U.S. ties 2008 record for billion-dollar weather disasters – Bulk of hurricane season still ahead
By Jane Sutton; Editing by Cynthia Osterman
17 August 2011 MIAMI (Reuters) – The United States has already tied its yearly record for billion-dollar weather disasters and the cumulative tab from floods, tornadoes and heat waves has hit $35 billion, the National Weather Service said on Wednesday. And it’s only August, with the bulk of the hurricane season still ahead. “I don’t think it takes a wizard to predict 2011 is likely to go down as one of the more extreme years for weather in history,” National Weather Service Director Jack Hayes told journalists on a conference call. The agency’s parent organization, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or NOAA, launched a campaign on Wednesday to better prepare Americans for violent weather. There have so far been nine separate disasters this year that caused an economic loss of $1 billion or more in the United States, tying the record set in 2008, NOAA said. The most recent was the summer flooding along the Missouri and Souris rivers in the upper Midwest. The “new reality” is that both the frequency and the cost of extreme weather are rising, making the nation more economically vulnerable and putting more lives and livelihoods at risk, Hayes said. The number of U.S. natural disasters has tripled in the last 20 years and 2010 was a record breaker with about 250, according to property and casualty reinsurer Munich Reinsurance America. Average thunderstorm losses have increased five-fold since 1980. For the first half of 2011 there have been $20 billion in thunderstorm losses, up from the previous three-year average of $10 billion, NOAA said. The rising costs are due partly to demographics, Hayes said. The population is rising and there are more people and more buildings in environmentally vulnerable areas, such as coastal regions. Asked if global warming was to blame for the rising frequency of wild weather, Hayes said that was “a research question” and that it would be difficult to link any one severe season to overall climate change. […]
U.S. sees growing losses from extreme weather
Pray.
🙂 "Pray".
To what? The invisible Sky God? Hope that He intervenes in our stupidity and arrogance?
That does seem to make things worse (ie,. Texas).
Rather then putting ourselves through another useless exercise that is certain to accomplish nothing whatsoever, how about we should start doing something effective about climate change?
We could start by physically removing the people who are funding climate denial from positions of power and influence.
We could (fund) science and research better.
We could ensure that mitigation efforts are also adequately funded.
We could pass laws that would prohibit more human emissions.
We could shut down our worst polluters and greenhouse gas emitters.
We could redesign our cities, our suburbs and our lifestyles to work in harmony with natural limits instead of against them.
We could restrict human populations through education and laws.
We could outlaw corporate lobbyist (or just hang them).
We could boycott major polluters (or blow them up).
We could stay home, kill our televisions and plant a garden and trees.
There are a zillion things we could actually do, all which would have some effect, cumulatively having an even greater effect.
But we should not pray anymore since this is well-known to be useless and ineffectual, accomplishing nothing but a weak attempt to sooth guilty conscience and hide blame.
The only thing we can do that even stands a "prayer", is to get off of our lazy, superstitious asses and actually do something effectual about what is now happening.
Anything else is an absolute waste of time, time which we no longer have.