hurricanes
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Global warming will make future hurricanes worse, full stop
Ignore the members of the peanut gallery bleating about whether or not we can blame hurricane Irene on global warming. What matters is that in the future, warmer temperatures will mean more moisture in the air, so more flooding. And higher sea levels will make cities, especially New York, substantially more vulnerable to storm surges.
Elizabeth Kolbert, in The New Yorker:
Are more events like Irene what you would expect in a warming world? Here the answer is a straightforward “yes."
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Jaded New Yorkers aside, Irene was serious business
With Hurricane Irene, now a tropical storm, going relatively easy on Gotham, some New Yorkers are feeling ripped off. The New York Times quotes several locals furiously white-whining about extra batteries, too much tuna fish, and the general "buzz kill" of not being subject to death and property damage.
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Critical List: Gore analogizes skeptics to racists; why Irene calmed down
According to Al Gore, climate skeptics are the new racists: they say crazy things in casual conversation that others let slide -- for now.
Here’s why Irene gave NYC a break.
NASA scientist James Hansen is planning to be arrested today at the Keystone XL protest. He told Climatewire that if President Obama approves the pipeline, he "was just greenwashing all along, like the other well-oiled coal-fired politicians."
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Climate change has made New Yorkers more vulnerable to Irene
A new map shows that climate change-related sea-level rise has boosted the number of people living in areas vulnerable to storm-surge flooding from Hurricane Irene.
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Waiting for Irene, and remembering Katrina
One of the shocking things about the flooding of New Orleans was how predictable it was. Now, New York City is staring down the barrel of a loaded gun named Irene, and failure to adequately prepare for it could lead to the kind of devastation seen after H
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Critical List: Hurricane Irene headed for East Coast; EPA totally creates jobs
East Coasters may not know what do in an earthquake, but a hurricane's coming, too. That, we know about.
The Obama administration is looking into "leasing" nuclear fuel from other countries, which would let American plants use the uranium, then return it for disposal once the fuel is spent. It’s like a bottle-return program, but with much higher stakes.
Chinese consumers want cars, not those namby pamby EVs.
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Critical List: Hurricane Adrian rises; Romney’s climate change problem
Here we go: first hurricane of the year. Wild elephants killed one person in a rampage through an Indian city. Poor guy, but also, poor elephants! They were probably only there because their habitat is shrinking. Obama's meeting with the heads of oil-rich African states. Romney believes in climate change, but not in doing anything […]
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The coming decline of accurate hurricane forecasts
NOAA put out this summer's hurricane forecast late last week, and it looks like it's going to be another doozy of a storm season. And that’s probably all we’re going to get in terms of forecasting. NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco took the opportunity to point out that, in the last round of budget cuts, Congress […]
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Disasters and Resilience: Why Clean Energy Can Save Us
Kaifukuryoku (回 復力) is the Japanese word for resilience. For many in Japan, resilience has become a a way of life, a goal that has driven one of the most advanced efforts at planning for disasters in the world. The word tsunami is also Japanese, originating in their long familiarity of living on the knife […]