It's hard to know what to say about the ongoing disaster in New Orleans (good coverage here). Good luck to all our readers there.
It sounds like it's not going to be as bad as feared, which is some comfort. For a glimpse at how bad it could have been, read Mooney's prescient AP piece from three months ago. And for a lament about the woeful lack of preparation, read his followup: "prescience sucks."
Katrina is sure to reignite the ongoing debate over hurricanes and global warming. A few thoughts on that debate below the fold.
Let's take the following two premises -- both argued repeatedly by Roger Pielke Jr. (see here and here) -- as given:
- There is no solid scientific case tying current hurricane frequency or severity to global warming. Global warming is widely expected to increase the severity of hurricanes and the frequency of severe weather events in coming years, but anyone who points at Katrina and says, "look, global warming!" is, to put it charitably, way out ahead of the scientific consensus.
- If our primary goal is preventing hurricane-related deaths, slowing the rise of global CO2 emissions is about the slowest, most inefficient possible course of action. Almost anything else -- improving coastal wetlands, training local disaster-relief personnel, building better sea walls -- would save more lives, more quickly, for less money.
But. Let's also remember the following:
- When greens discuss hurricanes and global warming, preventing hurricane-related deaths isn't their primary goal (though presumably all support it). Their primary goal is to raise awareness of, alarm about, and support for action on global warming, the ultimate effects of which will dwarf any individual severe weather event. If global warming represents the scale of disaster greens believe, then arguably the urgency of generating a large-scale response is great enough to warrant some fudging on strict rules of accuracy and precision. Many, many lives are at stake.
- There will likely never be any bulletproof scientific link between global warming and any particular severe weather event. Global climate is extraordinarily, almost incomprehensibly, complex. Billions of variables are involved. All climate scientists can say for now (and this seems to me unlikely to change) is that global warming raises the probability that severe weather events will occur. Consider an analogy: Crime rates rise during heat waves. But no individual criminal is likely to say, "I robbed that little old lady cause it's so damn hot." The reasons people commit crimes are many and varied. But this doesn't cast doubt on the link between heat and crime.
- Large-scale action on environmental issues tends to follow on the heels of dramatic events: the Cuyahoga River burning, Exxon-Valdez, Love Canal, etc. A cat5 hurricane like Katrina is nothing if not dramatic. It opens up a cultural space for dialogue and action at a time when getting the collective attention of the American public is extraordinarily difficult.
In the end, greens concerned about global warming face a choice. Do they stick to scrupulous standards of scientific accuracy, with all the hedging and qualifying that entails, at the risk of being boring and losing an opportunity to galvanize action? Or do they fudge a bit, propagandize a bit, indulge in a little bit of theater and showmanship?
And a further question: what role do scientists play? Are they, or should they ever play the role of, advocates? Or should the separation of green advocacy and science be strictly enforced?
These are tough questions, not as simply answered as many on both sides would have it.
Comments
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Brian Hosey Posted 11:00 am
29 Aug 2005
David Roberts, I refute thee:
"Global warming is fueling nastier storms, expert says"
Landsea and Trenberth are mulling this over and possibly backing off previous claims regarding severity and duration of tropical storms being strongly affected by global warming.
From the USA Today article:
"I think that this is very good science and a very important paper, but I don't think it settles every question," says National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration hurricane expert Chris Landsea. He wants researchers to delve further back into past hurricane records to verify the trend.
Uhuh, I feel the same way sometimes.
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jdhlax Posted 5:29 pm
29 Aug 2005
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toadstool Posted 10:08 pm
29 Aug 2005
There is strong science behind this claim. Furthermore, it is intuitive and easy for the non-scientific public to understand. Flames under a pot of water make it boil. Heating up sea surface temperatures increases evaporation and storms.
There is also strong science behind the fact that people make decisions irrationally, and respond more to visually dramatic events than to more dangerous, but less concentrated or dramatic ones. It follows that big storms are likely to be the NUMBER ONE WAY to communicate the dangers of climate change to the public. But I see green groups asleep at the wheel on this one. (At least I haven't heard a peep through the mainstream media.)
Any person or organization serious about mobilizing political will to slow global warming should be throwing tons of energy into the storms-warming argument RIGHT NOW. The timing is right, in the wake of Katrina and last year's big hurricanes. And it honors the victims to work on reducing the severity of future storm tragedies.
I'll close by reiterating that while the messaging is a bit subtle and requires some care, it's not hard. No, we can't say Katrina was due to warming (though her severity well might have been). But we can say out loud she illustrates warming's danger.
Suppose you wanted to warn people of the threat posed by a new and powerful kind of bomb, in the hope of preventing its first use. An asteroid strikes the earth, causing an explosion of the same magnitude as would be generated by the bomb.
Would you use the asteroid damage to communicate what the bomb is capable of? Or would you shy away, worried that this would be unscientific? After all, the only way really to know the capability of the bomb would be to try one out. Is that what the public deserves?
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Ted Glick Posted 6:03 am
30 Aug 2005
We also need to provide people some hope that they can do something about global warming. That's one of our biggest challenges because it feels, and is, so big.
One thing they and we can do is participate in an education and action campaign that is developing building toward local actions around the country and the world on December 3rd. This is at the same time that the COP/MOP U.N. conference on climate change is happening in Montreal, and it is likely that there will be a major press focus on this event. It's an appropriate time to make visible the emergence of a growing popular movement demanding serious action by government at all levels on this urgent crisis.
More information can be found at http://www.climatecrisis.us or by writing me at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
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DemDaily Posted 6:14 am
30 Aug 2005
The Ravages of Hurricane Katrina and the Global Warming Connection
http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=387
Katrina's Real Name -- Global Warming
http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=385
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raverill Posted 6:40 am
30 Aug 2005
On the science issue; Hurricanes are huge heat-pumps. They remove the heat from the surface of equatorial oceans in the form of water vapor, and dissipate it into the upper atmosphere, where the vapor looses its heat and condenses and falls as rain. (That is the basic principle of refrigeration.) While it is true that more than warm surface ocean water is needed, lack of wind shear in the upper atmosphere must also exist, the warmer the water, the more severe the hurricane will be when it does form. Look what happened to Katrina when it hit the warmer water of the Gulf of Mexico. It grew from a nuisance to a monster because of a few degrees upward difference in surface water temperature.
The question is not whether hurricane frequency/severity is connected to global warming, the question is how much more proof do you want? How much more proof can the people of the southern Atlantic coast, the Caribean, and the Gulf coast survive?
RVA
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julianjane Posted 6:47 am
30 Aug 2005
Bottom line: Global warming should be considered a significant contributor to Katrina and future hurricanes.
Julian
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JulchenBuns Posted 7:36 am
30 Aug 2005
Linking Katrina to global warming--albeit accurate--would only add to a flawed practice of discussing the environment in scientific terms. Nature evokes emotion and is more powerful for most people than what's found in a natural science textbook, presumably even for President Bush. Facts and education aren't working because it's easy to disregard the things that don't affect you emotionally or aren't communicated in emotional terms. Maybe this is a good time to take the environment back from policy makers and scientists, and say: Yes, nature's awesome force caused Katrina and destruction is most regretable. But what does our environment offer, that, to the same extreme the hurricane was ferocious, is equally intense in beauty, purity and peace?
Maybe dialogue about protecting our environment should be more about emotions and values with science and fact as "rational" support.
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jdhlax Posted 9:20 am
30 Aug 2005
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pdanh Posted 6:45 pm
30 Aug 2005
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Seth Kaplan Posted 3:27 am
31 Aug 2005
The transportation sector is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions.
Science tell us that greenhouse gas emissions are destabilizing our climate and that this destabilization will lead to more frequent catastrophic events like Katrina.
Seth Kaplan, Senior Attorney
Conservation Law Foundation
62 Summer Street
Boston MA 02110
(617) 850-1721 (voice)
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