Comments on: Refugee Remedies Aid Climate Change Victims in New York

By: Laurie Balbo

Laurie Balbo — Sun, 18 Nov 2012 10:40:35 +0000

The story’s about a wood burning stove – and it’s application to folks who are affected by downed systems. It’s not about weather patterns.

I do believe Climate Change is real – and own up to the story title reflecting my P.O.V – but the story’s about a stove.

Apologies for a title that confused. No need to argue about content that doesn’t exist.

By: Gary

Gary — Sun, 18 Nov 2012 10:10:03 +0000

hehe, yep, you’ll hold your ground even though the title is incredibly misleading. Don’t let the facts get in the way of the story.
Climate change has nothing to do with the devastation, and building in an area that can be hit by the ravages of nature does.
If you wanted to be truthful and actually report with the facts in mind you would not have mentioned climate change and made the story title reflect the fact that the civil services are not up to the task when a hurricane hits a place like New York.
And given that we are in a period of very low hurricane activity, imagine how it will be when they DO actually begin to increase, as they are sure to eventually.

By: Michael Petterson

Michael Petterson — Sun, 18 Nov 2012 10:09:44 +0000

Actually it’s you that have a “climate change”bias as there was no need to refer to that at all. Just state the facts and leave it at that. There was no need for that snide remark on Peter either,as I said state the facts and leave the personal remarks out of it. You must know the current controversy on this issue,so I question why that point was mentioned in the story at all.

By: Laurie Balbo

Laurie Balbo — Sun, 18 Nov 2012 09:27:44 +0000

Sorry, Peter, but will hold my ground on this.

The article makes mo claims regarding climate change or the trending of severe weather – it’s about a stove that can be used to power small electrical devices. No “scare story” in sight.

That opening line points out how our built environment (basic civil services like transport, power and built infratructures) is proving incompatible with extreme weather. Extreme weather here refers to hurricanes, heavy precip., etc.

I pin it on aging infrastructure and rapid urbanization. Reference Hurricane Sandy’s destruction to old coastal roads and bridges, mass transit systems such as PATH, and the power distribution grid in the NYC/NJ metropolitan area. Look to rapid urbanization with resultant loss of permeable surfaces: in the greater Dublin region last year, not-atypical rainfall caused record-busting flooding, washing out roads, floodign shopping centers, closing portions of the city for a week. Just two weather events I have personal experience in.

So long as we continue to build in places we ought not be building in, and defer weather-defensive-improvements to things already built, we’ll continue to see large scale weather-related losses.

Clearly you have a climate change bias: you read things into this article that just don’t exist.

By: Peter Wilson

Peter Wilson — Sun, 18 Nov 2012 06:54:07 +0000

“but the increasingly damaging effect of extreme weather upon basic civil services is indisputable.”

Actually its very disputable indeed. The fact of the matter is that no long term record of extreme weather events shows any upward trend at all during the period of human industrialization, making rather a nonsense of this claim. The world, and in particular the USA, is in the midst of the LEAST active period for hurricanes in recorded history -7 years and counting since a real hurricane made landfall in the US. Similar trends are evident with tornadoes (last year notwithstanding), droughts and floods.

The only thing that is increasing is insurance claims, but that has nothing to do with increasing extreme weather (because its not happening) and everything to do with our increased wealth, and predilection for building in risky situations.

Not that I expect you to let the facts get in the way of a good scare story.