Hurricane Milton Historic, Not Unprecedented
It is wrong to blame human activity and ‘climate change’ for strength of hurricane
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, IL (October 8, 2024) – Hurricane Milton is on track Wednesday to be one of the biggest storms to ever hit the Tampa Bay, Florida area, and is one of the few Category 5 hurricanes on record in the satellite era (1966-onwards). It may join Hurricane Michael in 2018 as the only Category 5 hurricanes to form in the Gulf of Mexico in October and make landfall at that strength.
While the history of Gulf hurricanes growing this strong and making a direct hit on Tampa Bay shows this is a rare occurrence, it is not unprecedented and “climate change” driven by human emissions of carbon dioxide is not to blame.
Storms of similar size and strength struck the Tampa Bay area in 1848 and 1921. And the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has tracked at least 146 hurricanes that have formed in the Gulf since 1851.
Historical data show there has been little to no long-term trend since 1900 in Florida major hurricane activity through Hurricane Helene, which hit the panhandle last month.
People born in the 1950s or later did not experience the record-high hurricane activity of the 1940s, and the early 1900s activity was likely under-reported as virtually no one lived in Florida in 1900.
https://heartland.org/opinion/press-release-hurricane-milton-historic-not-unprecedented/
**************************************************The Guardian Tries, and Fails, To Link Firefly Endangerment To Climate Change
A recent post by The Guardian titled “Firefly species may blink out as US seeks to list it as endangered for first time,” claims that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is considering listing a firefly species native to the North Eastern United States as endangered because of climate change. This is false, or at least the focus on the climate element at the start of the article is false. The threats listed are not climate effects, and the U.S. government proposal even acknowledges that human development poses the true threat.
The article describes a firefly species called the Bethany Beach firefly, which is found in coastal parts of Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, claiming that it is “facing increasing dangers to its natural habitat because of climate change-related events” including sea level rise over time and “lowering groundwater aquifers.”
It is important to note first that the article admits the sea level rise issue is projected to impact firefly habitat “by the end of the century” – about 76 years from now. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), the firefly is only found in freshwater marshes near coastal dune environments. The FWS release is more specific, and says between 76-95 percent of those habitats may be lost to high-tide flooding by 2100… according to climate models.
This might be true, but it is not clear that those habitats will be lost forever because of rising sea levels, and not just pushed back inland gradually over the course of those intervening decades. Dune environments are by default extremely volatile, changing with every tide, and left to nature will grow and recede. The freshwater marshes (swales) associated with them likewise change by the season.
Climate Realism has on several occasions pointed out that sea level rise is hardly the accelerating danger that the media make it out to be, here, here, and here, for examples on the East Coast specifically.
Amazingly, the Guardian article itself quickly mentions a contributing factor to relative sea level rise on the East coast that is also damaging the freshwater environments the firefly needs, and that is “lowering groundwater aquifers.” These aquifers on the East Coast are not lowering due to climate change, they are lowering due to increasing populations necessitating greater water withdrawals. This causes the land to sink, increasing the relative rate of sea level rise in some areas. Delaware, for example, is seeing about 1.7 millimeters of land subsidence each year, which adds up to about 7 inches over 100 years.
The real crux of the issue comes later in the article, where the Guardian finally mentions the abrupt changes to the firefly’s habitat that actually impact its survival on the short term, and that is “growing threats from coastal development and light pollution, the latter of which can interfere with the insects’ ability to use their bioluminescent lights to communicate with each other.” The Guardian points out that the Bethany Beach firefly only flashes in full darkness, which is becoming less available due to light pollution from housing development on the coast.
Looking at human population trends for the three states that have Bethany Beach fireflies; Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, all three have seen exploding population growth over the past few decades.
“Within the past several years,” the Guardian reports, “Bethany Beach fireflies have been displaced and populations wiped out because of development on coastal wetlands.”
This is obviously not due to climate change, and it comes across as cynical and misleading when the article, and the FWS report, try to make that connection as though climate change is the driver behind declining firefly numbers. The FWS went so far as to try to claim intensifying severe storms were also projected to cause more firefly habitat destruction, but the data simply does not support that hypothesis.
The Guardian and the FWS would be better served telling the truth upfront instead of allowing it to be buried at the bottom of an article, which fewer readers will end up seeing. It’s deceptive and doesn’t help the Bethany Beach firefly they allegedly care about.
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It’s Time for Climate Candor
The proposed global energy transition to “all-electric everything” and Net Zero by 2050 is not unfolding as we were told it would. Rather, it is unraveling as many of us thought it would. Rising energy costs, declining energy reliability, fuel selection mandates, reduced freedom of movement, dietary changes and other real and perceived issues have spawned resistance to the transition. The lack of candor regarding the transition is palpable. It is clearly time for climate candor.
The UNFCCC and the IPCC need to be candid about the continued existence and influence of natural climate variation and include research into the causes of natural variation in their programs.
The IPCC Working Group authors need to be fair in including all relevant research in their evaluations, not just research which supports the consensus narrative.
The consensed climate science community needs to cease its efforts to prevent publication of climate research which does not comport with the consensus narrative.
The IPCC Working Group authors need to insist that the IPCC Summary for Policymakers is a real summary of the conclusions of the Working Groups and not a gross exaggeration describing the current situation as a “crisis” or “existential threat” of an emergency.
The UN Secretariat needs to tone down the “earth on fire” and “boiling oceans” rhetoric intended to scare the population into precipitous action.
NOAA and NASA need to justify why and explain how they repeatedly “adjust” historic temperature anomalies.
The renewable generation developers need to tone down the “cheapest electricity” rhetoric, acknowledge that their generation systems are redundant capacity and will remain so until hey are combined with sufficient storage capacity to render their generating capacity dispatchable.
Electric utilities need to clearly communicate their need for dispatchable capacity sufficient to meet current and projected future peak demand.
Electric utilities and their ISOs and RTOs need to clearly communicate to both government and regulatory agencies that existing coal and natural gas generation cannot be shuttered until sufficient alternative dispatchable generation has been commissioned to replace their generating capacity and accommodate growth in expected peak demand.
Electric utilities and their ISOs and RTOs need to clearly communicate that additional natural gas generation capacity might be necessary to accommodate peak demand growth if dispatchable renewable generation capacity is not connected to the grid rapidly enough to meet growing demand resulting from “all-electric everything”
Federal and state agencies responsible for the energy transition need to acknowledge that the Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resources (DEFRs) they are relying upon to supplement renewable generation do not exist and are therefore not currently available for deployment. These agencies also need to acknowledge that the future availability of these DEFRs is uncertain.
Federal and state agencies also need to acknowledge that DEFRs, if and when they become available, render intermittent renewable generation redundant capacity to the extent that they are employed as backup capacity to renewable generation.
Federal and state agencies need to acknowledge that the promise of reduced energy costs resulting from the energy transition is a fraudulent fantasy.
While the above actions need to occur in the interest of candor, it seems highly unlikely that they will occur before there is a major grid outage followed by a self-serving “blame game”.
A repetition of the “Six Phases of a Project” appears inevitable.
https://edreid.substack.com/p/its-time-for-climate-candor
*****************************************Australia: Put Greens last: peak Jewish groups demand major parties agree to preferences swap
Two of the nation’s peak Jewish groups have taken the unprecedented step of seeking to influence the make-up of the future parliament by writing to Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton, urging the major parties to preference each other above the Greens at the next election.
The letter sent on Tuesday morning by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry and the Zionist Federation of Australia also seeks a public commitment from both the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader that they will not allow the Greens to play any role in a potential minority government or make concessions to them in return for Greens support on confidence and supply.
Separate versions of the letter have also been sent to the five recontesting teal MPs – Allegra Spender, Kate Chaney, Monique Ryan, Sophie Scamps and Zoe Daniel – urging them not to form a negotiating bloc with the Greens in the event of a hung parliament.
Signed by ZFA president Jeremy Leibler and ECAJ president Daniel Aghion, the letter to the major party leaders says there is a precedent for such a step given Labor and Liberals “committed to preference One Nation last on multiple occasions, including by former prime minister Scott Morrison at the 2019 federal election.”
The letter sparked a ferocious response from Greens leader Adam Bandt who warned Labor that preferencing the Liberals above the minor party would devastate the ALP primary vote and trigger an exodus in support.
“Voters will desert them,” Mr Bandt told The Australian.
The letter urges Mr Albanese and Mr Dutton to work together to “counteract the shameful and cynical behaviour of the Greens” over the past 12 months, accusing the minor party of seeking “political gains by exploiting intercommunity tensions that have been heightened by overseas conflicts, without regard for the social consequences”.
Mr Leibler and Mr Aghion warn in the letter that the Greens have undermined social cohesion and “threaten the foundations of our freedoms and democracy”.
“The Greens have knowingly spread outright falsehoods, including the monstrous lie that this government is complicit in genocide,” the letter says. “In doing so, the Greens have joined forces with and incited political and religious extremists who have at times engaged in violence.”
“We are writing to each of you to make a public commitment that you will not permit the Greens to play any role in a potential minority government,” the letter says. “We are also writing to seek a public commitment from each of your parties to preference each other above the Greens.”
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All my main blogs below:
http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
https://westpsychol.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH -- new site)
https://john-ray.blogspot.com/ (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC -- revived)
https://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)
http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)
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Jim Hansen and his twin
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