Global warming and the future of urban living
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, CTV, and Global have devoted massive TV coverage to the Alberta floods.
I can't say I've seen all of it—that would be virtually impossible—but in the midst of all the footage of downtown Calgary, I've heard nothing said on any of these television newscasts about climate change.
Global warming was also underplayed when Superstorm Sandy pulverized the western hemisphere from Haiti to Canada last fall. It turned the financial capital of the United States, New York's Wall Street, into a ghost town.
It didn't get a lot of attention when a tornado devastated a suburb of Oklahoma City.
Similarly, the flooding in Alberta turned the energy capital of Canada, downtown Calgary, into an uninhabitable mess for a few days. Alberta premier Alison Redford has rightly called it the worst storm in the province's history. But the words climate change have not crossed her lips in front of the media over the past week.
For years, scientists have been predicting that climate change would lead to freakish storms—otherwise known as "extreme weather events".
If we continue seeing more of these catastraphic horrors in major metropolises like New York and Calgary, there's going to be a high economic price.
Three of four Superstorm Sandys or devastating Bow River floods will force people to reconsider living or working on the water's edge in cities like New York and Calgary.
Today, it seems far-fetched to think of having to evacuate major cities on a permanent basis because of climate change.
It might not seem like such a bizarre idea in a couple of decades.
Comments
10 Comments
NoLeftNutter
Jun 24, 2013 at 5:20pm
Gaaak, if the author chose to look at historical info she would find that there is no increase in the world-wide amount of "extreme weather". There is an increasing desperation amongst the warmistas to convince an increasingly sceptical public that a climate catastrophe is just a degree away.
On Bill Good's show today he remarked that during his recent European vacation river levels were higher than they have been in 500 years. I've yet to hear anyone explain how CO2 caused the event that happened 500 years ago, yet way too many readers are convinced that it can only have been caused by a trace gas, go figure.
Paul Bouman
Jun 24, 2013 at 7:25pm
Your second paragraph makes no sense but the relationship between climate change and extreme weather is very simple. Elevated atmospheric temperatures equate to increased atmoshperic energy which results in more powerful weather events. It's very straightforward...
MarkFornataro
Jun 24, 2013 at 7:26pm
Once the massive costs of these floods and other man-made climate change related disasters are tallied and passed on to taxpayers- including taxpayers not directly in the path of the disaster- expect some sparks to fly. This is where- as Charlie comments elsewhere- politicians such as Harper could face problems getting re-elected. Because taxpayers who eventually learn that climate change is caused by the likes of petroleum soaked Alberta- while resenting that the petroleum industry and its supporters are only to happy to see all taxpayers foot the bill for these disasters- will want to take their votes elsewhere,to smarter politicians, those who will save them money by doing something about climate change. Call it the insurance industry syndrome; insurance companies can't afford to play dumb about climate change or they will be out of business. They know it's for real and affects they're bottom line:
http://www.calgarysun.com/2013/06/21/southern-alberta-flooding-will-rack...
Jiff
Jun 24, 2013 at 8:10pm
Bill Good: the trusted name in climate science and looking at European rivers.
Anti-Con
Jun 24, 2013 at 10:49pm
Considering how much the federal Cons have increasingly spent on "communications" (aka spin, propaganda, trolling websites, etc) while actually becoming more and more secretive, I'm not surprised the Cons stake out any columnist who tries to educate the Canadian population about global warming and its fossil fuel connection, considering how much Harper has invested in his Big Oil buddies. I'm not surprised they tend to be the first to comment - usually ad hominem attacks and logical fallacy arguments meant to mislead unsuspecting Canadians. There aren't enough thumbs down to adequately deal with such. As global warming affects all of us (except maybe the wealthiest), I don't consider their trolling just reprehensible, but criminal fraud, and hopefully one day the law will agree (if we can get rid of our autocratic government first).
Pat Crowe
Jun 25, 2013 at 10:49am
The model of once in a lifetime or once in a hundred years weather events don't apply anymore.
The goal posts have moved. Extreme weather events with economic catastrophes are now to be expected.
Purchase real estate with that aspect in mind.
Mark Potochnik
Jun 25, 2013 at 12:54pm
We have our weekly once in a hundred year storm. "Worst storm since last week"
Socialism, eh?
Jun 26, 2013 at 9:21am
Alberta's socialist premier Alison Redford is going to soak all provincial taxpayers, including future ones, to the tune of billions in order to restore flood-effected communities.
Whatever happen to Ayn Rand-styled Alberta politics, i.e. small government, stubborn individualism, anti-deficit & debt, etc?
Oh right, the reality that we're all in this thing called society together.
May they never forget this nor be allowed to.
NoLeftNut...
Jun 26, 2013 at 7:42pm
...or RightNut for that matter. Just nuts! And so so BORING. Oh, and really STUPID.
Emily
Jun 30, 2013 at 10:49pm
As a student of Earth Science I have the privilege to be taught by PhD hydro geologists, sedimentologists and petroleum geologists. They work hard to teach us what they have learned through their years of education and experience.
One thing to remember about climate change is that the climate has been changing since formation of our planet approximately 4.5 billion years ago.
If you do not believe the science which says that greenhouse gases DO absorb infrared radiation which does increases the amount of energy in our atmosphere. It still doesn't matter climate change happens regardless.
Since the Pleistocene(11,000 years ago) we have been coming out of an ice age. To my knowledge, there were no major industrial cities back then promoting a climate change from a ice-house to a greenhouse.
Climate change is a natural process, are we accelerating it?
It is difficult to precisely predict what the consequence of climate change will be. The International panel on Climate Change has taken on this task to provide reasonable predictions for changes in climate into the future through the use of climate models combined with emission scenarios for specific regions based on norms of past climate trends.
For the region of southern Alberta, it is predicted that there WILL be an increases in precipitation in the spring months, as well as an increase in temperature. From this you can expect:
1)there to be an increase in snow melt due to higher temperatures, which means more water.
2)More precipitation which means more water.
More water will cause soils and sediments to be more saturated with water, meaning water which is falling from the sky and melting from of snow is not being soaked into the ground as efficiently . This will cause rain and snow melt to run off from the mountains and hills into the rivers at a quicker rate which will cause higher levels of river discharge and flooding.
This is one issue of many pertaining to climate change. And I am talking climate change in general not just anthropogenic caused climate change.
We have reached the day and age where it is now essential to consider the implications of climate change towards engineering design and city planning.
Rivers flood. That's why the architecture of rivers contain flood plain. This is geological evidence of paleo flood events. Calgary was built on a flood plain.