fossil fuels, and reducing pollution by mowing less grass and raking your leaves by hand WILL NOT let the Chinese and Indians destroy us.
So don’t buy them. Like I said none of these things are needs, most people in the world don’t have a car at all. The market responds to what is popular and what sells and we have the choice of buying them or not or making our own or trading with someone else or buying used. There are trucks that are smaller and are get good mileage if a person so desires. The fact is big trucks are popular people like them if they were not popular car companies would not make them that is the whole point.
What stops people from buying big trucks is not scolding people for making choices that we don’t like, what stops people from buying gas guzzling cars and trucks is $5.00 per gallon gas OR a really cheap hybrid.
We need a $5000.00 new car. I have read that China is actually working on mass producing such a thing for the US market.
“Saving money, reducing our use of fossil fuels, and reducing pollution by mowing less grass and raking your leaves by hand WILL NOT let the Chinese and Indians destroy us.”
Knuckle yes I agree it won’t destroy us and it also will make no difference on global climate change. That is fine for someone to choose those things, like I said that is part of liberty and choice and freedom to live as we please.
“How is global warming responsible for our snowfall last winter or the rains we experienced this spring? ”
Easy question. First, it’s called climate change. Global warming is one aspect of climate change but not the only aspect. Another aspect is the drought that much of the African Sahel has experienced in the last 30 or so years.
Second, the warming melts glaciers and causes more water to evaporate into the atmosphere. How are rain drops and snow flakes formed? Water vapor in the atmopshere condense around a particle. More water vapor in the air means more rain and snow.
And that concludes your science lesson. If you have any questions, find a 8th grade student and he can enlighten you.
Mervel,
“We will emit less carbon when carbon based energy is more expensive than non carbon based energy, no policy will really matter until that happens.”
Which is one reason why we need a carbon tax. It would preferably be a global tax with each country retaining the revenue. That way other countries couldn’t entice industry by not imposing a tax for polluting.
Okay, while everyone is caught up in the distraction of trucks (my bad, I started it) but the point is that engineers, the state DOT, the Warren County Soil and Water Conservation District are all telling us that “Global warming is changing everything.”
These are not knuckle-headed liberals. These are not tree-hugging fuzzy-headed Marxists. These are ENGINEERS, professionals, scientists. And don’t just ask them ask the insurance investigators and underwriters.
Will everyone here please admit that the weather is changing and that it is costing us a lot of money?
Scrathy I agree, I would make it match the true cost of carbon to US society and couple it with a decrease in the federal income and possibly social security tax. I don’t think a global tax will work, however it would not matter. If we had a carbon tax the price of this energy would be high enough for long enough to fuel true change in the energy industry in this country.
I agree knuckle the weather is changing. It could also lead to saving us some money also however.
Will everyone here please admit that the weather is changing and that it is costing us a lot of money?
The weather is changing, but not everyone accepts it is climate change that is causing it. Personally, I think it is cause by all the hot air coming from politicians.
I was quoting knucklehead in the first sentence in the above post.
scratchy: “The weather is changing, but not everyone accepts it is climate change that is causing it”
Do you ever actually think about what you write? Who are you, Yogi Berra?
knuckle,
I meant “man made” climate change.