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Hurricanes, Tornadoes, Figures that Lie and Liars that Figure

The incidence of destructive weather is higher in North America today, compared to a century ago; so is population, and so is the cost of property.

When the tornado alarm began to wail, the response from 160 men in my university dormitory was predictable. About 3/4 ignored it, either because they had learned the probability of being hit was tiny, or because their stereos were cranked up so loud they couldn’t hear the siren, or because they may have been high on a controlled substance.

Another 30 or so rushed to the basement laundry room shelter in near-panic.

The remaining dozen of us ran outside to see if we could find the funnel. I had never seen one before.

Farm kids go to college

Of the 125 in my 1971 high school graduating class, almost everyone who went to college chose Kansas State University: An ag school; home of the Wildcats; “We Are Purple!”

Exactly three of us chose the University of Kansas — KU. ”Rock Chalk, Jayhawk!”

Lawrence, Kansas, attracted lots of the upper-middle-class urban set from neighboring Kansas City. I would never view such citified classmates with disdain, but there were 30 of them clustered in the laundry room that day. The term “snowflake” had not yet been coined into a political pejorative.

You would think that growing up on a farm in Dorothy and Toto’s Kansas I would have been quite familiar with nature’s twisters, but I had never been up close to one. Being able to say, “Oh yeah… funnel clouds? We get ‘em all the time. Big deal…” would add immeasurable perceived credibility to my agrarian credentials, if only in my mind.

Thus, I joined the handful of other farm kids to run — unadvisedly — onto the front lawn. Curse the tree cover on a beautiful campus! Surrounded by forest, we couldn’t see a thing in the sky but clouds directly overhead. They were ominous, surely, but alas! no funnels.

I returned to my room and my studies, dejected. The siren ceased its mournful wail. All was philosophical and quiet again in the land of the learned.

Experts and purported experts

The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) assures us that human-caused climate change has made hurricanes, like the recent Helene and Milton, significantly more destructive in the last hundred years. Warmer climate, so goes the claim, creates catastrophic consequences:

  • First, warmer oceans means more evaporation. Heat transfers from ocean to atmosphere. As a storm moves across the ocean, it gathers more, and hotter, water vapor. This results in stronger wind, more rain and more flooding when it makes landfall.

  • Second, sea level rise makes the storm surge far more deadly and destructive. The rise in ocean levels, claims EDF, is due exclusively to human-caused global warming. Their web page does not offer evidence for this, but I’m sure it’s somewhere in the bowels of their cybersite.

  • Third, hurricanes are therefore more common because the climate is warmer. The frequency of hurricanes is up 3X in the last hundred years, and their severity is twice as destructive in the last 4 decades.

The EDF conclusion is, “we need science more than ever to help us prepare for — and act on — climate change.”

I think my thinning hair is on fire. Where do I send my money?

An alternative view

On the other hand, the website of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) provides a somewhat less provocative and more data-backed analysis. Which makes it quite a bit harder to read because it requires significant intellectual engagement. That seems to be problematic for our society in general.

(Ted Goia’s The Honest Broker substack features his article “The Decline of the Novel,” where 7 of Amazon’s top 10 sellers are picture or coloring books. This is related to the new trend among educators to no longer assign full-length books as reading assignments, favoring bite-sized clips instead. But I digress.)

Some conclusions (or rather, suggestions) that I cherry-picked from what I could decipher of the GFDL article point to a lack of confidence that storm activity will get worse:

  • First, tropical storms have increased in the last 50 years, but that may not be a long-term trend. “…studies do not imply that the increase in Atlantic tropical storm frequency since the 1970s will continue into the future…” This is in part due to increases in CO2 emissions: “[Studies] project future decreases in Atlantic tropical storm frequency in response to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations.” (Emphasis added.)

  • Second, hurricanes have tended to form more slowly, which results in heavier rainfall, but this is not necessarily attributable to humans. “…these observed changes have not yet been confidently linked to anthropogenic climate change.” (“Anthropogenic” appears to be GFDL’s favorite word, appearing 44 times in a 10,000-word article. That is more than once on every page. I think it means that, whatever the subject is, humans would be to blame.)

  • Third, hurricanes are not more prevalent now than 100 years ago. “There is no strong evidence of century-scale increasing trends in U.S. landfalling hurricanes or major hurricanes.” 

However, for the climate alarmist, the GFDL article does offer a ray of optimism (sarcasm): “Human activities may have already caused other changes in tropical cyclone activity… that are not yet clearly apparent… due to observational limitations.” (Emphasis added.)

So, maybe humans are actually to blame for bad weather. Hope springs eternal.

Who’s in charge here, anyway?

Years ago, Rush Limbaugh, in one of his entertaining and usually insightful diatribes, opined on the folly of the climate alarmists. “If the U.S. President,” he hypothesized, “were to order the Pentagon to come up with a plan to destroy the earth, they would not be able to do it. Mankind simply does not have the power to destroy this earth. That’s up to God Himself.”

(This is my recollection, paraphrasing what the Doctor of Democracy had proclaimed from the Golden EIB Microphone.)

There may be substantial truth in that assertion.

What saith the Scriptures?

“No one has authority over the wind to restrain the wind, nor authority over the day of death…” Ecclesiastes 8:8 NASB

“The earth is the LORD’S, and all it contains, the world, and those who live in it.” Psalm 24:1 NASB

And because it is God’s earth, and because He has given us some responsibility to care for it, we ought to do so thoughtfully and carefully. He is watching: “…it is required in stewards that one be found faithful.” (1 Corinthians 4:2 NKJV)

There is also human flourishing. It seems to me those who are hyper-focused on the damage man has done, and is doing, to our environment, find their solutions in (a) fewer humans, (b) reduced lifestyle, and/or (c ) higher taxes. One shudders to think of the much greater loss of life that Helene and Milton might have caused without modern weather forecasting and advanced communications technology.

There is indeed human suffering and death. In many cases it is simply unavoidable. “Man knoweth not his time,” saith the Preacher.

It might be best to remain in a state of readiness to meet one’s Maker, whenever that meeting comes up on the cosmic calendar.

And cancer, too

Finally, speaking of meeting one’s Maker, I visited the cancer unit at the hospital again this week — a regular visit — only to find my stash of paperback books completely diminished. Of the 5 I had left there two weeks ago, only one lonely copy remained. That one I gave away, of course, to a likely suspect whose mom was a patient suffering mightily through radiation treatments.

I have a few more copies of Alligator Wrestling in the Cancer Ward on hand, and I will deliver another handful to the hospital this week.

To get in on supplying a message of hope and encouragement to those struggling with life’s battle, please consider contributing copies that can be given out to cancer patients and their families. Complimentary copies continue to walk away. Our prayer is that the clear word of the Christian Gospel might resonate with those who read.

(How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? Romans 10:14)

Click the link just below to make your donation. When I visit patients, it is a calling card rarely refused.

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Thanks for following The Alligator Blog. To set yourself apart from those high school and college students who cannot seem to hack their way through an entertaining and life-changing novel, I would invite you to take up a challenge. Read something worth reading (or, listen to it, if you must): Great Expectations (Charles Dickens), Last of the Mohicans (James Fenimore Cooper), Space (James Michener), Cry the Beloved Country (Alan Paton), Darkness at Noon (Arthur Koestler).

And reject processed food! It will be the death of our country! One of these days, I will rant on that subject, too.

Have a good week! Share the episode!

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