Michiganders may not be as empathetic to others that have witnessed the bad affects of climate change or empathetic to climate change itself simply because we have yet to suffer billions in loss due to bad weather. According to the National Climate Data Center, NCDC, that uses NOAA satellite info, Michigan, Maine, New Hampshire, and what looks like Vermont have had no significant loss due to bad weather. Maybe that’s why we’re so slow to admit that climate is getting worse. We’ve got to admit, we’re doing nicely this summer while what we see and hear on the news about other parts of our country is horrible.
The NCDC website tracked billion dollar climate disasters for the last 28 years. There has been a steady increase in extreme weather costs everywhere but Michigan, and a few NE states saving us billions in loss to homes, food crops, fruit trees, and property. While we enjoy Canadian breezes, the current drought and record-breaking temperatures in the Northwest could prove even more disastrous if any forest fires breakout. And Texas is experiencing a record heat wave that threatens the area’s immediate water supply, while putting a huge strain on power providers. Neighbors are turning each other in for running sprinklers and wasting precious water.
We may think that this doesn’t affect us but overall prices on goods that we procure from states undergoing extreme weather does indeed reach Michigan. Cost burdens on insurance companies are passed along also. As Bill McGuire, Professor of Geophysical Hazards at University College London and Director of the University’s Benfield UCL Hazard Research Centre, said “In the decades ahead, climate change will come to dominate everything in our lives; everything we do… Even if we act now to drastically curb emissions, things are going to be bad. If we do nothing, they will be far, far worse.”
When this blog started I stated that we’re in this together. There might be a time that a big exodus takes place out west because water becomes too scarce. Are Michiganders who are slow to empathize with the rest of America willing to move over if water becomes an issue due to drought?
I truly did not expect to be asking this question again so soon. And looking over the reports of the past 28 years a cooling pattern is not evident as much as hurricanes, floods, and drought. Just look at the NCDC graph of dollars per disasters. There is an undeniable rise in expense due to a rise in extreme weather across the country as a whole. Climate insurance is getting out of the realm of affordability. On a global warming website a graph by the Center for Research of the Epidemiology of Disasters clearly shows a huge and quick rise of extreme weather events since the 50’s. This same website states: “Overall, there is growing acknowledgement that the impact of climate change on future losses is likely to be profound. The chairman of Lloyd’s of London said that climate change is the number-one issue for that massive insurance group.” This coincides with the recent National Report I blogged about also: http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/2009/07/predictions-from-completed-government-report-on-global-warming/.
Check out the graphs:
http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/reports/billionz.html.
http://www.global-greenhouse-warming.com/climate-insurance.htmla.
and in other news, it failed to reach 90 degrees i NYC in either june or july for the first time in 140 years………..
the climate “event” costs you site are because WE INSURE EVERYTHING now and never did before to this extent……..
The NY TIMES today said the colling we’ve experianced in 2009 is due to natural causes or variation. So, the story goes like this. temps go up is human caused and “global warming.” temps come down and its “natural variation.” RIA, can you at least understand the confusion this causes many people. it seems hypocritical.
No. It’s quite clear to a lot of people. The overall mean temperature of the ENTIRE earth’s surface including the oceans is heating up. Regional weather has nothing to do with this. So if you think simple logic applies to any of this, then you will be confused. You will be one of the people saying “Big deal, we’re only heating up 2 degrees.” It’s not the same as going from 76 to 78. We’re talking the entire surface of the earth. If we were talking about what you refer to I’d tell you to take your cooling argument out west, where they would beat you to death with it at this point. I’m not waving their record breaking heat waves in your face am I?
If you stay away from the political propaganda and stick to scientific websites like Science Daily where there are articles coming out daily that show the steady progression that’s being made on this front, it’s remarkable. We’re not going totally blind into new climate events. Never before in history has the scientific community in all disciplines like the ocean, atmosphere, earth’s surface, ecosystems, wildlife, habitat, rainforests, wetlands, insects, birds, etc., come together as a consortium toward one goal–to monitor everything as it undergoes changes due to rapid climate change. And everything is changing at once!
I’ve explained the reason for cooling affects in some areas and Science Daily has plenty of articles that explain the science behind it. The only
thing hypocritical is politics and industry lobbyists that drive it.
Read about Dr. James Lovelock to understand that he was the first scientist to realize that all the scientific disciplines needed to come together for the climate changing events that seemed to be happening. There were just too many changes taking place among ecosystems and across the earth at once to stick to the status quo, a type of disconnect between earth, air, water, wildlife and such. When the data from all of them started coming in and was looked at as a collection relative to global warming, the results were incredible. For example, Arctic ice caps aren’t just melting, Siberia is melting too. Fresh water is gushing into the ocean like never before. The salinity of the water is changing in parts that affects the Gulf stream and other streams around the earth’s oceans. These directly affect the climate of many countries. Antarctica is a mess at the same time and a lot of that melting ice is land mass too, so that amounts to tons of water dumping into the ocean that’s never been there before. There are already people moving from their island homes near the Solomons because of rising water. I blogged about those people. They were covered on TV. I don’t know what’s so hard to understand? Read about other parts of the world and have a little empathy.