Water Is The Thing

[togor]

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/21/c...gtype=Homepage

When talking about the effects of climate change, incidence of flooding is what brings the point home. And it can happen in many places.

[Major Tom]

I live along the Mississippi River. The whole length of this river is bordered by levees. Those levees cannot hold that river in it's channel when water rises. A losing fix to protect farmlands.

[m1ashooter]

Climate changes all of the time. The facts are man can't beat mother nature. The fertile fields along our rivers were created by flooding trying to prevent flooding is really a waste of time.

[togor]

Climate changes all of the time. The facts are man can't beat mother nature. The fertile fields along our rivers were created by flooding trying to prevent flooding is really a waste of time.

Timescale matters. Geologically speaking, sure, the climate changes. Since the dawn of civilization, not so much except where man has modified the local environment (e.g., de-forestation in the Mediterranean basin). Maybe we should stop spending money to rebuild Houston when it floods? OK by me if my federal tax dollars find a better use. But the fact remains that we developed a global civilization of 7, 8B people (I lose count) in more or less this climate. If it suddenly changes, in such a way as to affect the carrying capacity of the planet, then look out.

[dogtag]

The Egyptians used flooding to grow their crops.
If you can't control it, then use it.

[lyman]

Time scale is where the hiccup is,

we have been accurately measuring the weather for less than 200yrs,
anything more is not exactly accurate, or speculation,

the Climate Change believers say that is enough,
the opposite end says it is just cyclic,


truth may lie somewhere in between,

as far as supporting that number of people,
we could easily feed that many,

[togor]

Lyman if someone looks at the rate at which new record high temperature marks are set versus record lows, the highs come much more frequently.

A bit like a coin that comes up heads on 90 flips and tails on 10. Is it a loaded coin? If it came up tails for you, then you say "no". But look at all 100 flips and the odds say yes, it is loaded. That's pretty much where things are.

[Vern Humphrey]

Time scale is where the hiccup is,

we have been accurately measuring the weather for less than 200yrs,
anything more is not exactly accurate, or speculation,

the Climate Change believers say that is enough,
the opposite end says it is just cyclic,


truth may lie somewhere in between,

as far as supporting that number of people,
we could easily feed that many,

You're right, of course. At one time, most of this country was covered with ice, in some cases a sheet thousands of feet thick. The Missoula Floods occurred when a 5,000 foot high ice dam in Clarks Fork gave way -- and it happened at least 25 times:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missoula_Floods

The Missoula Floods (also known as the Spokane Floods or the Bretz Floods) refer to the cataclysmic floods that swept periodically across eastern Washington and down the Columbia River Gorge at the end of the last ice age. The glacial flood events have been researched since the 1920s. These glacial lake outburst floods were the result of periodic sudden ruptures of the ice dam on the Clark Fork River that created Glacial Lake Missoula. After each ice dam rupture, the waters of the lake would rush down the Clark Fork and the Columbia River, flooding much of eastern Washington and the Willamette Valley in western Oregon. After the rupture, the ice would reform, creating Glacial Lake Missoula again.

Ice ages occurred periodically, with "interglacial periods" in between when the ice melted and the climate warmed.

And unless cave men were driving SUVs around, it's hard to see how that was caused by the action of humans.

[blackhawknj]

There was the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. New York was hit by the Great Blizzard of 1888, in the Summer of 1896 they had a killer heat wave.
Nobody remembers the heat waves because they don't photograph well.

[m1ashooter]

Togor, guess what I don't think any federal dollars should be spend on rebuilding Houston either.

[lyman]

Togor, guess what I don't think any federal dollars should be spend on rebuilding Houston either.

I don't either,

that's why folks buy insurance

[Vern Humphrey]

There was the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. New York was hit by the Great Blizzard of 1888, in the Summer of 1896 they had a killer heat wave.
Nobody remembers the heat waves because they don't photograph well.

The year 1816 was known as "the year without a summer" because of the eruption of Mount Tamboa in what is now Indonesia. The high-altitude ash cloud caused the temperature to drop world-wide -- there was frost every month, and widespread famine as a result.

[dogtag]

You would think that if an area was prone to flooding,
people would avoid living there.
But no, not if Federal funds allowed you to rebuild
IN THE SAME PLACE.

[Vern Humphrey]

You would think that if an area was prone to flooding,
people would avoid living there.
But no, not if Federal funds allowed you to rebuild
IN THE SAME PLACE.

I have no problem with them rebuilding in the same place. My objection is me having to pay for it, over and over and over.

Do what you want, but do it on your own nickle.

[togor]

Something we can agree on! The Federal flood insurance program incentivizes people to build and rebuild in flood zones at taxpayer expense, and is a bad idea.