Why is it that headlines involving global warming are often placed next to the current threat of terrorism? It appears that every time your author flips through a newspaper there is at least one article citing global warming. This is the belief, no facts are really available to substantiate the existence, that because we drive around cars we are destroying the ozone layer and creating a hot box on the earth’s surface.
Global warming is being used by the far left environmentalists to basically get everyone to stop driving cars and pick up bicycles. Of course they blame America as a major polluter and anyone with a car they deemed irresponsible (typically gas guzzling SUVs) as the chief culprits. So serious is this crisis that former Vice President Al Gore produced and starred in a movie entitled The Inconvenient Truth. In a recent interview with Larry King of CNN, former President Jimmy Carter insisted that fuel inefficient cars produced by Ford and General Motors resulted in dropping sales and had led to their current financial crisis and poor corporate credit rating. He never bothers mentioning the rough relationship both automakers have experienced with the UAW union and stiffer competition. This somehow fails to meet his criteria when assessing the financial stability for both automakers.
So does global warming exist? Well yes it does the earth’s temperature in the past century increased by 1-2 degrees Celsius! Yes sound the panic alarm! The earth is doomed and all of you driving around in Ford Explorers are to blame.
The most well-known answer, medicine prescribed by a quack pharmacist if you will, to this perceived danger is the Kyoto Protocol or Kyoto Treaty. This gem was to curb greenhouse gases and save the world from impending doom. Many of the European nations along with Russia and Canada ratified the agreement. The United States along with Australia did not sign the agreement citing the negative economic impact. The United States wisely cited India and China, two of the worst polluting countries on the planet, as a reason not to sign it. Both countries refused to go along with the prescription. Kyoto was a failure.
Now to drum up more fear against global warming, the whacky proponents of the theory are suggesting that the destruction caused by the hurricanes in 2004 and 2005 are a direct result of global warming. Scientists who subscribe to global warming believe that hurricanes are becoming more powerful. While speaking at the Law School of New York University Gore himself stated the same thus thrusting creating more attention to the global warming and a hurricane connection.
If Gore and others claim that hurricanes are more destructive then the area being impacted the most, just by the geographical location and ocean water temperature, the state of Florida must be considered. Your author highly doubts that Gore and others have even lived in a hurricane zone area. Here are some statistics that certainly put doubt on Gore’s claims.
The hurricane season for Florida begins on June 1st and concludes by November 30th. Hurricanes are defined by categories that provide a range for wind speed of miles per hour (mph). They are as follows: category (1) 74-95 mph, (2) 96-110 mph, (3) 111-130 mph, (4) 131-155 mph and (5) 155+mph.
October 1906, unnamed hurricane-category 3 at landfall, destroyed Miami and later came to shore on Jacksonville, FL. The estimated damage was $160,000 ($7 million by today’s standards). The death toll is unknown.
September 1926-unamed hurricane-category 3 at landfall, known as the “Miami hurricane”, monetary damage was estimated to be a $100 million (over $2 billion by today’s standards) and 200 people perished.
September 1928-unamed hurricane-category 4 at landfall, known as the “Okeechobee hurricane”, monetary damage was never actually quantified but most reports state ‘several million dollars’. The death toll in the Caribbean was over 1,000 and in Florida were 2,500.
September 1935-unamed hurricane-category 5 at landfall, known as the “Labor Day hurricane”, this is considered the most intense hurricane to ever touch America’s shore. The impact on Miami and The Keys was a death toll of 435. This hurricane is particularly noteworthy because of who died. Out of the deaths 260 consisted of World War I veterans who were building a federally funded highway to The Keys. Many perished due to the flimsy shelters and being stranded.
October 1944-unamed hurricane-category 3 at landfall, known as the “Sanibel Island hurricane”, impacting Florida’s west coast, the estimated monetary damage was was $100 million and 318 people were killed.
September 1945-unamed hurricane-category 3 at landfall, known as the “Everglades hurricane”, only 4 people perished and estimated cost in 1945 dollars was $54 million. This would be about $550million dollars by today’s standards.
September 1947-unamed hurricane, category 5 at landfall, known as the “Fort Lauderdale hurricane”, 51 people died and the estimated monetary damage by 1947 dollars was $31 million.
September 1950-Hurricane Easy, category 3 at landfall, striking Tampa, causing only two deaths and only causing $3.3 million. The reason why this hurricane’s damage is relatively low is thought to have been due to the fact that Tampa at the time was sparsely populated.
October 1950-Hurricane King, category 3 at landfall, impacting Miami, only four people died and an estimated monetary damage of $28million in 1950 dollars.
September 1960-Hurricane Donna, category 4 at landfall, 364 were killed, 107 were due to flooding and $387 million in 1960 dollars was caused.
A few things to consider when reviewing this information, the first are automobiles on the road and general population growth. In 1996 the Urban Decisions System estimated that sixty percent of households owned two cars. In 1990 sixteen percent of households owned more than two cars. If the reader compares this to 1950 less than half of households in the US owned an automobile. Along the way fuel efficiency improved and cleaner burning gasoline was created. The surge in automobile ownership in the US is thought to have been when women came out of the homes and began to work, which started in the 1960s.
Compare the 1950 population of America and Florida specifically-151 million and 2.7 million. In 2005 this total was 296 million and 17 million. As it relates to Florida, a state expected to replace New York by 2010 as the third most populated state, it is safe to assume that infrastructure has increased with a the growing number of residents. Neighborhoods are found that were previously inhabited by palmettos and along either coast one can find plenty of high rise apartments. In other words “things” weren’t there as in previous years. So just by the change of the landscape when a storm touches the coast the appearance, when compared to prior decades, seems to be more destructive. Object such as clay roof tile are thrown through the air, broken signage now becomes deadly missiles and items such as these were not present fifty years ago. So yes by development the damage results appear to be greater but the hurricane itself hasn’t changed from a prior time.
The so called global warming, where the earth’s temperature has increased 1-2 degrees Celsius over the last 100 years, didn’t cause the damage left by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. The damage was caused by broken levies. If the levies’ inability to withstand against category 5 winds was the culprit, how did global warming cause this catastrophe? There is no concrete proof that anything related to global warming has resulted in hurricanes being more deadly.
The theory of global warming and the altered landscape of Florida actually have a kernel of comparability. Mankind demands more from the natural landscape with necessities of infrastructure. Global warming assumes it is mankind with their SUVS that is causing such an event to occur. This is the core behind the theory-stop driving, stop buying oil so big evil oil companies cannot profit and provide jobs. It is presumptuous and arrogance of man that they think they can alter mother nature either by causing more storms that are coined as being more destructive then ones from the past or that mankind has the power to reverse such a trend.
Your author does support protecting the environment and conserving resources. Your author does not support some far flung theory that is unproven being taken as fact, which is fueled by unnecessary fear and thoughts of doom.
