Cyclones, Hurricanes and Droughts - Oh My!

Is it my imagination or does there appear to be more weather catastrophes of late? Maybe I just never really paid attention to global weather and that all these cyclones, hurricanes, tsunamis, droughts, floods, etc. are as common as they every have been. But it is getting very scary when a cyclone (2008 Myanmar cyclone) leaves 22,000 dead and 41,000 missing and a tsunami (2004 South Asian Tsunami) leaves more than 225,000 people dead in eleven countries. Particularly haunting were the images from Hurricane Katrina since this was close to home so to speak, not in some far off third world country.


Last year, Great Britain was hit by the worst flooding in decades. A heat wave blanketed south-eastern Europe and killed hundreds of people, and out-of-control wildfires burned Greece. In the southwest U.S., California, Nevada, Colorado, and Utah were hit with sweltering heat. The central part of the U.S. - especially Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas - was awash in water. And this year in the U.S. we have seen mass destruction from unprecedented numbers of tornadoes and flooding. What the hell is going on?

There is not a clear consensus on what is causing this and as a matter of fact there is much controversy. There have been many that have weighed in on this. For example, Stephen Tindale, executive director of Greenpeace UK said in the Independent newspaper in Britain, “No one can ignore the relentless increase in extreme weather events and so-called natural disasters, which in reality are no more natural than a plastic Christmas tree." Speaking to the same newspaper, Friends of the Earth Director Tony Juniper pressed the argument home: "Here again are yet more events in the real world that are consistent with climate change predictions."

The Environmental Defense Fund says that studies show that global warming will increase the frequency or intensity of many kinds of extreme weather. While we can't attribute a particular heat wave or hurricane to global warming, the trends are clear: Global warming loads the atmospheric dice to roll "heat wave" or "intense storm" more often.

Meanwhile, Daniel Sarewitz, a professor of science and society and director of the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes at ASU and Roger Pielke Jr., of University of Colorado, Boulder, say that tying the tsunami and other natural disasters to human induced climatic change “is both scientifically and morally unsupportable.” Other geologists said that groups of giant earthquakes hit Sumatra every 230 years or so. The last quakes there were in 1797 and 1833 and the 2004 South Asian earthquake was thought by to be more or less on schedule.

While everyone debates this, these natural disasters go on and on and thousands and thousands of people die and lose their homes and livelihoods. All I know something is up and the weather is getting stranger and harsher and nothing is being done about it. I don’t need any scientific evidence to tell me summers are getting warmer and the seasons are blending into each other. I’m experiencing that first hand.

I encourage everyone to become involved in this issue. Can We Solve It? You decide. But do it now or it may be too late if you wait. Soylent Green here we come!