Not Every Weather-Related Phenomenon Is Climate Change

I have high confidence that human action has caused, is causing, and will cause major changes in the environment. You only have to look at places where overgrazing has turned prairies into deserts to believe that’s the case. Another obvious example: the urban heat island effect and its consequences for local weather patterns.

My confidence in the climate change models relying on carbon emissions for their predictions is somewhat less. I think that emitting too much carbon dioxide is bad but I don’t know how bad or over what timeframe. My confidence in the policy proposals put on the table so far to remedy the problem nears non-existence.

All of that having been said the agonistic blaming of every weather-related phenomenon on climate change has reached absurd proportions. Earlier this week I noted the folly of blaming smoky air in Seattle on climate change. Here’s another example. The recent flooding in New Orleans was not caused by climate change. It was caused by pump failure as this Daily Caller post retorts:

New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board director Cedric Grant blamed widespread flooding over the weekend on “climate change,” but it wasn’t long before news broke that broken water pumps were actually to blame.

Throughout the week, media reports have shown that New Orleans’s antiquated water pumping system failed to keep flooding at bay, and the problem hasn’t been resolved.

The mayor’s office warned Thursday morning a fire had taken out a turbine that powers most water pumping stations in the East Bank of New Orleans.
With more heavy rain forecast for this week, Mayor Mitch Landrieu is asking residents to prepare for flooding. August is also hurricane season, a time when pumping stations are vital to keeping storm drains from being overwhelmed.

That’s a very different message from city officials earlier in the week when Grant blamed flooding over the weekend on climate change.

It reminds me of the people who persistently build in and farm the flood plain of the Mississippi, something I’ve been complaining about intermittently since I began posting here nearly 20 years ago. It really needs to be said. New Orleans is a lousy place for a large city. About half of the city is below sea level.

And New Orleans isn’t an isolated instance. The sinkhole outside Tampa Bay that’s made national news shows just how nuts things have become. What in the world do you expect when you build on a swamp?

It would seem to go without saying but apparently not. Swamps (Miami, Tampa, New Orleans), sandy beaches (Miami, Long Beach), and places without abundant natural water supplies (Los Angeles, Phoenix) are all lousy places for major cities.

4 comments… add one
  • steve Link

    I agree. Of course if you read Drudge, you know that every cold day in January proves that there is no warming.

    Steve

  • Yes. There is only one sort of reality but the varieties of nonsense are beyond counting.

  • TastyBits Link

    Were the city and memory of New Orleans to vanish, a new city would quickly be built. Off-loading sea-going ships onto barges would get old, quick. A remote port will become a city because people want to be near where they work.

    As to AGW, somebody needs to tell Mr. Grant that until the wobble in Earth’s axis is corrected. Humans cannot change the Global Warming and global cooling cycles. Unless, we could get all the Chinese people to jump at the exact right time. Yeah, that would work.

  • Guarneri Link

    Drudge? Seriously?

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