Houston had it coming because oil, the environment editor of one of Australia’s leading left-liberal newspapers has predictably claimed.
Peter Hannam of the Sydney Morning Herald writes:
Yes, Houston, you do have a problem, and – as insensitive as it seems to bring it up just now – some of it is your own making.
Let’s be clear upfront. I unreservedly wish that all of your millions of citizens get safely through Tropical Storm Harvey, and the biblical-scale deluge and floods that are forecast to swamp your city in coming days.
But, as the self-styled “world capital of the oil and gas industry”, there’s a connection between rising global greenhouse gas levels and the extreme weather now being inflicted that some of your residents have understood for decades and had a hand in.
Actually, no, there is no connection at all. Obviously you wouldn’t expect an Environment Editor to know this. But there is no evidence whatsoever of any positive link between “climate change” and hurricane intensity.
On the contrary, the incidence of hurricanes in the US has actually decreased markedly since the global warming scare began:
While Harvey has certainly been dramatic it is by no means historically unprecedented:
Of course climate change activists have tried to pin their obsession on Harvey because that’s what climate change activists do.
But for a more sober, scientific perspective here is Judith Curry, president of Climate Forecast Applications Network, and formerly – till she got hounded out of her job by activist bullies – professor of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Institute of Technology.
Harvey will be in the record books for almost unbelievable amounts of rainfall (the final tally is not in yet; unfortunately it will still be raining in TX for several more days, with potential doubling of the amount that has already fallen). While there was a large amount of water vapor ingested into Harvey, the huge amounts of rain are associated with Harvey’s stalled movement, while still close enough to the Gulf to continue to suck in moisture.
But, the kicker:
Anyone blaming Harvey on global warming doesn’t have a leg to stand on.