Activism Change

Hurricane Frances and Climate Change: What the Corporate Media Won't Tell You

Question:

Economic Democracy – Your general point is well-taken,

Actually we posed the less damning of the two articles here (so my refernece to tornados and other statistics would not have made any sense) the more damning we had posted elsewhere. Here it is again below. EVERY person in FL absolutely must read this article… ttp://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=558368 Summary: *** "experts are getting increasingly worried. Last month beat all previous US records for big hurricanes and tornadoes and equalled them for tropical storms. *** "We expect this to be the eighth of the past 10 seasons that have had hurricane activity much above the last 55-year average," he said. *** NOAA reported last week that 173 tornadoes had been reported across the US in August, far exceeding the previous record of 126, set in 1979. *** NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, based at Princeton University, says on its website: "The strongest hurricanes in the present climate may be upstaged by even more intense hurricanes over the next century as the Earth’s climate is warmed by increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere." *** This admission is the second official embarrassment for the Bush administration over climate change in less than 10 days. Just over a week ago, a report to Congress – signed by Mr Bush’s two cabinet members in charge of commerce and energy – conceded that the warming of the world’s climate over the past 30 years could only be explained by pollution from carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse gases". [why on earth do US media not tell us these things?] = = = = Full Story: A storm the size of Texas whips through Florida resorts State prepares for devastation as global warming comes home to Bush’s America By Andrew Buncombe in Palm Beach, Florida and Geoffrey Lean 05 September 2004 Hurricane Frances – a vast storm the size of Texas – yesterday began to hit the Florida coastline, bringing 100mph winds and torrential tropical rain. But a US government body admits – despite President George Bush’s refusal to join international action to combat global warming – that it is likely to be only a foretaste of things to come as the climate changes. Few parts of the state were expected to escape devastation last night as it anxiously awaited the full force of the storm, expected to hit the east coast in the early hours of the morning. It is forecast to move slowly across the state, finally blowing out over the Gulf of Mexico late today or early tomorrow. "It is more of a marathon than a sprint," said Matt Mitchell of the Florida Emergency Operation Centre. Yesterday the hurricane dumped about 20in of rain over the Bahamas, and it is expected to do much the same over the "Sunshine State", causing widespread flooding – which is usually the main cause of death in a storm such as this. Two and a half million people have been ordered to leave their homes in the biggest mass evacuation in the state’s history, many crowding into emergency accommodation in schools and community centres. In Fort Pierce, Grace Teffel, 71, fled her mobile home, which is expected to be demolished by the winds. "I was crying. I took the things that were precious to me, my pictures," she said. But 34-year-old Rachel Costigan, from Woking, had decided to open her Irish pub – O’Sheas – for business, even though it is in West Palm Beach, where the very centre of the storm is expected to make landfall. "We’re on high ground so we won’t flood and we didn’t want to evacuate," she said "Everyone else did. The motorway was looking like a car park and we didn’t have anywhere to go." John Dennis, an IT project manager from Sunderland who lives in Miami Beach, was equally phlegmatic – though he had booked a hotel room 20 miles inland in case he needed to evacuate. "I think the American media are using the hurricane to push their ratings up," Mr Dennis said. "If you believe what the news is saying, you’d think everybody had battened down the hatches and left town. There are still people around." But experts are getting increasingly worried. Last month beat all previous US records for big hurricanes and tornadoes, and equalled them for tropical storms. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), part of the US government’s Department of Commerce, said that this was partly due to a warmer Atlantic Ocean. One of the world’s leading authorities predicted two more big hurricanes before November’s presidential election. And things are expected to get worse as global warming takes hold. NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, based at Princeton University, says on its website: "The strongest hurricanes in the present climate may be upstaged by even more intense hurricanes over the next century as the Earth’s climate is warmed by increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere." This admission is the second official embarrassment for the Bush administration over climate change in less than 10 days. Just over a week ago, a report to Congress – signed by Mr Bush’s two cabinet members in charge of commerce and energy – conceded that the warming of the world’s climate over the past 30 years could only be explained by pollution from carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse gases". The Bush administration has consistently played down the problem, and tried to scupper the internationally agreed Kyoto Protocol designed to combat it. Two years ago, the President personally repudiated a report by his own Environmental Protection Agency, which warned of climate change. Last Friday, Professor William Gray of Colorado State University – one of the world’s leading authorities on hurricanes, who has been predicting them for the past 21 years – increased his projections for this year. He said that, for the first time since detailed investigations began 60 years ago, three major hurricanes had developed in the Atlantic. [No you did not misread that. One can play all sorts of games with statistics and find some things that are "less severe today than in 1950!!!" but hard statistics like this article plus the tornados "beyond the stratosphere" breaking of all past records, plus NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, and now this 60 year (ie the entire record) breaker, are too much for most folks in FL to let the wool be pulled over their eyes that "everything's fine folks, honestly! go back to shopping at wal mart and vote for another 4 years of flushing the environment down the toilet and getting more climate change" -ED] The first, called Alex, grazed the Outer Banks of North Carolina on 3 August. The second, Charley, which devastated Florida last month, is expected by Professor Gray to be the "second most destructive" US hurricane ever, after Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Meanwhile, five people were killed in Virginia last week as the state was lashed by Gaston, the third tropical storm to hit the US in August. And yet another, Ivan, was yesterday gathering in the Atlantic. NOAA reported last week that 173 tornadoes had been reported across the US in August, far exceeding the previous record of 126, set in 1979. [No you did not misread that. If anyone had said this 10 years ago as a prediction they would have been called (yaaaawn) a commie and all the other boring predictable idiotic terms of far-right nuts who can't deal with reality. But it's not just record breaking, but 173 versus the previous all time record of 126. Jesus flying christ, how's the corporate media going to keep lying to folks about global warming like this to keep denial, denial, denial as their religion? Just so the money changers can get a few pennies (billions) richer? -ED] rofessor Gray predicts two more major hurricanes for this month and now expects this year to end with a total of 16 named storms, eight hurricanes and five major hurricanes. "We expect this to be the eighth of the past 10 seasons that have had hurricane activity much above the last 55-year average," he said. [And finally no you did not misread THAT statistic...then act..Kyoto isn't enough but it's an urgent, critical first step... -ED] Additional reporting by Malcolm Fitzwilliams http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=558368 DON’T MOURN, ACT! WEBSITES FOR ACTION: http://www.earthshare.org/get_involved/involved.html http://www.gristmagazine.com/dogood/climate.asp http://www.greenhousenet.org/ http://www.solarcatalyst.com/ Overview and local actions you can take: http://www.PostCarbon.org = = = = STILL FEELING LIKE THE MAINSTREAM U.S. CORPORATE MEDIA IS GIVING A FULL HONEST PICTURE OF WHAT’S GOING ON? = = = = Daily online radio show, news reporting: www.DemocracyNow.org = = = = Sorry, we cannot read/reply to most usenet posts but welcome email For more information: http://EconomicDemocracy.org/wtc/ (peace) And http://EconomicDemocracy.org/ (general) ** ANTI-SPAM EMAIL NOTE: For email "info" and "map" don’t work. Email instead ** to m-a-i-l-m-a-i-l (without the dashes) at economicdemocracy.org

Response:

Economic Democracy – Your general point is well-taken, but fortunately a few US business magazines are beginning to acknowledge reality.  "Business Week" had a cover story on global climate change in August.   Considering the absurdly disproportionate influence that corporations have in the US political system,

And the media where it’s not that the media are  in league with corporate America, the media are a *part* of corporate America, with a stronger control it’s good news that at least a few business journalists are paying attention to the climate.  Most US corporate media, though, are still in total denial on this issue.

Three points to make, one,article below, is the latest example of businesses taking climate change seriously. But the matter of hurricanes is one for spreading the word to florida voters. They can get a candidate who is going to take (too) small steps against it, or a candidate who will take large steps to make things worse. It’s unfortunate that our choices are that pathetic, but until we rebuild the political-economy from the ground up that’s what we hav to live with. Second, it’s too easy to look at the dellusional deniers of climate change, and poke fun at them, but they are not the biggest threats. "All that it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing". It’s the ones who are worried but don’t act, that cause more damage, than the "flat earth" deniers of climate change. So we need to act.. As in, forward to everyone in FL you know…the article originally posted on the number of tornados being way way higher than the previous 1979 record for the month, yet more Bush white house officials admitting we are to expect more hurricanes, and the rest from that article..and see our links page: DON’T MOURN, ACT! WEBSITES FOR ACTION: http://www.earthshare.org/get_involved/involved.html http://www.gristmagazine.com/dogood/climate.asp http://www.greenhousenet.org/ http://www.solarcatalyst.com/ Overview and local actions you can take: http://www.PostCarbon.org As for the business community, we posted this elsewhere just earlier today but here it is again since you raise the important point of the ever broader cross section admitting there is a problems and even asking how to minimize the damage (too late to completely eliminate it). http://www.evworld.com/view.cfm?section=communique&newsid=6509 "Global Warming Becoming an ‘Urgent Priority’ for Business" Source: PR Newswire Sep 08, 2004 Reports that the well known business gruop the <bConference Board</b working with the <bmerican Association for the Advancement of Science</b is taking climate change very seriously. = = = = STILL FEELING LIKE THE MAINSTREAM U.S. CORPORATE MEDIA IS GIVING A FULL HONEST PICTURE OF WHAT’S GOING ON? = = = = Daily online radio show, news reporting: www.DemocracyNow.org = = = = Sorry, we cannot read/reply to most usenet posts but welcome email FOR MORE INFORMATION: http://EconomicDemocracy.org/wtc/ (peace) http://economicdemocracy.org/eco/climate-summary.html (Climate) And http://EconomicDemocracy.org/ (general) ** ANTI-SPAM EMAIL NOTE: For email "info" and "map" don’t work. Email to ** m-a-i-l-m-a-i-l (without the dashes) at economicdemocracy.org instead

Response:

Economic Democracy – Your general point is well-taken, but fortunately a few US business magazines are beginning to acknowledge reality.  "Business Week" had a cover story on global climate change in August.   Considering the absurdly disproportionate influence that corporations have in the US political system, it’s good news that at least a few business journalists are paying attention to the climate.  Most US corporate media, though, are still in total denial on this issue. ***** – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – "There is little dispute, either, about the underlying cause. Every expert contacted by the Sunday Herald last week blamed the global warming triggered by increasing emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide into the atmosphere." More  BS, as usual.   If you actualy read the data instead of parroting pseudoscience scammer lies, you would realize that according to your claims, the earth is cooling.  The data shows precisely the opposite of the BS you are parroting. Hurricanes have been greater frequency and greater intensity in years past. Here’s the facts: Top 10 Most Intense Hurricanes Rank       Hurricane       Year     Category       Pressure 1  FL (Keys)       1935         5           892 mb 2  CAMILLE         1969         5           909 mb 3  ANDREW          1992         5           922 mb 4  FL (Keys)       1919         4           927 mb 5  FL (Lk Okeechobee) 1928      4           929 mb 6  DONNA           1960         4           930 mb 7  TX (Galveston)  1900         4           931 mb 8  LA (Grand Isle) 1909         4           931 mb 9  LA (New Orleans)1915         4           931 mb 10         CARLA           1961         4           931 mb http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/deadly/ Table 5 (http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/deadly/Table5.htm), which lists hurricanes by decades since 1900, shows that during the twenty year period 1960-1979 both the number and intensity of landfalling U.S. hurricanes decreased sharply! Based on 1900-1959 statistics, the expected number of hurricanes and major hurricanes during the period 1960-1979 was 36 and 15, respectively. But, in fact, only 27 (or 75%) of the expected number of hurricanes struck the U.S. with only 10 major hurricanes or 67% of that expected number. The decade of the eighties showed little change to this trend. Even the decade of the nineties, showed below average landfall frequencies. It could be noted that of the most recent four decades, only the 70’s and 90’s were significantly below normal. … A comparison of twenty-year periods beginning in 1901 indicates that the major hurricanes tended to be in the western Gulf Coast states at the beginning of the 20th century, shifting to the eastern Gulf Coast states and Florida during the next twenty years, then to Florida and the Atlantic Coast states during the forties and fifties, and back to the western Gulf Coast states in the sixties and seventies. … REFERENCES Gentry, R.C., 1966: Nature and Scope of Hurricane Damage, American Society for Oceanography, Hurricane Symposium, Publication Number One, 344p. Hebert, P.J., J.G. Taylor, and R.A. Case, 1984: Hurricane Experience Levels of Coastal County Populations -Texas to Maine, NOAA, Technical Memorandum NWS-NHC-24, 127pp. Hebert, P.J., J.D. Jarrell, and B.M. Mayfield, 1997: The Deadliest, Costliest and Most Intense United States Hurricanes of this Century (and Other Frequently Requested Hurricane Facts), NOAA, Technical Memorandum NWS-TPC-1, 30 pp. Jarrell, J.D., P.J. Hebert, and B.M. Mayfield, 1992: Hurricane Experience Levels of Coastal County Populations-Texas to Maine, NOAA, Technical Memorandum NWS-NHC-46, 152 pp. Neumann, C.J., B.R. Jarvinen, C.J. McAdie, and G.R. Hammer, 1999:Tropical Cyclones of the North Atlantic Ocean, 1871-1998, NOAA, Historical Climatogy Series 6-2. Pielke, Jr., R.A., and C.W. Landsea, 1998: Normalized U.S. Hurricane Damage. 1925-1995, Weather and Forecasting, 13, 621-631. Simpson, R.H., 1974: The Hurricane Disaster Potential Scale. Weatherwise. 27,169,186. U.S. Weather Bureau: Climatological Data and Storm Data, various volumes, various periods, National and State Summaries (National Weather Service 1971-1998). U.S. Weather Bureau: Monthly Weather Review, 1872-1970 (National Weather Service 1971-1973, and American Meteorological Society 1974-2001). William R. James

Response:

"There is little dispute, either, about the underlying cause. Every expert contacted by the Sunday Herald last week blamed the global warming triggered by increasing emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide into the atmosphere."

More  BS, as usual.   If you actualy read the data instead of parroting pseudoscience scammer lies, you would realize that according to your claims, the earth is cooling.  The data shows precisely the opposite of the BS you are parroting. Hurricanes have been greater frequency and greater intensity in years past. Here’s the facts: Top 10 Most Intense Hurricanes Rank    Hurricane       Year     Category       Pressure 1       FL (Keys)       1935         5           892 mb 2       CAMILLE         1969         5           909 mb 3       ANDREW          1992         5           922 mb 4       FL (Keys)       1919         4           927 mb 5       FL (Lk Okeechobee) 1928      4           929 mb 6       DONNA           1960         4           930 mb 7       TX (Galveston)  1900         4           931 mb 8       LA (Grand Isle) 1909         4           931 mb 9       LA (New Orleans)1915         4           931 mb 10      CARLA           1961         4           931 mb http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/deadly/ Table 5 (http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/deadly/Table5.htm), which lists hurricanes by decades since 1900, shows that during the twenty year period 1960-1979 both the number and intensity of landfalling U.S. hurricanes decreased sharply! Based on 1900-1959 statistics, the expected number of hurricanes and major hurricanes during the period 1960-1979 was 36 and 15, respectively. But, in fact, only 27 (or 75%) of the expected number of hurricanes struck the U.S. with only 10 major hurricanes or 67% of that expected number. The decade of the eighties showed little change to this trend. Even the decade of the nineties, showed below average landfall frequencies. It could be noted that of the most recent four decades, only the 70’s and 90’s were significantly below normal. … A comparison of twenty-year periods beginning in 1901 indicates that the major hurricanes tended to be in the western Gulf Coast states at the beginning of the 20th century, shifting to the eastern Gulf Coast states and Florida during the next twenty years, then to Florida and the Atlantic Coast states during the forties and fifties, and back to the western Gulf Coast states in the sixties and seventies. … REFERENCES Gentry, R.C., 1966: Nature and Scope of Hurricane Damage, American Society for Oceanography, Hurricane Symposium, Publication Number One, 344p. Hebert, P.J., J.G. Taylor, and R.A. Case, 1984: Hurricane Experience Levels of Coastal County Populations -Texas to Maine, NOAA, Technical Memorandum NWS-NHC-24, 127pp. Hebert, P.J., J.D. Jarrell, and B.M. Mayfield, 1997: The Deadliest, Costliest and Most Intense United States Hurricanes of this Century (and Other Frequently Requested Hurricane Facts), NOAA, Technical Memorandum NWS-TPC-1, 30 pp. Jarrell, J.D., P.J. Hebert, and B.M. Mayfield, 1992: Hurricane Experience Levels of Coastal County Populations-Texas to Maine, NOAA, Technical Memorandum NWS-NHC-46, 152 pp. Neumann, C.J., B.R. Jarvinen, C.J. McAdie, and G.R. Hammer, 1999:Tropical Cyclones of the North Atlantic Ocean, 1871-1998, NOAA, Historical Climatogy Series 6-2. Pielke, Jr., R.A., and C.W. Landsea, 1998: Normalized U.S. Hurricane Damage. 1925-1995, Weather and Forecasting, 13, 621-631. Simpson, R.H., 1974: The Hurricane Disaster Potential Scale. Weatherwise. 27,169,186. U.S. Weather Bureau: Climatological Data and Storm Data, various volumes, various periods, National and State Summaries (National Weather Service 1971-1998). U.S. Weather Bureau: Monthly Weather Review, 1872-1970 (National Weather Service 1971-1973, and American Meteorological Society 1974-2001). William R. James

Response:

"There is little dispute, either, about the underlying cause. Every expert contacted by the Sunday Herald last week blamed the global warming triggered by increasing emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide into the atmosphere." You have to surf the internet for news from the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada… …anywhere English speakout but outside the US to get much of a break from the vow of silence most of the US corporate media has taken with regard to natural disasters and global warming And, way back on August 22nd this article states: "orecasters from University College London are predicting at least 14 tropical storms in the Atlantic this year

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