[ExI] ian came home

[Max More]

The increased damage is indeed caused by there being more people in affected areas rather than because storms are worse. As you noted, they are not. One factor to keep in mind: More people are in harm's way because the government uses our tax dollars to subsidize flood insurance.
________________________________
From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> on behalf of spike jones via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Thursday, September 29, 2022 6:48 AM
To: 'ExI chat list' <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Cc: spike at rainier66.com <spike at rainier66.com>
Subject: [ExI] ian came home






The eye of Ian is right over top where I cheerfully squandered my tragically misspent youth.  My mother I already know is OK because of the elevation of her house and the trees were just trimmed last summer.  By brother is at elevation 8 ft, so he might have some flooding.  We have heard from John Clark: he is OK, just a lotta rain.  I have a lotta friends in that area but no word from them yet because the power is out.  It is now a tropical storm, so the damage is unlikely to be severe: a lot of rain, which is actually a good thing if it doesn't wreck stuff.



Notice something interesting: politicians are using this storm as proof that global warming is causing increasing amounts of damage from storms.  But just the opposite is true.  2022 is still a lower than average storm year.  If there is increasing dollar damage, it isn't because of more storms and more severe storms, it is because of where the storms land, which is not a function of global warming.  Note the chart, just updated minutes ago:





[cid:image002.jpg at 01D8D3CF.8D57EB70]



http://tropical.atmos.colostate.edu/Realtime/index.php?loc=northatlantic



I was cheering for 2022 to catch up to at least average, but it probably will not.  Reasoning: Ian is now contributing almost nothing to this metric, the ACE, accumulated cyclone energy, because it is down to a tropical storm after crossing over land.  Hermine fizzled after one day, aaaand… there is nothing out there currently.  One very minor tropical elation, but it is very plausible we could finish the season with an ACE in the paltry 70s.



However… 2022 will be remembered as a horrifying storm year anyway, because Ian crossed a lot of highly populated areas, and more importantly, it made landfall near Naples, where there is a lot of money and a lot of yachts and a lot of private planes and a lot of dignity to be offended by proles driving around in their internal combustion jalopies.



By objective measures however… 2022 is still likely to be a mild storm year, so it fails to support the popular theories and popular proposed solutions.  The problem isn’t the storms, it is our building expensive stuff with insufficient storm protection, with the one thing that never fails to amaze me: why in the heeeellllll do see photos of wrecked airplanes?  AIRPLANES!  Those things are fast!  Hurricanes are slow!  You just hafta get your ass down to the local airport, load up your dog and your favorite children, get on outta Dodge, and noooo problem, yet every time, eeeevery damn time, we see photos of wrecked planes.



[cid:image004.jpg at 01D8D3CF.8D57EB70]  Then it occurred to me: a prole can buy insurance against weather damage to her aircraft.  Now a storm becomes an opportunity to get out from under this particular “asset.”



Conclusion: we are fooling ourselves.  Conclusion 2: not all of us are fooled.



spike
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