harvey hurric 2 bak

see hurricane

9/17

koch refinery corpus cristi

this is for more recent hurri

includes typhoon

primary on florence and supertyphoon

see chaos weather disrupt

bak 4 22 no lnx (some bad format)

https://www.mediamatters.org/climate-deniers/hurricane-ian-pummeled-florida-facebook-allowed-anti-science-content-thrive

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/how-fox-news-weaponized-hurricane-ian-push-its-agenda-discredit-climate-science-trash

Related Sourcewatch articles

America's Wetland Foundation

Front group

Marillion & Company

R. King Milling

Restore the Gulf

References

↑ Women of the Storm About Women of the Storm - Overview Organizational Web page, accessed August 2, 2010

↑ Paul Bignell, Big Oil's PR machine takes a hit over celeb-backed greenwash", The Independent, August 1, 2010.

↑ Darwin Bond-Graham, "Women of the Storm and the Men Who Love Them", Counterpunch, August 2, 2010

↑ Members, Women of the Storm, accessed December 2010.

↑ Executive Committee, Women of the Storm, accessed December 2010.

↑ Partner organizations, Women of the Storm, accessed December 2010.

External articles

Kathleen Parker, "Where's the aid for the oft-ravaged Gulf Coast?", The Washington Post, July 28, 2010.

Categories: Front groups portalEnvironmentUnited States

https://www.alternet.org/2021/12/hurricanes-ocean-heating/

12 21

massive outbreak of tornadoes left scores dead across eight states this weekend, and given that this weather arose in a warmer, changed climate, President Biden, his FEMA Administrator, numerous news outlets, climate scientists and meteorologists discussed how such an extreme event could be influenced by climate change.

Despite all that qualified nuance, the right (predictably) went nuts. Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post and Fox News were very mad but didn’t exactly have anyone on hand who knew the science well enough to offer any science to the contrary

For their attempted refutation, Breitbart cited Steven Koonin, who in turn cited now-quite-outdated reports and their wishy-washy trend observations (which aren’t the point!). Town Hall cited Steve Milloy, as did the Daily Caller, because apparently defending Big Tobacco gives you climate expertise to answer questions actual scientists are still working out.

In an email to supporters, Climate Depot’s headline claimed a “Meteorologist calls Biden’s tornado climate link ‘utter bullsh*t,’” quoting and linking to Chris Martz, who is in fact not only not a meteorologist, but not even a college graduate, having just completed his first semester at Millersville University. (Though Chris did note that geophysics PhD and American Meteorological Fellow Michael Mann “oversimplifies the issue” and “isn’t a trained meteorologist.”)

Marc Morano’s email also cites an old post by climate satellite mistake-maker Roy Spencer, followed by a reference to Roger Pielke Jr., who is making good use of his cramped office by tweeting quotes from the IPCC as though the consensus view of tornado trends has a bearing on this specific event’s conditions. (Generous of Jr. to stop publicly airing his weird daddy issues long enough to give his opinion on tornadogenesis!)

After Pielke is our favorite climate-, covid-, Sandy Hook- and Obama birther-conspiracy theorist: Tony Heller. He excerpted a bunch of old newspaper clippings to prove that, since tornadoes happened in the past before climate change, that means climate change must not be changing the climate in which they form now. (Makes sense, right?)

But Pielke Jr.’s appearance in Morano’s email alongside his apparent peers Chris Martz (class of ‘25) and Tony Heller (no class at all) is just the warm-up, the paltering of what past trends may or may not mean for a current situation.

And others in conspiracy-land are offering their opinions and asking some “legitimate” questions, and it’s pretty entertaining, in the dark and depressing way this sort of thing is amusing.

As Media Matters reported, Alex Jones, fresh off his court losses regarding aforementioned Sandy Hook school shooting conspiracy theories, told his InfoWars audience that the Biden administration “officially” ordered Texas to turn off the power last February. Which means “the question is did [President Biden] use weather weapons to cause the tornadoes? That’s a legitimate question to ask.”

It’s not like this is the first time an InfoWarrior has offered some creative explanations for extreme weather. Remember back in 2018 when Jones’s co-conspiracy-theory-conspirator suggested that John Kerry saved Hawaii from a hurricane with an energy beam fired from Antarctica? (Or is that not a legitimate question to ask? We’re unsure of the meaning of the phrase at this point.)

Even that’s not the craziest take though! Remember the Wobble prediction that aliens are controlling the Earth’s movement — the real cause of climate change — and are soon going to wobble us so hard it reveals the mystery planet Nibiru?

Well, since Tony Heller’s banned from Twitter he’s taken to Gab, and his fellow poster there ROGTruth1 has an update for us on The Wobble we discussed the other day: It’s what actually caused the tornadoes, and a bunch of other events!

“The temporary wobble in the earth’s axis has been superseded by a severe wobble. So, the regular disturbances which have been a true cause of climate change are now manifesting as more significant events.” From an earthquake in Peru on November 28th, to cold in Europe, earthquakes in Japan, windstorm in Turkey and tornadoes in the US, the wobble’s just getting started.

Apparently “soon” in December, a “Massive New Madrid Adjustment (unzipping) will occur over a period of 3 weeks” leading to the “entire region west of the Mississippi” to “sink” and “shift Southwest,” causing “major disruption through the Ohio valley and up through the St. Lawrence Seaway.” After that 3 week cataclysm but also still in “December soon” will be a 150 foot tsunami that “will hit the UK and Western Europe,” while “backwash of up to 50’ will hit the Eastern seaboard of the USA.”

If you’re as concerned as we are, rest assured that while there will be “no warnings from the elite that are fully briefed and aware,” the good news is that “half of humanity has been subliminally contacted.”

Those of you who have been contacted already, you know the plan. Those that haven’t? Sorry, we can’t say anything further, but you should consider listening to the “experts” cited here if you’re worried, they seem to have things pretty well figured out.

an 921 no lnx twt

Climate inaction leaves majority of young people believing humanity is 'doomed'

Julia Conley and Common Dreams September 15, 2021

Amidst a sharp increase in deadly wildfires and flooding, increasingly violent storms, and extreme heat, new research published Tuesday found that refusal by governments to act on the climate emergency is causing a widespread sense of hopelessness and eco-anxiety in teenagers and young adults worldwide.

The global advocacy group Avaaz joined researchers at the University of Bath in the United Kingdom and five other universities to survey 10,000 young people between the ages of 16 and 25—the first large-scale eco-anxiety survey of its kind—and discovered that majorities of the respondents were fearful for the lives and livelihoods of their families and the future of the planet.

As Luisa Neubauer, a 25-year-old leader of the global Fridays for Future movement in Germany, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, while the climate extremes caused by the planetary emergency are frightening, inaction by world leaders "is too much to handle, too much to accept."

"Government is pushing us in front of a bus," Neubauer told the outlet.

The mental health professionals who conducted the study spoke with young people in 10 countries including Nigeria, the Philippines, India, the U.K., and the U.S., finding that respondents in both wealthy countries and the Global South are facing "feelings of anger, fear, and powerlessness" as the climate crisis directly causes at least one famine, deadly flash flooding, and wildfires in multiple regions.

Nearly half of respondents said their worries about the climate crisis negatively affect their daily life and their ability to function, and more than half told the experts they feel humanity is "doomed."

Four in 10 said they would hesitate to have children in the future due to the state of the planet, while three-quarters of respondents described their futures as "frightening."

Avaaz reported that one of the most "shocking" findings was how respondents described their feelings about government inaction, including more than half who said they feel policymakers "are betraying them."

"If this isn't a wake up call for world leaders, what is?" asked Avaaz.

Young people in the cyclone-ravages Philippines and Brazil, where deforestation—driven by President Jair Bolsonaro's government—has become increasingly destructive in recent years, showed the most anxiety of the countries surveyed. More than nine in 10 respondents said they were frightened about the future. Caroline Hickman, lead author of the study, which was published in The Lancet on Tuesday, cautioned adults against telling young people it is up to them to save the future of the planet. "Thinking the way to cure eco-anxiety is eco-action isn't right," Hickman told Thomson Reuters, adding that what will solve the climate crisis is decisive action by world governments.

The survey "shows eco-anxiety is not just for environmental destruction alone, but inextricably linked to government inaction on climate change. The young feel abandoned and betrayed by governments," Hickman told the BBC. "Governments need to listen to the science and not pathologize young people who feel anxious."

The survey results were released less than two months ahead of the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 26), where policymakers will meet in Glasgow to discuss commitments to phase out fossil fuel subsidies, provide climate mitigation support for frontline communities across the globe, and rapidly transition to an emissions-free energy system.

Young people are "doing everything we can" to push for climate action, Neubauer told Thomson Reuters, "but that won't be enough."

"We won't fix it" through the Fridays for Future movement, she added. "We need everyone there." no lnx

IDA hit NY/NJ

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/wake-hurricane-ida-fox-doubling-down-climate-denial-order-attack-bidens-infrastructure

Fox News is using Hurricane Ida to downplay the seriousness of climate change and attack President Joe Biden’s climate agenda, including the infrastructure bill which contains measures to make us more resilient in the face of extreme weather.

The fingerprints of climate change on the recent Hurricane Ida, which caused extensive damage from the Southeast to the Northeast U.S., were clear. One was its rapid intensification over very warm Gulf waters before pummeling Louisiana. Another was the amount of heavy rainfall that the storm brought in the Northeast that broke records in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania, and caused major flash flooding. Beyond clearly showing that climate change is happening now, Ida’s devastating impacts, particularly in the Northeast, exposed how ill-prepared we are for it. And much of the coverage of Hurricane Ida was permeated with the theme that “the infrastructure in place today was built for a climate that no longer exists.”

In fact, with increased media coverage of events such as Ida, the public is beginning to increasingly understand the dangers of climate change and the need for actions that not only reduce climate-causing emissions, but make our communities less vulnerable to the climate impacts that are already happening. But as the public and more media outlets are starting to connect extreme weather to the need for climate action, Fox News coverage seeks to break those links.

Fox networks downplayed climate change and accused Biden of politicizing Hurricane Ida to push a climate agenda

Since September 2, the day after Ida’s remnants ravaged the Northeast, Fox News and Fox Business have aired at least a dozen segments, combined, that claimed that the Democrats are using Ida as a pretext to implement a massive climate agenda including through the infrastructure bill [W/ CORP Tax increase]. These attacks, coupled with instances of climate denial, show the network’s ultimate goal is to stop the implementation of Biden’s climate agenda by all means necessary.

Fox’s favorite new climate contrarian Michael Shellenberger appeared on two Fox programs to downplay climate’s impact on Ida and to argue that the climate crisis is actually overblown, first on the September 2 edition of Tucker Carlson Tonight, and later on the September 7 edition of The Ingraham Angle. In both segments, Shellenberger accused Democrats of using climate change only as a cover to make the economy more dependent on renewable energy sources like solar power, which he has a history of attacking. (Shellenberger is useful for Fox News because he doesn’t outright deny that climate change is happening; he only -- and falsely -- suggests that it’s not a major problem. In this sense, he provides the perfect cover for the fossil fuel industry to keep polluting the planet.)

Perhaps one of the more egregious examples came during a discussion of Biden’s response to Hurricane Ida during the September 3 edition of Fox Business’ Mornings With Maria. Guest Patrice Lee Onwuka of the Koch-funded Independent Women's Forum accused Biden of using the “fallacy” of climate change to get his agenda passed:

[vid]

paTRICE LEE ONWUKA (INDEPENDENT WOMEN’S FORUM): I think President Biden is absolutely looking out for what kind of a legacy he wants to leave behind, and he will try his best to get his agenda passed, using whatever fallacy that he can find. I mean, it’s remarkable that we're talking about, you know, a hurricane, and people who’ve lost livelihoods, some who’ve lost their lives, and we’re still pivoting to this idea that it’s all driven by climate change, when frankly, the facts dispute that. So it is unfortunate that the American people are subjected to this every single day, but this is going to continue.

There is no “fallacy” here and she is wrong on the facts -- climate scientists know that climate change has an impact on hurricanes, from things like rainfall to intensity level to how slow they move, and these impacts will only get worse in the future unless carbon emissions are rapidly cut.

There were many other examples that attacked Democrats for politicizing extreme weather events and threw cold water on the infrastructure bill. On the September 3 edition of Fox News’ Your World With Neil Cavuto, correspondent Chad Pergam began a segment on the infrastructure bill by stating, “Democrats are using the storm to justify their push for the infrastructure bill and the $3.5 trillion bill. It's loaded with environmental provisions.”[which are obviously inherently bad?!]

During the September 4 edition of Bongino Unfiltered, host Dan Bongino began a segment on Ida by also claiming, “Democrats wasted no time demanding action against climate change.” The segment which displayed chyrons like “Democrats’ Climate Power Play” and “Dems Push Climate Alarmism After Deadly Storms” also featured a Democratic strategist squaring off against longtime climate denier Marc Morano. Morano used his time to argue that the climate crisis is overblown. Although climate “both-sides” debates should be a relic of the past as they were promoted solely by polluting interests wanting to advance the narrative that climate change is “debatable,” Fox had no qualms in reviving it here despite overwhelming evidence of climate’s impact on Ida.

In addition, Fox invited climate-denying meteorologist Joe Bastardi on the September 8 edition of Tucker Carlson Tonight. The segment began with guest host Brian Kilmeade claiming that Joe Biden is “using these disasters for political purposes” in order to pass the infrastructure bill. Bastardi then backed up Kilmeade’s claim by dismissing the climate impacts of Ida, simply noting that other bad storms have happened in the past. He also falsely claimed, “The sun, the oceans, the events, the very design of the system, always try to fight back, and at the very least you can't tell what CO2 is doing.”

During an interview with U.S. Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY) on the September 4 edition of Fox News Live, co-anchor Anita Vogel referenced Biden’s and Sen. Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) comments on Ida and climate change, and asked Malliotakis if “it's appropriate to blame this on climate change. … Should he be bringing politics into this when people are suffering?” Malliotakis responded, “We all need to do our part to be more environmentally friendly and reduce our footprint, but at the end of the day, you know, they're using this to push their radical-left agenda to try to pass a $3.5 trillion socialist wish list.”

Some Fox hosts also made similar comments in the wake of Ida. On the September 2 edition of Fox News’ Hannity, host Sean Hannity began a segment that ultimately downplayed the climate impacts of Ida by stating, “The left is blaming climate change for the heavy rainfall, severe weather and using it as another pretext to push their Green New Deal socialist agenda.” On the September 5 edition of Fox News’ The Next Revolution With Steve Hilton, host Steve Hilton did a short segment on Democrats using Ida to implement the Green New Deal.

Although the infrastructure bill is not the Green New Deal, that hasn’t stopped congressional Republicans, Fox News, and other right-wing media outlets from trying to compare the two. Fox is utterly obsessed with the Green New Deal and is using it to undermine basically every climate action that is proposed, however modest. This time, it’s the infrastructure bill the costs of which would pale in comparison to what unchecked climate change would do to the global economy.

Ida hit the U.S. against the backdrop of the recent report from U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that conclusively linked climate change “to an increased frequency and/or intensity of some weather and climate extremes since pre-industrial times.” It also followed a summer of harrowing extreme weather events that also had climate fingerprints all over them, including Western U.S. wildfires and drought, and a brutal Pacific Northwest heat wave. The fact that, despite all these events, Fox continued to diminish climate’s impact on Ida and argued for continued delayed action on climate change shows how much of a dangerous threat the network is to the discourse on climate change.

1120 ew

large landslide caused by torrential rains during Hurricane Eta buried half a small village's residents, leaving the other half searching for family members and neighbors in Guatemala on Tuesday, The Washington Post reported.

Officials deemed Queja, a farming community of a few hundred residents, "uninhabitable," and ended rescue operations, calling for the survivors to abandon the area now mostly covered in tons of rock and mud. 99 people were reported missing, with 44 confirmed deaths.

Mayor Ovidio Choc, representing the San Cristobal Verapaz region, including Queja, said the evacuated village would be declared a cemetery.

The former director of Guatemala's national disaster management agency said the country is ranked among the highest risk countries for natural disasters, based on data by the World Risk Index.

"It is a structural problem that is linked not only the threat or the probability of producing elements like Eta, but rather other factors that make us vulnerable and are directly tied to the development of the country," Alejandro Maldonado said, The Washington Post reported.

The inability to invest in mitigation plans, and deforestation were likely to be circumstances that caused the landslide, noted Maldonado.

The residents of Queja are the latest addition of what is being called the "great climate migration." Climate change is causing sea level rise and extreme weather conditions, such as intense heat, drought, wildfires and enlarged hurricanes and typhoons, which induce mudslides, landslides and flooding, forcing many to flee their homes, never to return.

And climate refugees are predicted to increase in number in the coming years as more natural disasters occur. According to Ecological Threat Register, a September 2020 report by the non-profit think tank Institute for Economics & Peace, one billion people live in areas were there is not enough infrastructure in place to combat ecological changes.

2020 already claims the largest number of hurricanes and wildfires ever recorded.

Eta first made landfall just south of Puerto Cabezas, a city on Nicaragua's Caribbean coast on Nov. 3, as a Category 4 hurricane, causing 140 mph winds, massive downpours and destructive flooding to several countries in Central America, including Panama, Costa Rica and Honduras.

Hurricane Eta is expected to hit Florida's Gulf Coast in its fourth landfall on Wednesday, as a Category 1 hurricane, bumped up from a subtropical storm with rains hitting southern Florida on Sunday and Monday. While diminished in intensity from its peak in Central America, landslides and flooding are expected.

https://www.mediamatters.org/broadcast-networks/corporate-broadcast-tv-news-mentioned-climate-change-only-once-during-its

hurricane

wasn't the thinking there would not be more hurricanes, but that they wd be more intense? 10/10 now on gk alfa Delta b/c we ran out

https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/miami-dade-is-one-storm-away-from-a-housing-catastrophe-nearly-1-million-people-are-at-risk/

mIAMI herald — As the tail end of one of the most active hurricane seasons in history nears, Miami-Dade County appears once again poised to emerge unscathed. The region dodged hurricanes and tropical storms that posed a potential threat to South Florida. But what will happen when that luck runs out?Housing advocates have long feared that the city is one storm away from disaster; nearly a third of all housing structures in Miami-Dade County built before 1990 are at risk of wind damage, mold contamination and even complete devastation from a hurricane.According to U.S. Census Bureau figures, nearly 1 m...

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/scientists-find-new-signs-of-climate-breakdown-in-study-of-warming-oceans

In a rare calm moment during a historically active Atlantic hurricane season, an international team of climate scientists on Monday published a new study in the journal Nature Climate Change showing that human-caused global heating is making the world's oceans more "stable"—which, as co-author Michael Mann explained, is "very bad news."

Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State, detailed researchers' findings about ocean stratification in a piece for Newsweek. Using "more comprehensive data and a more sophisticated method for estimating stratification changes" than past studies, the scientists found that "oceans are not only becoming more stable, but are doing so faster than was previously thought."

The team—led by Guancheng Li of the Institute of Atmospheric Physics in China—specifically found that stratification globally increased by a "substantial" 5.3% from 1960 to 2018, mostly in the upper 650 feet or so of the world oceans. "This seemingly technical finding has profound and troubling implications," Mann noted.

"The more stable the upper ocean, the less vertical mixing that takes place. This mixing is a primary means by which the ocean buries warming surface waters. So the surface warms up even faster. It's what we call a 'positive feedback'—a vicious cycle," he wrote. "That's bad for a number of reasons."

Thank you to ⁦@MichaelEMann⁩ for patiently and clearly explaining to non scientists why increased ocean stabilizati… https://t.co/yW2BmQhKGp

— Dr Naomi Wolf (@Dr Naomi Wolf)1601306893.0

Noting the ongoing storm season and previous warnings from scientists—including him—that the increasingly devastating recent hurricanes "have fed off warmer surface waters," Mann explained that "a more stably stratified ocean potentially favors more intense, destructive hurricanes." Warmer waters also "absorb less atmospheric carbon dioxide" and "hold less dissolved oxygen."

In other words, the new study indicates that "humans have made the oceans more stable, and the result will be more extreme weather and the acceleration of climate change," as study co-author John Abraham wrote Monday for The Guardian. Like Mann, he detailed the research team's findings about the stratification of the oceans, and the implications. Then, he added:

It is not all doom and gloom. The good news is we know why the climate is changing and we know how the oceans are responding. We can do something about this problem—we have the ability to slow down climate change. We just lack the will and leadership.

But if 2020 has shown us anything, it has revealed that humans can change and adapt quickly to situations. There is hope that we can navigate the challenges resulting from a more stable ocean—but we must start immediately.

Both co-authors' pieces provoked calls for swift, bold, global efforts to address the climate crisis:

Canada has oceans on 3 sides-we can't ignore the climate news that The Oceans Appear to Be Stabilizing. Here's Why… https://t.co/SfWJWWRHr7

— Friends Of Halifax Common (@Friends Of Halifax Common)1601308426.0

"Das bedeutet, dass das CO2-Budget, das zur Vermeidung kritischer Erhitzung (z.B. 1,5°C) übrig bleibt, möglicherwei… https://t.co/675YBTSybJ

— Parents For Future #SystemChangeNotClimateChange (@Parents For Future #SystemChangeNotClimateChange)1601315583.0

Ending his piece on a similar note, Mann wrote that "in short, it's unwise to be complacent given the accumulating scientific evidence that climate change and its impacts may well be in the upper end of the range that climate scientists currently project. There is ever-greater urgency when it comes to acting on climate. But there is agency as well. Our actions make a difference—something to keep in mind as we head into a presidential election whose climate implications are monumental."

Mann is on the mounting list of climate experts and advocates supporting Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in his effort to oust President Donald Trump—who has, at various points, ignored and exacerbated the climate emergency. Earlier this month, the editors of Scientific American as well as the political action arms of both 350 and Friends of the Earth also endorsed the former vice president.

"The stakes are clear and present," Tamara Toles O'Laughlin from 350 Action said of the general election, for which early voting is already underway in some states. "The planet cannot withstand four more years of Trump."

https://theconversation.com/the-2020-atlantic-hurricane-season-is-so-intense-it-just-ran-out-of-storm-names-and-then-two-more-storms-formed-146506

9/20

icn alabaMA? MISS?

hurricane Sally Is Bringing 'History-Making' Rains To Gulf Coast, Forecasters Say - NPR

cascade / compound/ interacting factors

Hurricane Laura worsens already inhumane ICE conditions

Gabe Ortiz / Daily Kos

Detained people already suffer dangerous conditions while in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody, including inhumane living arrangements, medical mistreatment or no treatment at all, and systemic patterns of abuse. The novel coronavirus pandemic has only piled…

lucky miss 820 Ike dike?

30 billion$? to protect pvt chem gas

v p sez fema ready to help on hurricane Laura? at rnc

https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/trump-looted-44-billion-from-femas-disaster-relief-fund-during-hurricane-season-to-pay-for-an-unemployment-supplement-report/

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/18052020/hurricane-tropical-storms-climate-change

also 520 icn

Federal Scientists Predict ‘Busy’ Atlantic Hurricane Season Amid Virus Crisis - The New York Times

aha yikes: ocean buffer turns into amplifier?! 5/20 typhoon displace inda? bangladesh in covid outbreak --> camps

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/18052020/hurricane-tropical-storms-climate-change

New warnings of a global warming-driven increase in the most deadly and destructive tropical storms are especially scary in regions already hit hard, including the Southeastern U.S., where Hurricane Michael damaged 60,000 homes in 2018, and the Caribbean, where Hurricane Maria killed nearly 3,000 people in Puerto Rico and crippled the island's infrastructure.

There's more of the same ahead, recent federal research suggests. One study found that the chances of major tropical storms forming increased globally by 6 percent in each of the last four decades. A second shows the biggest increase in frequency in already storm-battered areas, including Florida, the Bahamas, eastern Africa, Japan, China and the Philippine Islands.

The results bolster "projections of increased (tropical cyclone) intensity under continued warming," the authors of the first study wrote. Those researchers focused on storms with winds greater than 115 mph (category 3 or above), because those cause the most damage.

The findings landed as residents are warily watching Tropical Storm Arthur spin toward the Carolina coast well ahead of the official start of the hurricane season, and with projections for above-average hurricane activity in the Atlantic this summer.

In the Bay of Bengal, Tropical Cyclone Amphan is projected to drive a deadly surge of flooding toward Bangladesh this week, with winds of more than 170 mph. Emergency responders are struggling to evacuate up to a million people, and provide them with emergency shelter during the global coronavirus pandemic, which requires evacuees maintain physical distancing to prevent the spread of the disease.

New tropical storm data from 2010 to 2017 showed that "the probability of a hurricane having wind speeds of at least 100 knots increased by approximately 15 percent between the early and latter halves of the 39-year record."

Overheated oceans caused by global warming are super-charging tropical storms, but year-to-year variations are also affected by short-term climate cycles like El Niño. The new study helps sort out the different influences, making it "95 percent certain" that oceans heated by global warming are brewing up bigger storms more often, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) hurricane scientist Jim Kossin, who led the study.

"This shows us there is a global trend of more stronger hurricanes," Kossin said. "It's consistent with our expectations, based on physics." Warmer oceans supply more energy for storms and the warmer atmosphere holds more moisture. Several recent studies show how those combine to cause more damage worldwide, and pin down the role of global warming.

Increasingly, such projections help city planners and coastal developers consider if they should abandon some areas, build seawalls or floodgates, or discourage development on the most vulnerable beaches and bluffs in the next few decades.

Tropical storm frequency has increased in the warm waters of the Atlantic hurricane belt, where dangerous storms often spin toward the Southeastern U.S. and the Caribbean, while decreasing in the southern Indian Ocean and Western North Pacific, according to the second study.

Hiroyuki Murakami, a climate scientist with the NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, led that research, which was published May 4 in PNAS. Murakami said the average annual number of tropical storms globally had held steady at 86 since 1980. The frequency increased in hotspots like the Arabian Peninsula and East Africa, Southeast Asia, around the Hawaiian Islands and especially in the eastern Atlantic.

...[graph]

Hurricane Dorian’s nightmarishly slow pace is linked to climate change

E.A. CRUNDEN

Hurricane Dorian’s impacts could be resounding — here’s what to watch for

E.A. CRUNDEN

https://www.ecowatch.com/hurricane-michael-recovery-efforts-2640912689.html

Hurricane Michael Recovery Efforts Point to the Power of Local Generosity After Overlooked Disasters

The Conversation Oct. 10, 2019 11:56AM ESTINSIGHTS + OPINION

By David Berlan

When Hurricane Michael made landfall on Florida's Panhandle on Oct. 10, 2018, as a Category 5 storm it was only the fourth on record to have ever hit the U.S. mainland. The storm surge it brought about, along with 160-mile-per-hour winds, leveled coastal communities from Panama City to the town of Mexico Beach.

Then the storm continued northward, causing flooding in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a government agency, attributes a total of 16 deaths to the storm and the authorities say that Michael killed another 43 people indirectly.

I've been traveling throughout the Florida Panhandle – the area Michael hit hardest – to towns like Marianna and Port St. Joe, meeting with a wide range of dedicated community members and conducting a survey of recovery efforts by leading a team of public administration student researchers. We have identified nearly $150 million in donated money, supplies and time.

Most of this support garnered within 11 months of the storm is coming from or being channeled through organizations within this part of Florida, near my home in Tallahassee. We're finding that local residents are organizing themselves to meet lingering needs in the absence of substantial outside attention and support.

Chart: The Conversation, CC-BY-ND

Source: NOAA Office for Coastal Management

Causing Massive Damage

Even after getting $1.3 billion in assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Administration and other government agencies, much of the region remained devastated from Michael's estimated $25 billion in total damage.

Many of the region's largest employers, including forestry companies and Tyndall Air Force Base, are still rebuilding a year later. So are school systems and homeowners.

But unless you live nearby, this may come as a surprise. Michael garnered less attention from the media and donors than the other storms that also caused damage on a massive scale, such as Harvey and Maria in 2017 and 2018.

Giving After the Storm

The gravity and force of this hurricane, which NOAA only upgraded to a Category 5 storm six months later, may never have fully registered on the public's radar.

That may explain why Americans didn't donate as much to support relief and recovery efforts following this disaster as they did a year earlier.

For example, the Red Cross collected donations totaling some $97 million following Hurricane Irma, nearly triple the $36 million it obtained after Michael a year later. But Irma only caused twice as much damage, according to NOAA.

Table: The Conversation, CC-BY-ND

Source: Red Cross and NOAA

Studying Hurricane Michael

The aftermath of other big storms like Sandy and Katrina have made it clear that the recovery process takes years to complete, with the burden falling on local nonprofits once the sense of urgency outside the immediate area dissipates.

In the largely rural Florida counties where Hurricane Michael hit hard, a few nonprofits are leading the way with rebuilding efforts that bring local religious congregations, businesses, governments and independent organizations together. These new networks are coordinating efforts by national, regional and local organizations that bring their own expertise and resources.

The donations, which include cash, services, supplies and volunteer labor, add up to about $145 million. While far less than the total of $1.3 billion in federal funding for the storm, this support equals about two-thirds of the $240 million Florida's government has appropriated so far.

Nearly all of the funding is coming from organizations with a local presence.

Data collected between Oct. 10, 2018, when the storm hit, through Sept. 5, 2019.

Chart: The Conversation, CC-BY-ND. Source: Florida State University hurricane survey

Playing a Critical Role

Another reason why recovering from disasters takes so long is that relatively few post-disaster government programs serve renters, homeowners without clear property titles or the homeless. That leaves big gaps for charity to fill.

And when communities don't get much in the way of donations after disasters, they have trouble meeting the needs of their most vulnerable. This is made worse by poor targeting and coordination of aid that can leave out rural or remote communities.

Donations come with fewer restrictions than government programs, giving nonprofits more flexibility. They tend to arrive quickly and do not need to wait on the government to appropriate money.

Throughout my research in a string of beach towns and rural inland communities along a stretch west and south of Tallahassee known as the Forgotten Coast, I directly observed nonprofits relying upon donated funds, supplies and labor to meet housing and other needs not being met by flood insurance or government funding.

Everyone my students and I spoke with relayed multiple stories of how neighbors helped one another and how this generosity made the disaster recovery quicker and more bearable.

Being Generous After Disasters

The aftermath of Hurricane Michael shows how when public attention outside the region experiencing a disaster is minimal, it can lead to lower levels of donations.

As a result, I've seen people in the region feel overlooked and forced to rely on themselves. Fortunately, the post-disaster generosity of residents, neighbors and friends was more extensive than is immediately visible. Still, the region faces a long struggle to full recovery and cannot be certain the resources available with be enough.

From this example, I have two main suggestions for those wishing to help support survivors of disasters reevaluate how they choose to respond.

First, consider helping after overlooked disasters. That includes the ones that don't draw saturation media coverage, and those that occur on the heels of other tragedies that ushered in big donation drives. That's what happened with Hurricane Maria, which crashed into Puerto Rico within a few weeks after Harvey and Irma.

Second, consider waiting before you give, or repeating your gift later. Try donating six months, a year or even two years after a disaster rather than right away because the need will continue for a long time. Not rushing also makes it easier to identify the best nonprofits to support.

Making choices like these may bring hope and assistance to communities seeing too little of both.

Music for Relief

@MusicForRelief

Preparing for nature's next catastrophic #storm, especially in rural areas involves community empowerment and #disaster planning. #naturaldisaster #disasterpreparedness #recovery https://www.ecowatch.com/rural-areas-hurricane-ready-2637817061.html …

How Rural Areas Like Florida’s Panhandle Can Become More Hurricane-Ready

When Hurricane Michael roared onto northwest Florida's Gulf Coast in October 2018, its 160 mile-per-hour winds made it the strongest storm ever to hit the region. It was only the fourth Category 5...

David Berlan is an assistant professor of public administration at the Askew School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University.

Disclosure statement: David Berlan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond his academic appointment.

Reposted with permission from our media associate The Conversation.

mma 919

Fox's Geraldo Rivera: Trump is being “unfairly mugged by the media” for repeatedly lying about Alabama and Hurricane Dorian

09/05/19 9:14 AM EDT

During coverage of Hurricane Dorian, Fox “hard news” show hosts climate denier

09/03/19 5:14 PM EDT

https://www.mediamatters.org/martha-maccallum/during-coverage-hurricane-dorian-fox-hard-news-show-hosts-climate-denier

no lnx

During coverage of Hurricane Dorian, Fox “hard news” show hosts climate denier

Roy Spencer uses his Fox News appearance to deny the documented link between climate change and hurricanes

Special PROGRAMS

CLIMATE & ENERGY

WRITTEN BY JOHN WHITEHOUSE

PUBLISHED 09/03/19 5:14 PM EDT

During coverage of Hurricane Dorian, Fox “hard news” anchor Martha MacCallum hosted climate denier Roy Spencer who denied the proven link between hurricanes and climate change. Spencer also laughably asserted that climate change was occurring slowly; MacCallum did not provide any substantive pushback to his statements.

Video file

Citation From September 2 edition of Fox News' coverage of Hurricane Dorian

MARTHA MACCALLUM (ANCHOR): Special breaking coverage tonight of Hurricane Dorian. Dorian is an extremely powerful storm, and we are sure to hear people blame its strength on global climate change. So, should we? Is that correct? Roy Spencer is a meteorologist, principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, and author of the book Inevitable Disaster: Why Hurricanes Can't Be Blamed on Global Warming. So we know where you're coming from on this, Roy. It's good to have you with us tonight. You know, a lot of people look at this and they say that global warming has heated the surface of the ocean and that over time, those trapped gases continue to make that hotter and that that warm water is what leads to the fact that we've had five [Category] 5s in just the last few years. What do you say to them?

ROY SPENCER (METEOROLOGIST): Well, there's all kinds of statistics, Martha, that you could look at. The ones I look at are the long-term, because that's climate. Climate is long-term. And since 1900, out of all of the major hurricanes that have hit Florida, there has been no long-term trend in either their intensity or in the number of major hurricanes -- that is Cat. 3 or stronger -- that have hit Florida. Even if Dorian were to hit Florida as a Category 4, which it looks like now is not going to happen, there still would be no long-term trend. Now yes, we do expect, theoretically, that warmer waters should lead to stronger hurricanes. And the waters out around the Bahamas, where Dorian really intensified, are unusually warm. But if you go back, again, through the last hundred or more years, and look at the sea surface temperatures in that area and the hurricanes that have hit Florida, it turns out that the seven hurricanes -- since 1871 -- the seven hurricanes that went over the most unusually warm water for that time of year, and then hit Florida -- all of them occurred before 1950.

MACCALLUM: That's very interesting. Another statistic out there, and you tell me what you think about it, is that since 1970, you've had a one-tenths of a percent celsius increase every decade. So it's this slow but steady climb, and according to those numbers, that show that over time, the oceans are warming up. What do you say about that?

SPENCER: That's right. The oceans are warming up.

MACCALLUM: What do you say about that?

SPENCER: The oceans are warming up. The atmosphere is warming up. I think, probably based on the theory, over 50% of that is due to humans. But the warming is very slow. And warm waters is only one part of hurricane formation, OK? In order to have a hurricane, most of the tropics -- most of the tropics all the time, during the summer, are capable of producing or supporting a major hurricane. What's usually missing is a preexisting disturbance. For instance, most of the hurricanes we get started out as African easterly waves that come off of Africa, south of the Sahara Desert. That's where most of them come from, the disturbances. So you need that. But you -- even more important, you need low wind shear. So you've got these different ingredients you have to have. It's kind of like tornadoes. You have to have a special mixture of certain ingredients. It's not just sea surface temperature. Otherwise we'd be having major hurricanes all over the tropics, and we don't. They are a relatively rare phenomenon. So, yeah sea surface temperatures are important but statistically, like I said, if you look at the data going back over 100 years, you really can't support increasing hurricane activity with the increasing sea surface temperatures that we actually are seeing.

Contrary to Spencer’s assertions, the link between hurricanes and climate change is a well-known fact. The Union of Concerned Scientists broke the science down into three parts: Warmer water gives more fuel to hurricanes; rising seas worsen storm surges; and warmer air holds more water for rainfall.

The link between hurricanes and climate change

CitationThe Union of Concerned Scientists

Inside Climate News also points to a study linking slow-moving hurricanes like Dorian and Harvey to climate change.

Beyond that, Spencer’s assertion that climate change-driven “warming is very slow” is preposterous. Scientists are warning that the planet is reaching a tipping point beyond which the Earth could be pushed into “into a spiral of runaway climate change.”

Lastly, it’s ridiculous for Fox News to book Spencer at all. Spencer is a longtime climate-denying gadfly who is the “official climatologist” of Rush Limbaugh, someone else who frequently lies about climate change. Spencer has previously argued that climate activists “are supporting policies that will kill far more people than the Nazis ever did.”

In 2011, an editor of the journal Remote Sensing resigned after concluding that it should never have published a study by Spencer denying climate change due to “fundamental methodological errors or false claims.” The editor also harshly criticized Fox News for running with and exaggerating the study. Spencer had also released a study in 2003 that used faulty calculations to purportedly show that temperatures in the troposphere had remained constant over the previous two decades.

Fox News anchor Shep Smith has acknowledged that climate change is real. MacCallum’s decision to host Spencer on her “news”-side program goes to show how little the facts actually matter at Fox.

As Hurricane Dorian wreaks havoc, Fox casts doubt on climate change science

09/05/19 12:42 PM EDT

919 Doran ]

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/30082019/clean-energy-plan-north-carolina-governor-cooper-climate-change-hurricanes-duke-gop

What a difference three years can make in the politics of climate change in North Carolina, a state that not long ago took a sharp lurch to the right.

After replacing a Republican who questioned whether climate change was caused by human activities, Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper has testified before Congress on North Carolina's sizable climate challenges and unveiled a draft clean energy plan designed to put the state on a path toward eliminating carbon emissions from the power sector by mid-century.

His effort to grapple with global warming faces the cold reality of needing support in North Carolina's Republican legislature, however. It's a significant challenge that has clean-energy advocates and state officials looking for work-arounds and short-term wins. This week, for example, state regulators put pressure on North Carolina's largest utility to weigh the governor's greenhouse gas reduction goals in its future energy plans.

The GOP won control of both chambers of the legislature in 2010, and Republican lawmakers in the state "have not shown any propensity to do anything on climate change," said Dan Crawford, director of governmental relations for the North Carolina League of Conservation Voters.

While small gains could be possible now, he said, what would be needed to achieve major clean energy policy amounts to changing who is in power in the North Carolina General Assembly.

State officials tried to lay the groundwork for bipartisan support by working with business interests, including Duke Energy, as they developed the plan, released in draft form this month by the state's Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ).

Duke, the biggest utility in the state, applauded Cooper for his leadership, but declined to comment beyond a brief statement that touted its own clean-energy progress. The utility, which enjoys considerable influence in state government, operates more than 35 solar power facilities in North Carolina and says it has invested more than $1 billion in renewable energy in the state this decade.

Cooper's plan goes further than that, however, calling for transforming the electrical grid to save energy and make it more resilient; reducing the energy burdens of low-income residents; and cutting greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector by 60 to 70 below 2005 levels by 2030 while working toward zero emissions by 2050, among other steps.

Graph: What's in North Carolina's Energy Mix?

Despite the hurdles it faces, the 137-page clean-energy plan marks progress in a region of the country that in past decades was more likely to be associated with burning coal but is increasingly welcoming renewable energy.

"The plan has all the elements it should have in it," said John Wilson, deputy director of regulatory policy for the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, which tracks and advocates clean energy policies in North Carolina and four other southern states. "It lays out the steps the state could take to move toward decarbonization, and who needs to take them and what needs to be done.

"It will be a formidable challenge to implement the plan, but this was the leadership that was needed."

Even if the legislature balks, there are still several elements in the draft plan that could be carried out by state agencies and utility regulators on their own.

There were signs this week that the North Carolina Utilities Commission, which regulates investor-owned utilities, may be listening to the governor.

Duke has had its own long-term plan before the commission for months and has emphasized how it would boost battery storage for solar power. But critics say Duke intends to rely too much on natural gas, another fossil fuel. The North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association says Duke's plan would barely expand clean energy beyond what was already mandated by the legislature.

The commission on Tuesday approved Duke's power plan, but it declined to rubber stamp it. Instead, it directed the company to more closely examine whether it could accelerate the closure of several remaining North Carolina coal plants and how it could help meet the governor's goals for greenhouse gas reductions in the state.

A Duke spokeswoman said the company was pleased with the commission approval and would provide the additional analysis "as we continue this transition to even cleaner sources of energy."

Back-to-Back Hurricanes and Extreme Weather

When Cooper testified before a congressional committee in February, he talked about the back-to-back Hurricanes Matthew and Florence that hit the state in 2016 and 2018, and how North Carolina residents were still struggling to recover when the remnants of Hurricane Michael came through just weeks after Florence....

Is Climate Change Fueling Tornadoes? We Asked the Scientists Who Study Both.

BY: BOB BERWYN

Studies suggest an increase in tornado swarms and possible shifts in storm tracks, but what about global warming connections? Here's what the scientists had to say.

https://www.ecowatch.com/hurricane-harvey-trump-epa-response-2630918498.html

Andrea Germanos

President Donald Trump's U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Texas state officials rejected an offer from NASA scientists in 2017 to use their state-of-the-art flying laboratory to evaluate air quality in Houston after Hurricane Harvey, new reporting by the Los Angeles Times reveals.

"This is disturbing," said Lina Hidalgo, judge for Texas's Harris County.

Harvey brought historic rainfall, catastrophic flooding and triggered potentially dangerous environmental and public health impacts: Houston's many refineries and petrochemical released pollutants into the air and waters, and area residents began to complain of worrisome smells and toxic sights near the facilities, as well as symptoms including headaches. The EPA asserted that the air quality posed no threat.

NASA, it turned out, was in a good position to gather data on air quality in the area with its DC-8. The jet, whose ability to ability to gather data dwarfs that of the EPA's air pollution plane or the hand-held devices used by Texas state officials, was already set up for testing because of a scheduled six-hour test flight to Lamont, Oklahoma on Sept. 14.

The response to NASA's offer? Thanks but no thanks.

Susanne Rust and Louis Sahagun reported for the Times:

On Sept. 9, David Gray, the EPA's deputy regional administrator in Texas and leader of the agency's emergency response, wrote to NASA and Texas officials that he was "hesitant" to have the jet "collect additional information that overlaps our existing efforts" until he learned more about the mission. He noted that media and nongovernmental organizations were releasing data that was "conflicting" with the state and EPA's.

The NASA scientists offered assurances that their fact-finding would not get in the way, but noted that the data would eventually be seen by the public. Texas and the EPA were unmoved.

The state-level response came from director of toxicology Michael Honeycutt, who now heads EPA's Science Advisory Board and is known for expressing views well out of the reach of mainstream science, such as the idea that lowering ozone would be bad for public health.

On Sept. 11, Honeycutt wrote in an email to NASA and EPA officials that state data showed no sign for concern, and "we don't think your data would be useful for source identification while industry continues to restart their operations."

Gray agreed with Honeycutt: "EPA concurs with your assessment and we will not plan to ask NASA to conduct this mission."

Associated Press reporter Frank Bajak noted that the new investigation adds weight to his own news agency's previous reporting showing that "Texas environmental regulators had little interest in exposing most post-Harvey industrial contamination."

Reacting to the reporting on Twitter, Dr. Chelsea Thompson, a research scientist in atmospheric chemistry, wrote, "It's worth noting that, over a year later now, all of us involved are still stunned by how this played out."

...

Study: Feds Response to Hurricane Maria Slower, Less Generous Than Responses to Texas and Florida Storms

yutu guam marianis

Super Typhoon Yutu Slams U.S. Pacific Territories With Category 5 Strength

https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/10/17/60-minutes-trump-says-not-denying-climate-change

Davies, Climate Investigations Center. Originally posted on Climate Investigations Center.

Climate change is coming at Trump even as he tries like hell to avoid the subject. Record-setting hurricanes, Florence and Michael, have caused devastation across the southeast United States. Meanwhile, the grim UN IPCC “1.5 degree” report pushed climate scientists into the headlines last week while Trump was out and about, apparently unleashed, talking to media.

L Stahl of 60 Minutes, got the first big sit down interview and went at climate change right off the bat. Pivoting off Hurricane Michael and the IPCC report, Stahl pressed Trump to answer straight questions about climate change.

This is the most Trump has been forced to say on the subject of global warming since his Rose Garden celebration announcing that the U.S. would exit the Paris climate agreement, where he managed to barely mention climate change.

Overall, Trump responds to Stahl’s questions with the typical denier tropes, which he likely learned from Rush Limbaugh, Myron Ebell, Marc Morano, and the Heartland Institute:

“Somethings changing and it’ll change back again.”

“And you don’t know whether or not that would have happened with or without man. You don’t know.”

“We have scientists that disagree with that [anthropogenic climate change].”

“But it [climate change] could very well go back.”

“But I don’t know that it’s [climate change] manmade.”

“They say that we had hurricanes that were far worse than what we just had with Michael.”

“You’d have to show me the scientists because they have a very big political agenda, Lesley.”

Trump also deployed a empty economic argument against taking action, one commonly used by deniers:

“I will say this. I don’t wanna give trillions and trillions of dollars. I don’t wanna lose millions and millions of jobs. I don’t wanna be put at a disadvantage.”

Read the full 60 Minutes interview transcript.

Deniers Would Rather Trump Said Nothing

Trump said a couple of things the deniers don’t really want him to say, including:

“I don’t think it’s a hoax” and “I’m not denying climate change.”

Joe Bast, former CEO of the Heartland Institute, and his climate denier kin are happiest when the President doesn’t talk about it at all. A year ago, Bast provided his reason for applauding the President’s silence, quoted and memorialized in the video below:

“The President has done a great job by not talking about global warming. The less the President talks about it, the less often it appears in news stories and on TV, the less often its going to be an issue. So, this is how big issues disappear.' Trump Questioned on Climate by Reporters in Georgia While Touring Hurricane Damage

Predictions for Hurricane Michael went from a predicted Category 1 on October 7 to making landfall at just below Category 5 three days later, surprising meteorologists and foiling predictive computer models.

While touring areas damaged by the massive storm in Georgia on Monday, reporters continued to press Trump on climate change and he continued trying to change the subject and inform us that he has “the cleanest air on the planet.”

...

https://www.facingsouth.org/2018/09/institute-index-disparate-devastation-hurricane-florence?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=beb9c55e-7905-4282-b570-2e160043e723

Gallons of rain Hurricane Florencedropped on the Carolinas: at least 8 trillion

Number of people killed in the disaster: at least 37

Conservative estimate of the financial damage caused by the storm: $17 billion

Of the 18 North Carolina counties that have been officially declared disaster areas, number where the percent of the population that's nonwhite exceeds the statewide average of 31.5 percent: 9

Percent of the population that's nonwhite in Robeson County, one of the hardest-hit areas and a center of the state's Native American population: over 67

In North Carolina, number of times higher the proportions of African Americans, Hispanics and American Indians living within three miles of an industrial hog operation are, respectively, than the proportion of whites: 1.54, 1.39, 2.18

Minimum number of lagoons — massive open-air pits where hog waste is stored — that were overtopped by the flooding, sending feces and urine into downstream communities: 21

Minimum number of lagoons at imminent risk of spilling waste: 89

Tons of toxic coal ash held in open-air pits at Duke Energy's shuttered H.F. Lee power plant near Goldsboro, North Carolina, that were completely submerged by Florence's floodwaters: 1 million

Percentage points by which the concentration of people of color living within three miles of coal-fired power plant exceeds their presence in the overall U.S. population: 3

In U.S. counties that experienced at least $10 billion in damages from natural disasters between 1999 and 2013, the average increase in wealth for white people, according to a study released last month: $126,000

The average decrease in wealth for nonwhites: $10,000 to $29,000

According to the same study, the disaster-related increase in the black-white wealth gap during that period in Harris County, Texas, which includes Houston: $87,000

Rank of Florence among the wettest storms to ever strike the East Coast, with the wetness linked to warmer ocean waters due to climate change: 1

If nothing is done to address the problem, the number of people worldwide that the World Bank estimates will be driven to extreme poverty by climate change and related extreme weather events: 100 million

https://www.alternet.org/climate-change-turned-florence-monster-storm-corporate-media-avoided-story

That Hurricane Florence broke rainfall records for tropical storms in both North and South Carolina shouldn’t be surprising, as global climate change has increased extreme precipitation in all areas of the continental United States. One analysis released before the massive storm hit, by researchers at Stony Brook, Berkeley National Lab and the National Center for Atmospheric Research, projected that warming would cause Florence to bring twice as much rain compared to a similar storm with normal temperatures.

But news audiences were rarely informed about the contribution of human-caused climate disruption to the devastating storm, according to a study of hurricane coverage by Public Citizen. Less than 8 percent of Florence stories in the 50 top-circulation U.S. newspapers from Sept. 9 through Sept. 16 mentioned climate change — and only 4 percent of segments on major TV outlets.

The New York Times had the most Florence-related stories that made reference to climate change: 15 out of 75 stories, or 20 percent. By contrast, 19 of the top 50 papers had no stories on the hurricane that mentioned climate change, including the Chicago Tribune (out of 34 stories), Atlanta Journal-Constitution (28 stories), Orlando Sentinel (37 stories) and Miami Herald (21 stories). (Three California papers — the East Bay Times, San Jose Mercury News and Orange County Register — ran no stories on Florence.) Aside from the New York Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer (six out of 32 stories) and Washington Post (four out of 49) were the only other papers to reference climate change in Florence stories more than three times.

ABC never referred to climate change in its coverage of Florence, Public Citizen found; its over-the-air colleagues did little better, with CBS and NBC airing one segment apiece that mentioned Florence and climate change together (out of 63 and 73 hurricane segments, respectively). MSNBC brought up climate in 13 percent of its Florence reports, considerably ahead of CNN’s 4 percent; Fox discussed climate in 10 percent of 51 segments on Florence, but, the study noted, “All five of Fox News Network’s mentions of climate change were segments denying the relationship between the storm and climate change.”

“When outlets fail to connect these events to global warming, audiences are left uninformed about some of the most critical decisions we face,” David Arkush, who directs Public Citizen’s climate program, said in a statement. “We need a serious national discussion about the urgent, existential threat from climate change and how we are going to fix it — and it’s very difficult to have that conversation when media won’t talk about the topic.”

PI supertyphoon owngraded to cat 5, which [was?] top?

https://www.ecowatch.com/category-6-hurricane-2605959572.html

N carolina

pig, 1.x million dead chickens, coal ash

socialize cost, pvtize profit

https://www.alternet.org/hurricane-florences-surge-expected-hit-homes-already-cost-government-millions

Though the flooding from Hurricane Florence is predicted to be unprecedented, residents of the coastal North Carolina towns threatened by the storm surge know what it’s like to take on water. Some homes in these areas have been repeatedly flooded — and repeatedly bailed out by federal flood insurance.

ProPublica examined storm surge predictions by the National Hurricane Center, layering a map of areas expected to be affected by Florence over a map of the most flood-prone properties tracked by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which provides most of the flood insurance for U.S. homeowners.

Critics have long argued that the program subsidizes risky development, but efforts at reform inevitably stall because raising premiums would make flood insurance unaffordable for lower-income residents. The insurance is required for federally backed mortgages of homes in flood-prone areas. The program is more than $20 billion in debt.

Looking at some of the towns, it’s easy to see why.

High-risk areas include communities along the Pamlico River and North Topsail Beach, which is on a barrier island near Wilmington. Homes there have gotten multiple flood payouts from FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program going back as far as 1978. One property in North Topsail Beach has received nine separate payments, totaling $77,000, though the building is worth just $37,125. Another in nearby Topsail Beach has received 10 payments worth $467,000. That building is worth $300,000.

FEMA places buildings like these — including 1,132 across North Carolina — on a special list called “severe repetitive loss” structures because they’ve been flooded and rebuilt again and again with FEMA flood insurance. Properties that qualify for the list have made at least four claims of more than $5,000 each since 1978, or two claims with a combined value that’s worth more than the building itself. There are more than 35,000 such properties nationwide.

Collectively, the buildings in North Carolina are worth at least $280 million, and they’ve received $164 million in payments, according to FEMA data provided by the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group. The list undoubtedly will grow after Hurricane Florence, placing additional strain on a debt-ridden program that experts say is in desperate need of reform.

The areas facing the worst impact from Hurricane Florence are among the most vulnerable in the country when it comes to sea-level rise; parts of North Topsail Beach, for instance, are eroding at 5 feet per year. And a team of scientists concluded on Wednesday that climate change had supercharged the storm — increasing its projected rainfall by roughly 50 percent and its size by 50 miles.

Rob Moore, a senior policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said these homes are “perfect examples of what we’ll see as sea levels continue to rise.”

North Carolina has a rocky history of confronting sea-level rise. In 2012, after scientific advisers for the state predicted up to 39 inches of rising sea levels over the next century, state legislators passed a law saying North Carolina would only base policies on studies that exclusively used historical data, effectively outlawing climate science. The current governor has backtracked, and North Carolina has joined a multistate effort to tackle climate change.

Moore said the government should fund more property buyouts to permanently remove homes from risky areas. Nationwide, a majority of the homes on the list belong to low-income and middle-class residents, he said, and since buyouts often take years to process, most homeowners can’t afford to wait and are forced to use insurance claims to rebuild in the same place.

The slow-moving hurricane will linger over the Carolinas through the weekend.

919 supertyphoon 28 coal plants, 28 more coming, CA PP $ kpfa

MMA

Is climate change amplifying the impact of hurricanes? Yes. Have the world’s leading climate scientists repeatedly warned us about climate change’s impact on extreme weather events? Yes. However, in the past, media outlets frequently failed to make this connection.

A 2017 Media Matters study found that neither ABC nor NBC aired a single segment on their morning, evening, or Sunday news shows from August 23 to September 7 that mentioned the link between climate change and hurricanes like Harvey, which made landfall on August 25 and earned the distinction of being the most extreme rain event in U.S. history.

As the frequency of severe hurricanes like Harvey, Irma, Maria and others continues to increase, media outlets have an even greater responsibility to contextualize natural disasters. They must give a platform to climate scientists and inform the public about the Trump administration’s efforts to destroy climate protections.

It's not a surprise that Sean Hannity hosts a climate denier, but it is contemptible. Furthermore, USA Today giving platforms to multiple climate change deniers is simply unacceptable in 2018.

Thursday morning, as the Carolinas and Virginia were preparing to be battered by Hurricane Florence, President Trump tweeted that he did not believe the official death count released by the Puerto Rican government after Hurricanes Irma and Maria hit the island last year.

A study commissioned by the Puerto Rican government concluded that nearly 3,000 deaths were directly related to the storms, but apparently after watching a CNN segment on the death toll, Trump pushed a conspiracy theory that the number was just "bad politics" by Democrats who raised the death toll in order to make him "look as bad as possible." Trump also declared earlier in the week that the federal government's response to the crisis in Puerto Rico was an "incredible untold success."

Right-wing media quickly spun up a range of excuses for the president:

Fox's Geraldo Rivera responded to news of Trump's tweets by arguing that it is "grotesquely unfair" to blame Trump for the federal government's response to the hurricanes and claiming that the problem with Hurricane Maria coverage is that "intense politically motivated hatred of President Trump deflects attention from what's really needed."

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton tweeted, "The dramatic increase in death toll due to hurricane in Puerto Rico is result of statistical guess work. … we should be suspicious of a guess that moves it up to nearly 3,000."

NRATV's Grant Stinchfield said, "I'm there with Donald Trump -- I call bogus on the 3,000 deaths."

Erick Erickson tweeted, "The President would be more willing to accept the truth about the thousands dead in Puerto Rico if news outlet in the country weren't trying to blame him for the deaths."

Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell claimed, "Dems learned how to politicize natural disasters when Katrina hit New Orleans. It worked against Bush 43 so now they're trying it against @realDonaldTrump with his response to Maria in Puerto Rico last year."

Breitbart.com insisted that Trump was "correct" to argue that Democrats had created a fake death count to smear him, pointing out that earlier estimates put the death toll at around 1,000. Breitbart complained that "the media reported the new estimate as if it were an actual confirmed death toll," even though the Puerto Rican government revised the official death toll to align with that estimate.

Lou Dobbs praised the president on his Fox Business show for having "the guts to call out the Dems and national left wing media types, who have blindly accepted an amazing tortured inflation of the death toll." Dobbs later tweeted out a video of the segment, which earned a retweet from the president.

Trump’s abject dismissal of almost 3,000 dead Americans and his media allies’ immediate and supportive reaction offers more proof that there is no low to which they will not sink.

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/university-behind-study-hurricane-marias-death-toll-fights-back-against-trumps

hurricane storm surge makes a sort of dam, so when Florence dumps water in mtns, the runoff will be stopped by ocean water.

https://www.ecowatch.com/hurricane-florence-climate-denial-2604542741.html

no many lnx

Climate-Denying Law Could Make Hurricane Florence More Dangerous

A 2012 law could make North Carolina more vulnerable to hurricanes like Florence, which is expected to approach the state later Thursday, CBS reported.

The law banned policy makers from using up-to-date climate science to plan for sea level rise, which is expected to make flooding from storms like Florence worse.

"Currently the unspoken plan is to wait until the situation is catastrophic and then respond. We must begin the retreat now," retired Duke University coastal geologist Orrin H. Pilkey wrote in a recent op-ed for Raleigh's News & Observer.

The law came as a response to a 2010 Coastal Resources Commission (CRC) report that predicted sea levels on the Carolina coast would rise 39 inches by 2100, putting 2,000 square miles of property at risk, The Charlotte Observer explained.

Real estate interests and some politicians worried the report could chill coastal development and increase insurance, so the state legislature passed a law banning agencies from making sea level rise policies until 2016.

"By putting our heads in the sand, literally, for four years, we are not helping property owners. We are hurting them because we are not giving them information they may need to protect their property," Democratic Representative Deborah Ross said in 2012, according to The Charlotte Observer.

The bill, which became law when Democratic Governor Bev Perdue neither signed nor vetoed it, instructed the CRC to write a new sea-level-rise report that restricted its scope to the next 30 years, took into account scientific studies refuting sea level rise and assessed the economic cost of limiting coastal development.

It was sponsored by Republican Representative Pat McElraft, a former real-estate agent whose top contributors included the North Carolina Association of Realtors and the North Carolina Home Builders Association.

"You can believe whatever you want about global warming, but when you go to make planning policies here for our residents and protecting their property values and insurance rates ... it's a very serious thing to us on the coast," McElraft said in 2012, according to The Charlotte Observer.

However, others warned that the bill itself would be a "very serious thing" for coastal dwellers.

The North Carolina Coastal Federation warned at the time that the bill undermined years of work by emergency agencies "to help prepare the state for hurricanes," according to CBS.

This week, the Union of Concerned Scientists warned that the increased average sea level along the Carolina coast could make the storm surge from Hurricane Florence more dangerous.

Since the bill was passed, studies have continued to show that the Carolina coast is already being impacted by sea level rise.

One, published in August, found that five Southeast states including North Carolina had already lost $7.4 billion in home values to sea level rise.

High tides are already causing flooding on non-windy days on streets like Front Street in Beaufort, Bay Street in Morehead City and Memorial Street in Nags Head, Pilkey wrote in his op-ed.

He advised that, going forward, the state increase setback lines to limit coastal development, raise the height of buildings, move back threatened buildings, prohibit rebuilding of storm-destroyed buildings and initiate a planned retreat from the rising water line.

"The time has come for action on our shoreline," Pilkey wrote. "There is no question that the climate will change drastically. It already has. And with that changing climate will come big changes at the shoreline. We used to believe that we could hold the shoreline in place but clearly that is an economic and engineering impossibility."

happer tweet agw "cult"

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918 florence coming, djt praises maria job, new kia 2975 = 911

Maddow Reveals Stunning Records Showing the Trump Admn. Shifted Money from FEMA to ICE Ahead of Hurricane Season

By Cody Fenwick, AlterNet

The document shows that $10 million was taken from the department dedicated to responding to natural disasters. READ MORE»

https://www.ecowatch.com/hawaii-hurricane-lane-flooding-2599467495.html

Although Hawaii avoided a direct hit by Hurricane Lane, which weakened to a tropical storm over the weekend, areas of the Big Island were inundated with waist-deep water and flash flooding.

Mountain View, located on the east side of the island, received a preliminary total of 51.53 inches of rain from Aug. 22-26—the third highest storm total rainfall from a tropical cyclone in the U.S. since 1950, according to theNational Weather Service.

The highest total is the 60.58 inches of rain dumped on Nederland, Texas during Hurricane Harvey last year. The second highest—and the highest tropical cyclone storm total rainfall in Hawaii—is the 52.00 inches measured at Kanalohuluhulu Ranger Station during Hurricane Hiki in 1950.

Authorities rescued 39 people from floodwaters on Friday and Saturday, the Associated Press reported. No storm-related deaths have been reported.

The heavy downpour triggered landslides, caused a road to collapse in Haiku and rendered the neighborhood inaccessible, and even opened up sinkholes.

Lane also dropped 36.76 inches of rain on Hilo Airport, the wettest four-day period ever observed at Hilo, with records dating back to 1949. Hilo also saw 15.00 inches of rain on Aug. 24, the fifth wettest calendar day on record.

"It was almost biblical proportions," state senator Kai Kahele, who represents the town of Hilo, told NBC News.

The National Weather Service lifted all remaining tropical storm warnings and watch advisories for the state on Sunday.

As Lane drifted away, Tropical Storm Miriam developed in the eastern Pacific Ocean, about 2000 miles east of the Hawaiian islands. But "Miriam is not expected to threaten any landmass," said AccuWeather Hurricane Expert Dan Kottlowski.

...

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/heres-how-hurricanes-contribute-racial-inequality

Hurricane Lane, which is bearing down on Hawaii, is a reminder of the devastation hurricane season can bring.

Only one year ago Hurricane Harveyravaged Houston, followed closely by Irma and Maria, which left a trail of destruction across Florida and Puerto Rico. Despite the private and government aid provided after these disasters, thousands continue to struggle even today.

However, not everyone is struggling. In fact, some actually benefit economically from these extreme weather events.

In a new study, which I co-authored with my colleague James Elliott, we found that populations that are privileged in terms of education, race or homeownership gain wealth in the aftermath of natural disasters, exacerbating already wide economic inequities.

Not only that, how the government delivers aid is partly to blame.

Disasters on the rise

Natural disasters from hurricanes to wildfires are on the rise, both in terms of frequency and severity.

And they take a heavy toll. Last year alone, the United States suffered US$260 billion in direct damages from natural disasters. While that’s a devastating figure, it fails to encompass the full extent of the impact – such as a loss in income or uncovered expenses such as medical bills – that can last for months and even years after cleanup begins.

Previous research has shown the aftermath of disasters is more devastating for less privileged residents as they are more likely to lose their job, have to relocate and pay higher rents due to reduced housing availability.

In our recent paper in the journal Social Problems, we found that the effects are even more profound, with whites, the highly educated and homeowners actually improving their relative financial situation after a disaster, while blacks, those with less education and renters are worse off compared with their peers.

Whites make gains while others lose

We combined nationally representative data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics on nearly 3,500 families with government figures on natural hazard damages, Federal Emergency Management Aid and local population demographics in every U.S. county.

We then explored how extreme natural disasters influenced changes in family wealth from 1999 to 2013. Throughout our analysis, we controlled for race, education, age, homeownership, family status, residential mobility as well as neighborhood and county demographics with the aim of comparing households that were similar. We also only compared families who started out with similar wealth in 1999.

Overall, we found a surprisingly strong correlation between the scale of damage a county experienced and an increase in average wealth. That is, people who lived in counties that suffered extreme disasters tended to accumulate more wealth over the period than those who lived in mostly unaffected parts of the country. And the more damage a county experienced, the more pronounced the relative gains in wealth.

Greater wealth, however, was not experienced by everyone. Using a statistical technique called interactions, we were able to see how these changes affected different segments of the population depending on race, education and homeownership.

First, we considered the effects of race and found that whites who lived in counties that experienced extreme natural disasters accumulated $100,000 more wealth than their peers with similar characteristics who did not.

For people of color, on the other hand, this effect was reversed. Specifically, black residents living in disaster-prone counties lost $46,000 in wealth compared with their counterparts elsewhere. And Latino residents in affected counties lost $101,000 relative to similar peers.

In other words, while whites benefited financially by living in areas hit by hurricanes and other disasters, people of color were clobbered.

We then examined the impact of education, holding other factors constant. We found that higher levels of education were also associated with a tendency to benefit from natural disasters, while those with less experienced devastating losses.

Finally we focused on homeownership. Similarly, our results showed that those who owned emerged a lot better off than those who rented.

Our findings suggest that natural disasters are worsening wealth inequality, especially along racial lines. For example, in Monmouth, New Jersey – a New York City suburb that experienced the most natural disaster damage in the U.S. from 1999 to 2013 – $111,000 of the increase in the white-black wealth gap during the period can be attributed to the impact of the disasters.

This map visualizes these rising inequalities across the largest metropolitan areas.

FEMA aid plays a role

This evidence is depressing in its own right. Yet, what is arguably even more disturbing is Federal Emergency Management Aid is further exacerbating these inequalities.

FEMA aid is distributed to mitigate the negative repercussions of hazards. In the best of worlds this federal assistance would reduce inequality – or at least curtail its expansion. What we found is quite the opposite.

Unlike what you might think, FEMA aid is not distributed solely based on damage or need. In fact, when we compared the amount of natural disaster damage in counties across the U.S. from 1999 to 2013 with how much aid FEMA allocated to them, the correlation is weak. This suggests factors other than need, such as politics, are primarily driving FEMA aid decisions.

However, statistically, this means we can isolate the effect of FEMA aid from natural hazards. When we did this, we found that FEMA aid also exacerbated inequalities. In New York County, for example, which received nearly $8 billion in FEMA aid from 1999 to 2013, we found that $105,000 of the increase in the white-black wealth gap is attributable to FEMA aid.

In short, much like natural disasters themselves, FEMA aid is exasperating wealth inequality.

Lingering questions

The obvious question after all this of course is why?

In this particular study, our aim was to identify the patterns of inequality and thus we are unable to specify the reasons why natural disasters and FEMA aid are exacerbating inequality.

That said, we do know from previous research that privatized aid as well as community reinvestment efforts are disproportionately concentrated in privileged communities, especially those that are white and middle-class.

The Conversation

Given the increasing frequency of natural disasters and their role in exacerbating wealth inequality, it is imperative that the U.S. reconsiders its responses to them. Immediate recovery aid is essential but equally important is ensuring this aid does not worsen entrenched inequities.

Junia Howell, Professor of Sociology, University of Pittsburgh

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

omg borders on disater cap'l, certainly subsidy

PORT ARTHUR, Texas (AP) — As the nation plans new defenses against the more powerful storms and higher tides expected from climate change, one project stands out: an ambitious proposal to build a nearly 60-mile “spine” of concrete seawalls, earthen barriers, floating gates and steel levees on the Texas Gulf Coast.

Like other oceanfront projects, this one would protect homes, delicate ecosystems and vital infrastructure, but it also has another priority — to shield some of the crown jewels of the petroleum industry, which is blamed for contributing to global warming and now wants the federal government to build safeguards against the consequences of it.

The plan is focused on a stretch of coastline that runs from the Louisiana border to industrial enclaves south of Houston that are home to one of the world’s largest concentrations of petrochemical facilities, including most of Texas’ 30 refineries, which represent 30 percent of the nation’s refining capacity.

Texas is seeking at least $12 billion for the full coastal spine, with nearly all of it coming from public funds. Last month, the government fast-tracked an initial $3.9 billion for three separate, smaller storm barrier projects that would specifically protect oil facilities.

That followed Hurricane Harvey, which roared ashore last Aug. 25 and swamped Houston and parts of the coast, temporarily knocking out a quarter of the area’s oil refining capacity and causing average gasoline prices to jump 28 cents a gallon nationwide. Many Republicans argue that the Texas oil projects belong at the top of Washington’s spending list.

“Our overall economy, not only in Texas but in the entire country, is so much at risk from a high storm surge,” said Matt Sebesta, a Republican who as Brazoria County judge oversees a swath of Gulf Coast.

But the idea of taxpayers around the country paying to protect refineries worth billions, and in a state where top politicians still dispute climate change’s validity, doesn’t sit well with some.

“The oil and gas industry is getting a free ride,” said Brandt Mannchen, a member of the Sierra Club’s executive committee in Houston. “You don’t hear the industry making a peep about paying for any of this and why should they? There’s all this push like, ‘Please Senator Cornyn, Please Senator Cruz, we need money for this and that.’”

Normally outspoken critics of federal spending, Texas Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz both backed using taxpayer funds to fortify the oil facilities’ protections and the Texas coast. Cruz called it “a tremendous step forward.”

Federal, state and local money is also bolstering defenses elsewhere, including on New York’s Staten Island, around Atlantic City, New Jersey, and in other communities hammered by Superstorm Sandy in 2012.

Construction in Texas could begin in several months on the three sections of storm barrier. While plans are still being finalized, some dirt levees will be raised to about 17 feet high, and 6 miles of 19-foot-tall floodwalls would be built or strengthened around Port Arthur, a Texas-Louisiana border locale of pungent chemical smells and towering knots of steel pipes.

The town of 55,000 includes the Saudi-controlled Motiva oil refinery, the nation’s largest, as well as refineries owned by oil giants Valero Energy Corp. and Total S.A. There are also almost a dozen petrochemical facilities.

“You’re looking at a lot of people, a lot of homes, but really a lot of industry,” said Steve Sherrill, an Army Corps of Engineers resident engineer in Port Arthur, as he peered over a Gulf tributary lined with chunks of granite and metal gates, much of which is set to be reinforced.

The second barrier project features around 25 miles of new levees and seawalls in nearby Orange County, whereChevron, DuPont and other companies have facilities. The third would extend and heighten seawalls around Freeport, home to a Phillips 66 export terminal for liquefied natural gas and nearby refinery, as well as several chemical facilities.

The proposals approved for funding originally called for building more protections along larger swaths of the Texas coast, but they were scaled back and now deliberately focus on refineries.

“That was one of the main reasons we looked at some of those areas,” said Tony Williams, environmental review coordinator for the Texas Land Commissioner’s Office.

Oil and chemical companies also pushed for more protection for surrounding communities to shield their workforces, but “not every property can be protected,” said Sheri Willey, deputy chief of project management for the Army Corps of Engineers’ upper Texas district.

“Our regulations tell us what benefits we need to include, and they have to be national economic benefits,”Willey said.

Once work is complete on the three sections, they could eventually be integrated into a larger coastal spine system. In some places along Texas’ 370-mile Gulf Coast, 18 feet is lost annually to erosion, threatening to suck more wetlands, roads and buildings into rising seas.

Protecting a wide expanse will be expensive. After Harvey, a special Texas commission prepared a report seeking $61 billion from Congress to “future proof” the state against such natural disasters, without mentioning climate change, which scientists say will cause heavier rains and stronger storms.

Texas has not tapped its own rainy day fund of around $11 billion. According to federal rules, 35 percent of funds spent by the Army Corps of Engineers must be matched by local jurisdictions, and the GOP-controlled state Legislature could help cover such costs. But such spending may be tough for many conservatives to swallow.

Texas “should be funding things like this itself,” said Chris Edwards, an economist at the libertarian Cato Institute. “Texans are proud of their conservatism, but, unfortunately, when decisions get made in Washington, that frugality goes out the door.”

State officials counter that protecting the oil facilities is a matter of national security.

The effects of the next devastating storm could be felt nationwide,” Rep. Randy Weber, a fiercely conservative Republican from suburban Houston who has nonetheless authored legislation backing the coastal spine.

Major oil companies did not return messages seeking comment on funding for the projects. But Suzanne Lemieux, midstream group manager for the American Petroleum Institute, said the industry already pays into programs such as the federal Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund and the Waterways Trust Fund, only to see Congress divert that money elsewhere.

“Do we want to pay again, when we’ve already paid a tax without it getting used? I’d say the answer is no,” she said.

Phillips 66 and other energy firms spent money last year lobbying Congress on storm-related funding post-Harvey, campaign finance records show, and Houston’s Lyondell Chemical Co. PAC lobbied for building a coastal spine.

“The coastal spine benefits more than just our industry,” Bob Patel, CEO of LyondellBasell, one of the world’s largest plastics, chemicals and refining companies, said in March. “It really needs to be a regional effort.”

irma ‎August 30, 2017 cat 5 cuba took the brunt, thuis spared fla? cf nova superstorm 7/18

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

https://www.alternet.org/arrogance-and-ineptitude-texas-paper-rips-abysmally-ignorant-trump-over-his-hurricane-response

6/18

Houston Chronicle’s editorial board on Monday slammed Donald Trump for his “abysmally ignorant” response to last year’s hurricane season, pointing to the president’s claim last week that up to “sixteen thousand people … went out in their boats to watch” Hurricane Harvey in 2017.

“So now we know: Thousands of heedless Houstonians were out pleasure-boating during that fateful Hurricane Harvey weekend and had to be rescued by U.S. Coast Guard sailors,” the Houston Chronicle’s editorial board wrote, explaining Trump spent a conference call last week complaining the Coast Guard didn’t “get enough credit” for the saves.

“The president seems to believe that the Coast Guard only rescues people at sea and that those bobbing boats he might have seen on cable news last August were foolish Houstonians seeking a little late-summer recreation in the face of impending mortal danger,” the board wrote, noting Trump seemed to suggest “gawkers” were “perhaps even deserving of the consequences of our own making.”

Unfortunately, we’ve grown accustomed to bizarre Trumpian bloviations,” the editors added, reminding readers of Trump’s reported claim last week that Canada burnt down the White House during the War of 1812. The paper said “the president’s Hurricane Harvey inanity is too serious for Houstonians to let slide.”

‘A region still recovering from catastrophic flooding doesn’t need its plight minimized or ridiculed,” they wrote. “It needs help.”

The Houston Chroniclewondered “if the man in charge is abysmally ignorant about what happened” during Hurricane Harvey, who among other Trump appointees will be better prepared?

“The people of Puerto Rico, those who survived a hurricane that killed thousands, know something of the importance of political leadership,” the Houston Chronicle wrote. “They remember a president who responded to biblical devastation by tossing rolls of paper towels at them. They know how arrogance and ineptitude at the top can magnify a dire situation.”

“Show some leadership,” the editors urged. “Make us your priority, not your punchline.”

https://www.democracynow.org/2018/4/20/earth_day_2018_ending_plastic_pollution

We speak to Marcus Eriksen of the 5 Gyres Institute, who has led 20 expeditions around the world to research plastic marine pollution, and Priscilla Villa of the #BreakFreeFromPlastics movement.

cracker EJ houston and gulf exxon petro metro build out

6 mos anniv

https://www.democracynow.org/2018/3/21/the_battle_for_paradise_naomi_klein

cryptocurrency, voucher, charter, 4% tax haven 2 hotels hank [paulsen?

agro-ecology food as buffer/resilience

ppl's platform ppl together gente

cf wage theft: https://theintercept.com/2018/03/16/hurricane-harvey-disaster-recovery-wage-theft/

ABOUT A MONTH after Hurricane Harvey, Karla Lopez saw a post on Facebook about a job repairing a flooded apartment complex in north Houston. When she called to find out more, a man named Gilberto urged her to come into work that same day.

“He said he could pay me $11 an hour for a 10-hour day for six days a week, including Saturdays, with no overtime.” Lopez recalled. “But I was OK with what he offered because I really needed the work.”

She spent the next two weeks on a crew of mostly immigrant laborers, demolishing walls and carrying out trash, then “putting up sheetrock with the guys and caulking and even cutting up siding” on buildings. A 20-year-old undocumented immigrant from Honduras, she had never worked in construction before, but she learned quickly and “just focused on getting the work done.”

Halfway into her third week on the job, Lopez fell from a ladder that shifted as she was stepping down. At the hospital, a doctor told her she had ripped the tendons in her ankle. Lopez was stuck with the bill, and then, she says, “The company didn’t want to pay me for the time I had worked.” Others at the site were also waiting to be paid; some had been waiting for more than a month.

When Lopez complained, Gilberto gave her the phone number of the subcontractor handling the project. The man who answered the phone told her “he would pay me some of the money soon,” she recalled. “But I told him I needed all of the money because I’d had an accident and had bills to pay.”

She informed him that other workers were contacting lawyers in order to get paid and says he responded, “Do what you have to do,” and hung up.

Workers like Lopez lost thousands of dollars in the first month after Hurricane Harvey, according to a report commissioned by the Fe y Justicia Worker Center and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, which found that more than a quarter of laborers doing recovery work in Houston had experienced wage theft since the storm. “After a natural disaster, there’s this huge risk of not only keeping the status quo of inequalities, but actually making them a lot worse,” said Marianela Acuña-Arreaza, executive director of the Fe y Justicia Worker Center.

The survey of storm recovery workers showed they were primarily undocumented immigrants from Mexico and Central America, although most were long-term residents of the Houston area. As The Intercept documented in November, a state law that lets police request the immigration status of anyone they detain or arrest has made many workers reluctant to report abuse. This week, the U.S. 5th Circuit ruled that most of the law can take effect even while it is appealed.

In the meantime, in a rare success, Lopez actually recovered the money she was owed — about $1,000. Labor advocates helped her bypass the web of subcontractors and directly pressure the project’s general contractor, Interstate Restoration, the second-largest disaster recovery firm in North America. Now other immigrants could use the same tactic to hold businesses accountable as they continue the slow work of rebuilding Houston.

https://www.ecowatch.com/air-pollution-startups-shutdowns-2534981679.html

Air Pollution From Industrial Shutdowns and Startups a Grave Danger to Public Health

By Nikolaos Zirogiannis, Alex J. Hollingsworth and David Konisky

When Hurricane Harvey struck the Texas coast in August 2017, many industrial facilities had to shut down their operations before the storm arrived and restart once rainfall and flooding had subsided.

These shutdowns and startups, as well as accidents caused by the hurricane, led to a significant release of air pollutants. Over a period of about two weeks, data we compiled from the Texas' Air Emission Event Report Database indicates these sites released 2,000 tons of sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds and other pollutants.

...

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/24102017/trump-pruitt-epa-press-office-attacked-reporter-lipton-ap-harvey

As The New York Times readied a story on the Environmental Protection Agency for last weekend's front page, an agency spokeswoman ignored the reporter's questions and accused him of writing "elitist clickbait."

The jab, in an email that the newspaper quoted in its story, was just the latest in a series of attempts by the agency's press office to thwart reporters or attack their work—a strategy it appears to have adopted from Donald Trump's White House.

The approach is a "sharp departure" from past practice, said Dan Fiorino, who worked for the agency for more than 30 years and is now director of the Center for Environmental Policy at American University.

"It's trying to manipulate journalists and favor those who say the right things," Fiorino said. "Now, what we're seeing from EPA is pretty much what we're seeing from the administration. The press people are there to sell a very particular point of view. They'll limit access."

Regardless of whether the president was a Republican or a Democrat, or whether his regulatory agenda was friendly to environmentalists or to business interests, the agency's press office generally tried to appear neutral.

When the EPA was still relatively young, its administrator—William Ruckelshaus, who was on a mission to rescue the agency from its own missteps—issued what's become known as the "fishbowl memo."

The 1983 Reagan-era memo said the agency, long in the crosshairs of conservatives and regulated industries, would operate with as much transparency as it could to steer clear of controversy: "EPA will not accord privileged status to any special interest group, nor will it accept any recommendation without careful examination."

At the frontline of that effort was the agency's press office. But today, former employees say, that press office handles an agency that's less like a fishbowl than a dark-windowed SUV.

Attempts to Stem Information Flow

The agency's brass-knuckle style comes at a time when it is under intense scrutiny for changing environmental and climate regulations in ways that favor coal and other fossil fuels. Among other things, it is swamped with demands for access to internal communications and other records.

From its first days in office, the Trump administration has tried to stem the flow of information from the agency to the public. The blockades began right away in January, with reports that EPA employees were being told to stop talking to the press. Reporters have been barred from events, and the agency has attacked journalists through press releases, while at the same time using press releases to promote its administrator.

"If you care at all about how the public views your work, you would try to communicate with the reporters, who are largely in charge of disseminating the information," said Monica Lee, a former spokesperson during the Obama administration. "Instead, this press office relies on [EPA Administrator Scott] Pruitt's comments, made to a very specific audience or to very friendly reporters."

This press office's efforts accompany a broader attempt at tamping down the work of climate scientists at the agency and stripping mentions of their work and of climate change from EPA websites. Earlier this year, the agency dismissed members of its Board of Science Counselors, and last week Pruitt said he would issue a directive to bar scientists who received EPA grants from serving on EPA advisory boards because he believed the grants represent conflicts of interest.

Personal Attacks on Reporters

The latest in a string of controversies came this weekend when The Times ran a front-page story chronicling efforts by a top-level EPA appointee to downplay the risks of toxic chemicals. Before taking the job in May, the appointee, Nancy Beck, had been an executive for five years at the American Chemistry Council, which provides policy, communications and research for major chemical companies, including Arkema, DuPont and Monsanto.

Times reporter Eric Lipton asked the EPA and Beck for responses to a list of questions. EPA spokeswoman Liz Bowman—who also worked at the American Chemistry Council, as director of issue and advocacy communications, before joining Pruitt's EPA—replied in an email: "No matter how much information we give you, you would never write a fair piece. The only thing inappropriate and biased is your continued fixation on writing elitist clickbait trying to attack qualified professionals committed to serving their country."

The response has shocked former press officers.

"Blatantly attacking reporters and giving responses that are incredibly critical personally—it may help your base and it may fire them up, but it in no way serves the broader American people," said Liz Purchia, who ran the press office under Obama.

A month earlier, the agency tore into an Associated Press reporter, Michael Biesecker, for a story he and a colleague wrote about Superfund sites being under water in Texas after Hurricane Harvey. Biesecker, the agency said in an official press release, "has a history of not letting the facts get in the way of his story." The story, written by reporters who visited the sites after the hurricane, was correct, and the EPA later acknowledged damage there.

The press office under Obama hewed to standards outlined in its scientific integrity policy, which refers to the "fishbowl memo," which has essentially guided conduct since its release 34 years ago.

"That is the ethos," Fiorini said.

What's Required by Law?

By law, the EPA is required to have an Office of Public Affairs, which is "responsible for providing newsworthy information to the various communications media." Beyond that, an administration can release information how it wants, although it has to respond to requests for information by Congress or under the Freedom of Information Act.

"I'm not aware of any legal issues," Fiorino said, referring to the current press office. "But certainly, ethically and in terms of what you'd expect in a democracy, there are some real problems. This is a real sharp departure from what we've seen in the past."

The Obama administration's EPA press office got a rap on the knuckles from the Government Accountability Office in 2015 for a social media campaign to drum up support for a Clean Water Act rule. It was accused of violating propaganda and anti-lobbying rules.

"Historically, the press office at EPA, the public information people, get the information out there, and to some degree you want to put the administration, the people making decisions, in a good light," Fiorino said. "This administration is trying to create reality in a way that fits its view. That's really scary."

The EPA did not respond to questions for this story.

https://www.ecowatch.com/fema-san-juan-mayor-2494757627.html

FEMA Chief Says 'We Filtered Out' San Juan Mayor After She Pleads 'We Need Water!'

The administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) dismissed the mayor of San Juan's vocal criticism of the Trump administration's Hurricane Maria relief efforts in Puerto Rico.

"We filtered out the mayor a long time ago," FEMA administrator Brock Long said in an interview with ABC's This Week on Sunday.

"We don't have time for the political noise," he continued. "The bottom line is that we are making progress every day in conjunction with the governor."

Long's comment was in regard to Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz's tweet alleging that FEMA did not respond to a request for support after a hospital in San Juan lost power and patients needed to be transferred out.

Cruz also tweeted over the weekend, "WE NEED WATER!" and "there is no help in the horizon."

"In regards outages and the hospitals, we've built an entire 9-1-1 system," Long insisted during his interview. "We monitor the hospital system daily. So if there is a power failure at a hospital … we're actually life-lighting the ICU patients out of those hospitals."

"But as far as the political noise, we filter that out, keep our heads down, and continue to make progress in restoring essential functions in Puerto Rico."

Several weeks after the Sept. 20 Category 4 storm devastated the U.S. territory, only 11.7 percent of the island's electricity consumers have power, and 56.8 percent of Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority customers have potable water, according to FEMA's website tracking the federal response to Hurricane Maria.

FEMA was under scrutiny last week for removing stats about Puerto Rico's electricity and water access from the website. That information returned by Friday afternoon.

no building code/zoning?

https://www.ecowatch.com/toxic-waste-superfund-harvey-2491975495.html

EPA: Houston Superfund Site Leaked Toxic Chemicals After Harvey

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) confirmed that Hurricane Harvey damaged a protective cap at a Superfund site along the San Jacinto River, near Houston, and caused a spike in chemical levels in the water.

Water samples from one of 14 monitoring sites at the San Jacinto waste pits indicated levels of dioxin above 70,000 parts per trillion, more than 2,000 times higher than the site's cleanup goal of 30 parts per trillion. Dioxin is a cancer-causing chemical that stays in the environment for hundreds of years before breaking down.

The risks from flooding were foreseen. In a cleanup plan proposed in 2016, the EPA noted that the protective cap could be damaged by a large hurricane or severe storm that caused the river to rise.

"Sea level rise, storm surge, and heavy downpours in combination with the pattern of continued development in coastal areas are increasing damage to U.S. infrastructure and are also increasing risks to ports and other installations. Because the intensity of future storms and flooding may increase, estimates regarding the ability of a cap (even a cap with increased armoring) to contain the dioxin waste material is highly uncertain," the report stated.

The pits were built in the 1960s to hold waste material from a paper mill.

For a deeper dive:

Los Angeles Times, ABC News, NPR, Newsweek