Thursday, April 19, 2018

UPDATED: An Angry Planet

The future is rapidly arriving, and it isn't pretty, thanks to climate change that is causing rising seas and more volatile storms, of particular threat to low-lying nations of the world right now.

The first video shows what happened when a heavy storm hit Hawaii:



The second video, available with this link, shows the true peril facing people who live only a few feet above sea level.

UPDATE: The following video was originally posted on the Mound's blog but he is encouraging widespread distribution; it is yet another aspect of climate change that clearly relates to rising seas and other such disasters. Everything in this phenomenon is interrelated:



GLACIER EXIT from Raphael Rogers on Vimeo.

6 comments:

  1. 30 inches of rain in 24 hours. That is becoming our new normal and these are early onset impacts. Tuvalu about to go under. And then there'll be another island and then the next.

    I was pondering Trudeau's "national interest" proclamation tonight and then I wound up asking "what about our kids' national interest. what about our grandchildren's national interest." Does our national interest allow us to trash what's in their national interest? This level of self-serving arrogance we tolerate today is deeply disturbing.

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    1. As I said in a comment on your blog posting of that video about glacier retreat in Alaska, Mound, which I am adding in an update here, it is tragic that the concerns expressed by the glacier guide about what is being bequeathed to our children and grandchildren are not shared by our politicians.

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  2. I'll never forget a storm we had a few years ago. It began as abruptly as it ended. Just 18 minutes from the first raindrops to the last. More than an inch and a half of rainfall. In our town centre area, cars were floating down the road because the drains were overwhelmed by the deluge. It had that Biblical dimension to it.

    We now face these "atmospheric rivers" that, coupled with our disrupted jet stream, can park intense rainstorms over one location. That's what took down Calgary in 2013.

    These climate change impacts are on us now and yet those with the regulatory power do next to nothing to transition us off fossil fuels. Doing the right thing carries risks so they instead go for the politically safe thing.

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    1. The refusal of our elected officials to do anything, Mound, is an indictment of how far democracy has deteriorated within our lifetimes. I see no prospect for a turnaround.

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  3. You would think that the violent swings in our weather would be making an impression. Apparently they aren't. That's a tragedy of far reaching proportions.

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    1. I have wondered about the same thing, Owen. Perhaps one has to be a victim before one becomes a convert, although I do remember someone being interviewed after the floosing in Texas, and he was still unconvinced about climate change.

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