A recent article in UnHerd by John Rapley, in the aftermath of Hurricane Milton, claims that climate change has intensified extreme weather and increased the economic cost of weather disasters.
To quote:
The American economy is ill-prepared for the rising frequency and intensity of such compound weather events. Of the 10 costliest extreme weather events to have ever happened in the U.S., six occurred in the last decade, the result of climate change intensifying weather patterns.
Is there any of evidence of this assertion though?
Far from Hurricane Milton being the storm of the century, as widely alleged in the media, it was no more than a middling Cat 3 storm, a run of the mill event as far as Florida is concerned. In terms of intensity, it ranked only 75th strongest in U.S. recorded history.
It was the third hurricane to hit Florida this year, following Debby and Helene, but there is nothing unusual about this. Moreover, the official record dating back to 1851 provides no evidence of hurricanes becoming more frequent:
Also, the U.S. National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) concluded in its annual review of hurricanes earlier this year that “there is no strong evidence of century scale increasing trends in U.S. landfalling hurricanes or major hurricanes“.
So, if hurricanes are not getting more frequent or powerful, why are economic losses increasing?
Simply because as a society and as individuals, we have more stuff to lose. The population of Florida has exploded over the years, particularly in coastal areas, which are most vulnerable to hurricanes. That means more homes and infrastructure.
And as they become wealthier, people own more assets. They no longer live in wooden cabins, but luxury homes. They own cars, the latest gadgets and designer clothes. On top of that, rising real wages mean that repairing the damage from a hurricane will now cost considerably more than in the past.
A weather disaster that may have cost $500 million 30 years ago could cost a billion now, even when the effects of inflation are allowed for.
Professor Roger Pielke Jr. is one of the leading experts on the cost of disasters, having studied the topic for 30 years or more. A recent peer-reviewed study of his found that when changes in asset values are factored in, what he refers to as “normalised” values, there is no long-term trend in losses from Atlantic hurricanes hitting the U.S.
Katrina stands out as the costliest in recent times, but even that did not compare with the 1926 ‘Miami’ Hurricane, which effectively wiped the city off the map:
Pielke also looked at losses from floods and tornadoes in the U.S., and both show a marked decline in losses.
Another Pielke study analysed global weather losses, of which he reckons 60% are accounted for by U.S. hurricanes! When measured as a percentage of GDP, the long-term trend is down:
Rapley makes the mistake of relying on NOAA’s Billion Dollar Disaster Database, which does not take account of increasing wealth and GDP. Instead, economic losses are only adjusted for CPI.
Indeed, another peer-reviewed paper by Pielke this year has described the NOAA database as flawed and misleading.
America has always been ravaged by hurricanes and other weather disasters. But it now has the resources, technology and money to bounce back from them.
A nation that had to deal with the Miami hurricane or Katrina can surely cope with Milton.
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“Open a Public Inquiry into Covid-19 Vaccine Safety”.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/602171
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19/11? Who will the dictator be then? Ask a bookmaker.
Could you elucidate please?
New PM will be in post by then…
Thank you.
“Protect children from harmful internet content without overregulating the free press” – The Telegraph in a leading article says the Online Safety Bill needs to be amended to restore its original worthy purpose.
Well, isn’t that really the job of parents?
Anyway, worthy or not, that’s the ostensible purpose, not necessarily the true one.
Do people even identify as parents these days? I thought that role was being taken by teachers and other professions.
As there’s no certain way to determine who is or isn’t legally a minor online, protecting children from harmful internet content requires treating every users as child by default: Whatever the government designates as harmful to children will be have to be banned for everyone for the general case.
Meanwhile, in proper news..
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-62149521
Sheep people quite happy to gobble up this kind of shite whilst the world is on the brink of catastrophic numbers of vaccine deaths and disintegration of services and the economy.
Nothing to see in that respect though folks, here’s a story about someone that had Star Wars figures on her wedding cake and likes to be referred to as zie/zir.
MSM, go **** yourselves.
Seconded.
Seconded.
If you didn’t catch it on GB News last night….Mark Steyn …Victims of the Vax.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/0itukLiCaLzr/
https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/governments-flagship-online-safety-bill-has-been-dropped-from-commons-business
The government’s flagship Online Safety Bill is set to be dropped from Commons business next week with a view for it to return to the Commons “in the autumn”.
PoliticsHome understands that the Bill was removed from the government’s agenda to make space for a motion of no confidence in the governmen due to be put to the House on Monday.
What a shame, need to keep up the pressure to bin it completely. though if not brought in, the next WEF stooge will be removed until one pushes it through for the WEF
Everyone’s getting it so they need to waste money on free tests to confirm that everyone’s getting it. Genius.
It was generally accepted prior to 2019 that mass testing was useless once a virus becomes widespread because you can’t detect it fast enough, i.e. once you detect one person it’s already spread to multiple other people.
And once it’s below a certain level, mass testing means that most of your tests will be pointless.
But let’s do it anyway for a laugh.
And some are making a profit, selling useless junk.
“Is the fifth Covid wave already peaking? Virus NHS admissions and cases slow despite calls for masks and social distancing to return – as deaths creep up by just six per day.”
How on earth did I miss the first four?