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[jerry113]

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/08/28/climate-change-hurricane-harvey-215547

Climate change is making rainstorms everywhere worse, but particularly on the Gulf Coast. Since the 1950s, Houston has seen a 167 percent increase in the frequency of the most intense downpours. Climate scientist Kevin Trenberth thinks that as much as 30 percent of the rainfall from Harvey is attributable to human-caused global warming. That means Harvey is a storm decades in the making.

While Harvey's rains are unique in U.S. history, heavy rainstorms are increasing in frequency and intensity worldwide. One recent study showed that by mid-century, up to 450 million people worldwide will be exposed to a doubling of flood frequency. This isn't just a Houston problem. This is happening all over.

Weather patterns are also getting ”stuck" more often, boosting the chances that a storm like Harvey would stall out. Some scientists have linked this to melting Arctic sea ice, which reduces the strength of the polar jet stream and weakens atmospheric steering currents that can otherwise dip down and kick a storm like Harvey on its way. To be sure, a storm like Harvey might have been possible in the absence of climate change, but there are many factors at play that almost assuredly made it more likely.

Adapting to a future in which a millennium-scale flood can wipe out a major city is much harder than preventing that flood in the first place. By and large, the built world we have right now wasn't constructed with climate change in mind. By continuing to pretend that we can engineer our way out of the worsening flooding problem with bigger dams, more levees and higher-powered pumping equipment, we're fooling ourselves into a more dangerous future.

This article illustrates the feeling I've been getting from seeing the footage of Hurricane Harvey over the past few days: the feeling that we're getting a foreshadowing glimpse at what the future holds, and that we're going to see much more displacement of people as a result of storms, floods, and agricultural-killing droughts in both our and our children's lifetimes. It'll hit the third world countries the hardest first, but even first world countries won't be able to escape its effects in the long term.

It also makes the good point that a city like Houston - with its expansive suburban, low density sprawl - is exactly the type of city that is ill-equipped to deal with natural disasters like this. Our infrastructure was built not with a warmer future in mind, and the chicken is going to come home to roost for all of us soon.

I don't know if it's going to be possible to save all our communities as they currently exist, or if we're all going to have to move to new places soon.

The author points out that preventing climate change would be an easier and better option than attempting to engineer our way out of climate change's effects. But I think the ship has already sailed for that. How soon before we can begin building sea walls, 'ala the vision of a future New York City presented in SyFy's The Expanse?

 

[DogDude]

I mean I get what they're saying but this just seems like an utterly horrible way about saying it

 

[Fenderputty]

I mean I get what they're saying but this just seems like an utterly horrible way about saying it

Doesn't matter what's said. This admin is attacking science and proudly claims policy shouldn't be driven by science. A good portion of the nation seems to believe the corporate line too.