“Florence” voter apathy in the American Carolinas

hurricane florence 1

“Without quick action to curb CO2 emissions, global warming is likely to increase by 4 degrees Centigrade (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) above today’s normal during the 21st century and that is dangerously close to the temperature of 6 degrees Centigrade above normal that initiated the Permian-Triassic extinction event 252 million years ago when 96%* of all marine species and 70% of all terrestrial vertebrates were wiped out. *(current estimate 81%)” – 2012 World Bank report

 

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The state governments of the Carolinas have in the past ignored scientific evidence relating to climate change. In spite of warnings even coming from their own universities, they have refused to recognize the damage Carolinians are inflicting on our planet.

These states are among the fastest-growing in the country, and in each of them Republican dominated legislatures have been prioritizing business growth over efforts to limit the consequences of climate change. For example, beginning in 2012, North Carolina lawmakers took actions that forced state and local agencies on the coast to ignore models that predict rising sea levels.

For most Carolinians climate change is far out of their vision. Some even see it as noise coming from left wing conspiracy theorists who are trying to take away the greatness of their nation.

This includes most of those from the Carolinas sent to the US Congress.

Anti-climate rhetoric has ruled debates both in the US Congress and in the Carolinian State Legislatures. A totally ignorant US President has been in support. Even when harsh ecological facts are revealed by scientists from their own state universities, FAKE news narratives are cleverly fashioned to remove fact from reality.

This anti-climate position is found not only in the Carolinas. Along the East coast of the US it can be seen from Virginia down to Florida. Here are some examples:

… When in 2009/2010 the tea party movement embraced the notion that climate science is a liberal hoax, it found solid support throughout this region.

… When in 2012, North Carolina enacted a law that essentially outlawed a global warming report and barred state officials from using its findings to make coastal development decisions, this was a big win for North Carolina wealthy real estate developers and for conservative voters who backed the law.

… Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s administration ordered DEP employees, contractors and volunteers not to use the terms “climate change” and “global warming” in official communications.

…The Virginia-Pilot reported that Virginia State Delegate Chris Stolle, a Republican from Virginia Beach, during debate over the legislation to fund a study of rising sea levels, argued in his version of a bill that “sea level rise” is a “left-wing term.” Stolle said flooding in low-lying coastal areas in Virginia shouldn’t be judged as a potential consequence of climate change.

All of this shows that there is dangerous distortion of reality up and down the lower region of the East Coast as it relates to climate change. This distortion is threatening the future not just of Americans but of the citizens of the world.

There will be dire consequences in the near future. It will lead to flooding of the city of Norfolk as well as communities in the entire Chesapeake Bay Area. That includes portions of Washington D.C. Keep in mind; scientists have determined that demographically Norfolk, Virginia ranks among the American cities most vulnerable to rising sea levels:

As for the future of the Carolinas; now that storm Florence has subsided, for many life will go on as usual, especially for those able to collect insurance and government subsidies and for those able to profit from the rebuilding. (Under the FEMA program some houses in flood areas can continue to be rebuilt again and again)

And as for those Carolinian pro Trump Evangelical Christians, why should they even care? It’s all in God’s hands. If and when the Apocalypse arrives, everything at least for the believers will be OK.

Following are briefs on what has been written these last few weeks. They echo a harsh future reality.

Were their readers among the Carolinian and Virginian and Floridian deniers, some of them well known politicians and their wealthy donors? Doubtful. They don’t read science. They are all too preoccupied listening to FOX News! Like the US President.

The harsh reality is that by the turn of the century when the Atlantic waters have risen two to four feet or even six and the storms have become worse, it may be too late. The World Bank predicted in 2012 that a Methane Hydrate feedback loop will have begun in the Arctic. (See report at beginning of this essay)

David Anderson

www.InquiryAbraham.com

QUOTES AND LINKS SUPPORTING THIS BLOG

Sea Level Rise Is Speeding Up in Parts of the Southeastern U.S.

A combination of natural factors has driven the rise, but climate change has exacerbated the problem

Scott Waldman Climate Wire on August 10, 2017

Sea-level rise isn’t just happening; it’s accelerating. And some areas of the United States—like Florida—are seeing “hot spots” where the ocean can creep up six times faster than average. Those are the findings of two new studies published yesterday, which have potentially troubling implications for urban planners trying to address sea-level rise. They also help explain why residents of Florida and North Carolina have seen sharp increases in coastal flooding in recent years.

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Global Warming and East Coast Hurricanes

By James Hansen — September 18, 2018

First, there is the fact that sea level rise due to global warming is already well over a foot along the U.S. East Coast. Ice melt due to global warming accounts for about 20 cm (8 inches) global average sea level rise ….. Slowdown of the Gulf Stream, which is a part of the AMOC slowdown, adds to East Coast sea level. The slowdown reduces the west-to-east upward slope of the ocean surface across the Gulf Stream causing piling up of water on the East Coast. The combined sea level rise from these effects, which is also responsible for “sunny day flooding” on the Eastern Seaboard, makes hurricane storm surges greater

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Rivers Keep Rising and More Deaths Are Feared as Florence Pushes Away

By David ZucchinoAlan Blinder and Tyler Pager

Sept. 17, 2018   NY Times

WILMINGTON, N.C. — The remnants of Hurricane Florence threatened more destruction on Tuesday as swollen rivers pushed higher in the Carolinas and flash flood advisories were issued for cities along the storm’s northeast trajectory, including Washington, New York and Boston. Across the Carolinas, residents struggled with the aftermath of a storm that drenched the region with record rainfall, damaged tens of thousands of homes and delivered floodwaters that may not recede for days.

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Dear Carolinas: You can’t Outlaw Storm Surges & Climate Crisis; Physics isn’t interested in Your Laws

JUAN COLE09/13/2018

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – There has been a flurry of irony-heavy articles about how the North Carolina, Republican-dominated state legislature, in 2012 forbade state-employed scientists from talking about sea level rise and climate crisis. This ostrich policy of just denying reality was intended to prevent real estate values along the coast from falling, and to forestall an abandonment of coastal development by businesses. But what it really did was encourage people to build along the coast without taking into account the likelihood of a 4 foot rise in the seas over the next few decades, and without taking into account the superstorms caused by global heating, especially of the waters.

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North Carolina, Warned of Rising Seas, Chose to Favor

Development

NY Times September 12, 2016 By John Schwartz and Richard Fausset

As Hurricane Florence bears down on North Carolina, the state may face the consequences of policies minimizing the impact of climate change and allowing extensive development in vulnerable coastal areas. The approaching storm almost certainly gained destructive power from a warming climate, but a 2012 law, and subsequent actions by the state, effectively ordered state and local agencies that develop coastal policies to ignore scientific models showing an acceleration in the rise of sea levels. In the years since, development has continued with little regard to the long-term threat posed by rising sea levels. And the coastal region’s population and economy have boomed, growing by almost half in the last 20 years. The law, known as H.B. 819, was widely criticized and even ridiculed when it passed, but it was favored by the state’s business interests, which argued that it was needed to protect property values.

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Thirty-one dead as Hurricane Florence continues to ravage the Carolinas

Climate Change—by Matthew Taylor — September 18, 2018

It is estimated that the storm will cost at least $20 billion in damages from insurance claims alone. Estimated costs for the storm as a whole have run as high as $180 billion, which would make it the costliest disaster in US history. This figure is very close to the estimated $174 billion that the country’s wealthiest individuals will save in 2018 due to the Trump administration’s tax cuts.

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Hurricane, Storm Surge Warnings Up for Carolinas; Florence May Stall Near Coast

Bob Henson September 11, 2018

Hurricane and storm surge warnings were issued Tuesday afternoon ahead of Hurricane Florence, which is increasingly likely to deliver one of the most destructive and prolonged disasters ever seen in the Carolinas. As of 8 pm EDT Tuesday, a hurricane warning was in effect from South Santee River, South Carolina, to Duck, North Carolina, including the Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds. A storm surge warning covered the same area, as well as the low-lying Neuse and Pamlico Rivers just inland. Hurricane and storm surge watches extended southward to Edisto Beach, SC, and north to the Virginia-NC border. A tropical storm watch covers the southeast Virginia coast up to Cape Charles Light and Chesapeake Bay south of New Point Comfort.

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Masses around Globe Rally against Climate Crisis & Gov’t Inaction, Defying Trump

Juan Cole 09/09/2018

In Paris, as many as 50,000 demonstrators came out Saturday afternoon, for, as they said, the sake of the human species. Even in a smaller city, Lyons, there were 10,000. Organizers said that throughout the country, 115,000 protesters came out.

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We Can No Longer Afford A Fossil Fuel Economy

Kevin Zeese — September 10, 2018

The Global #RiseForClimate actions are just one example of many that the climate justice movement is building the power needed to transform the economy and put in place policies to confront climate change. The ingredients exist for the climate justice movement to rapidly succeed. A challenge is not knowing how much time we have. Scientists have been conservative in their estimates, and feedback loops could rapidly increase the impacts of climate change. The costs of not acting are high. The benefits of investing in a clean energy economy would be widespread. We need to keep building the movement

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Searing heat could make countries in North Africa and along the Persian Gulf unlivable

NBC NEWS  CHARLENE GUBASH

CAIRO — The heat feels relentless. Temperatures here in August regularly top 95 degrees Fahrenheit, and Sunday’s forecast projects thermometers will hit 100 F. In Ouargla, Algeria, the temperature spiked to 124.34 F on July 5 this year, the highest temperature reliably recorded on the continent of Africa. In 2016, Mitribah, Kuwait, reportedly reached 129.2 F, which could make it the highest temperature on record for the Eastern hemisphere and Asia. With blisteringly hot summers becoming a regular occurrence, climate change could soon push an environment that is uncomfortable into one that is unsustainable — particularly for countries along the Arab Gulf and in North Africa.

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Mendacious Mainstream Presstitutes Ignore Huge Carbon Debt & Horrendous Hazard Response Debt: Disasters Are Not Natural

Dr Gideon Polya

Despite a global warming of plus 1C, the unavoidability of a catastrophic plus 2C  and now regular, high energy hurricane catastrophes in tropical Island Nations, the atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) is relentlessly increasing as is carbon fuel burning for energy.  This climate criminal greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution and climate inaction is enabled by the remorseless mendacity of One Percenter-dominated Mainstream media, politician, commentariat and academic presstitutes who ignore horrendous current Hazard Response Debt, huge, inescapable and worsening Carbon Debt and the palpable reality that Disasters Are Not Natural. While personal, corporate or national debt can be expunged or evaded in various ways, Hazard Response Debt and Carbon Debt are inescapable – unless that sea wall is built, the population will drown.

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Seas Surge as Pace of Antarctica Ice Loss Triples in 5 Yrs: 3 Trillion Tons Melted

AFP06/14/2018

Paris (AFP) – Antarctica has lost a staggering three trillion tonnes of ice since 1992, according to a landmark study published Wednesday that suggests the frozen continent could redraw Earth’s coastlines if global warming continues unchecked.

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Hothouse Earth – Evidence for a demise of the planetary life support system

Dr Andrew Glikson — August 7, 2018

In a key paper titled “Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene“,published in the Proceedings of the US National Academy of Science (6.8.2018),a group of 17 climate and environment scientists (Will Steffen, Johan Rockström, Katherine Richardson, Timothy M. Lenton, Carl Folke, Diana Liverman, Colin P. Summerhayes, Anthony D. Barnosky, Sarah E. Cornell, Michel Crucifix, Jonathan F. Donges, Ingo Fetzer, Steven J. Lade, Marten Scheffer, Ricarda Winkelmann, and Hans Joachim Schellnhuber) have issued a stern warning to humanity  with regard to the future of advanced life on Earth

 

(http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/07/31/1810141115)

 

The paper states: “We explore the risk that self-reinforcing feedbacks could push the Earth System toward a planetary threshold that, if crossed, could prevent stabilization of the climate at intermediate temperature rises and cause continued warming on a “Hothouse Earth” pathway even as human emissions are reduced.

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Human Extinction by 2026? A Last Ditch Strategy to Fight for Human Survival

Robert J Burrowes — August 14, 2018

There is almost unanimous agreement among climate scientists and organizations – that is, 97% of over 10,000 climate scientists and the various scientific organizations engaged in climate science research – that human beings have caused a dramatic increase in the amount of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide released into Earth’s atmosphere since the pre-industrial era and that this is driving the climate catastrophe that continues to unfold.

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US Southwest sizzles as temperatures near 120 degrees

AP Phoenix ANITA SNOW July 23, 2018

Temperatures approached 120 degrees in parts of the U.S. Southwest on Monday, and forecasters said this week could bring the region’s hottest weather of the year. Phoenix reached a sweltering 115 degrees (46 Celsius), which broke the previous daily record, according to the National Weather Service.

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Global Warming Is Melting And Burning The Planet

Jon Queally 21 May, 2014

The extreme risks which these tipping points represent justify strong precautionary risk management. Under-reporting on these issues is irresponsible, contributing to the failure of imagination that is occurring today in our understanding of, and response to, climate change.

 

David Anderson brings together a wide range of interests in his writings, namely; theology, history, evolutionary anthropology, philosophy, geopolitics, and economics.

He has written three books. A fourth is near completion. It is about a necessary geo political, social, religious, economic paradigm shift for human survival.

See: http://www.inquiryabraham.com/new-book.html

Over his career he was an international risk manager and senior executive at several of America’s premier multinational institutions. During that period he became increasingly aware of the underlying cultural, institutional and religious causes of past and present civilizational dysfunction and conflict.

 

 

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