Author Archives: PercyBarbosa

Hurricane Harvey will bring some of the heaviest downpours anyone has ever seen

Hurricane Harvey made landfall late Friday night on the Texas coast as one of the most intense hurricanes in U.S. history, spawning as many as 50 tornado warnings in the Houston area alone.

But its worst feature is still to come: several days of what could be some of the most intense rainfall this nation has ever recorded, a clear signal of climate change.

After a destructive storm surge washed away homes, and winds as strong as 132 mph blew away roofs and left hundreds of thousands without power, Harvey is expected to stall, drastically worsening the risk of catastrophic inland flooding from relentless rains.

As of Saturday morning, nearly 15 inches had already been recorded as bands of heavy thunderstorms streamed onshore from the warm Gulf of Mexico, with at least five more days of heavy rain on the way.

Through mid-week, Harvey is expected to move at an exceedingly slow 1 mph, pushing its rainfall forecast off the charts. For the first time in its history, the National Weather Service is forecasting seven-day rainfall totals as high as 40 inches in isolated pockets — equal to what’s normally a year’s worth or rain for coastal Texas.

Some high-resolution models predict even more. (For reference, the estimated 1-in-100-year seven-day rainfall total for the region is just 18 inches.) Meteorologist Ryan Maue estimated that 20 trillion gallons of water will fall on Texas over the next seven days, which is equal to about one-sixth of Lake Erie.

Virtually every river and stream between San Antonio and Houston is expected to experience record or near-record flooding over the next few days. Forecasters racked their brains to recall a scenario so dire anywhere in the world; a 2015 typhoon hitting the Philippines produced a similar amount of rain, but over a much smaller area.

Although the exact impact of global warming on the strength and frequency of hurricanes remains undetermined, there’s a clear climate connection when it comes to higher rainfall. All thunderstorms, including hurricanes, can produce more rain in a warmer atmosphere, which boosts the rate of evaporation and the water-holding capacity of clouds.

Heavy downpours have increased by 167 percent in Houston since the 1950s, and flooding there has been heightened by unfettered development and urban expansion. Some of the worst flooding in the region’s history has come from slow-moving storms like Harvey.

We don’t yet know if climate change will bring more slow-moving, rapidly intensifying tropical storms like Harvey. But flooding is what kills most people in hurricanes, and that will only get worse.

Taken from: 

Hurricane Harvey will bring some of the heaviest downpours anyone has ever seen

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, ONA, Pines, ProPublica, solar, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Hurricane Harvey will bring some of the heaviest downpours anyone has ever seen

Chart of the Day: The Federal Deficit Is In Pretty Good Shape These Days

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

You already know this—don’t you?—but just to refresh your memories, here’s the latest projection of the federal deficit from the Congressional Budget Office. As you can see, for the entire next decade CBO figures that the deficit will be running at a very manageable 3 percent of GDP, right in line with historical averages. Be sure to show this to all your friends who are consumed with deficit hysteria. There’s really not much reason to panic about this.

Now, CBO’s forecast doesn’t take into account future booms or busts in the economy, since they can’t predict those. And as the chart makes crystal clear, that’s what causes big changes in the deficit. It’s the economy, stupid, not runaway spending. When times are good, the deficit shrinks. When times are bad, it gets worse. If you really want to avoid big deficits in the future, stop obsessing about cutting spending on the poor, and instead spend some time obsessing about economic policies that will help grow the economy.

Continue reading: 

Chart of the Day: The Federal Deficit Is In Pretty Good Shape These Days

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Chart of the Day: The Federal Deficit Is In Pretty Good Shape These Days

Heathens are still greener than Christians

Cleanliness is next to godlessness?

Heathens are still greener than Christians

Shutterstock

Pope Francis issued a rousing lamentation about the “sin” of environmental destruction over the weekend. But is that message getting through to his Catholic flock? And are other Christians stepping up to protect God’s green earth?

Pacific Standard reminds us that “much has been written about the ‘greening’ of Christianity” during the past two decades. Indeed, much as been written about it right here at Grist. But writer Tom Jacobs points to new research published in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion that found “no clear evidence of a greening of Christianity among rank-and-file Christians in the general public between 1993 and 2010.” From the Pacific Standard article:

A research team led by Michigan State University sociologist John Clements reports attitudes about the environment among American Christians have remained fundamentally unchanged between 1993, the year the “green Christianity” movement began, and 2010.

“The patterns of our results are quite similar to those from earlier decades, which documented that self-identified Christians identified with lower levels of environmental concern than did non-Christians and nonreligious individuals,” the researchers write ...

Expanding on a study they released last year, the researchers compared data from the 1993 and 2010 editions of the General Social Survey, an ongoing, large-scale measure of societal trends. They found that, at both points in time, self-identified Christians were less likely to engage in environmentally friendly behaviors than other Americans.

Godspeed to all the green Christian activists out there. You’ve got a lot of converting to do.


Source
The ‘Greening’ of Christianity Is Not Actually Happening, Pacific Standard

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Climate & Energy

Link to original:  

Heathens are still greener than Christians

Posted in ALPHA, Anchor, FF, GE, ONA, organic, Uncategorized, Wiley | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Heathens are still greener than Christians