Hurricane Dorian "Sharpie Gate" Alarmed Meteorologists And You Should Be Scared Too

The infamous Hurricane Dorian forecast map, doctored with a Sharpie, that
falsely indicated the storm threatened Alabama, when in fact
it did not.  

Remember Sharpiegate?

That was when President Donald Trump last year went to great lengths to insist that scary Hurricane Dorian had Alabama as a target.  Which of course was false, It seems like ancient history already, but it's still incredibly important, for reasons I will get to soon in this post.

Forecasters knew, at the time Trump said this, that Hurricane Dorian would miss Alabama and everything would be A-Ok there.

When it was pointed out that Hurricane Dorian would miss Alabamaa, Trump and his administration doubled down, saying forecasts indicated the storm would hit Alabama.   Trump even produced a map from the National Hurricane Center, crudely and falsley augmented with a Sharpie, showing that Dorian maybe would hit Alabama.

In the past month, news outlets, most notably the Washington Post and Buzzfeed News reported on a trove of documents, obtained under the  Freedom of Information Act, showing how alarmed and appalled scientiest like National Weather Service meteorologists were by Trump's Sharpie stunt.

According to Buzzfeed:

"President Donald Trump's fake hurricane map triggered panic, outrage and an internal revolt among top officials at the National Weather Service and NOAA. That's according to a trove of more than 1,000 emails realease Friday night...."

As Buzzfeed reports:

"Officials and scientists, both inside and outside the government, were horrified, the newly released emails show.

'For an agency founded upon and recognized for determining scientific truths, trusted by the public and responsible in law to put forward important science information, I find it unconscionable that any anonymous voice inside of NOAA would be found to castigate a dutiful, correct and loyal NWS Forecasters who spoke the truth,' Craig McLean, then the agency's assistant administrator, wrote in a Sept. 7 email to other top government officials."

Buzzfeed News continues: "Trump's fake map and the administration's insistence on defending it despite evidence to the contrary - dubbed #SharpieGate on Twitter - shows how the administration has prioritized politics over science even during a fast-moving, life-threatening situation."

It got to the point that NWS meteorologists feared retribution if they issued forecasts that were accurate, but contradicted Trump's opinion on things.

And there's the rub. The autocratic, oligarchical Trump administration will stop at nothing to erode public trust, mow over reality, all with the aim of preserving their ill-gotten power.

This is really important because the public counts on the National Weather Service to provide timely, life-saving information. When the NWS issues a hurricane, tornado or whatever bad weather warning, people understand that means business.

Meteorologists with the National Weather Service, and meteorologists in gemeral, take justifiable pride in warning the public when there is a weather emergency.   If the trust in the National Weather Service is broken,   lives will be lost. But I know Trump and his minions really don't give a crap about lives, when they're busy trying to create a Putinesque autocracy. And massage snowflake Trump's fragile ego.

I've seen firsthand how accurate, trusted National Weather Service products have saved the day

One that really comes to mind is the extreme floods with Tropical Storm Irene in 2011. That storm was roughly on par with the Vermont Great Flood of 1927.  In 1927, at least 84 Vermonters died in the flooding. In 2011's Irene, six Vermonters lost their lives.

Now, six fatalities is six too many. But the extremely accurate and timely warnings from the National Weather Service no doubt saved many lives.  A few days before the event, NWS/South Burlington basically started hitting the panic button. The risk is real, they said.

So, in the days leading up to Irene, tourists abandoned creekside camp sites, people prepared to leave for higher ground. People also knew to stock up on supplies in case roads were cut off, and new to sit tight through the storm if they were in a safe place.

I went off on this Irene Vermont tangent to help explain why Donald Trump's unprecedented self ego massaging Hurricane Dorian nonsense is so dangerous.

In Vermont during Irene, and in countless other weather emergencies, we relied on the National Weather Service to give us the information they needed to literally save their own lives.

Imagine if that trust disappeared. What if the National Weather Service wasn't regarded as trustworthy, prompting people to ignore their warnings? How many lives would be lost?

There are many reasons to be appalled by Trump's numerous shenanigans. This is one of the most dangerous.  The political appointees at the National Weather Service better understand they need to back off, and let the scientists do science.

No, Climate Activists Are Not Setting Australia On Fire

One of the massive Australian bush fires this week. Most are started
by lightning, some by arsonists. Few, if any, are started
by activists. Photo by Glen Morey/Reuters 

Twitter and other social media can be a swamp of obsessions and conspiracies.

One of the latest crackpot ideas I'm seeing is that climate activists are setting those fires in Australia or getting others to do that to, I guess, "prove" their climate change point or score grants from NGO's and governments. Or something like that.

I mentioned this problem of "climate activists setting fires" in a post a few days ago, but I want to dive deeper now.

I know I will never change the minds of anybody who firmly believes these conspiracies. However, I think it's my duty to do whatever little I can to counteract those beliefs, in an effort to stop the spread of really fake news.

Conspiracy theories like the arsonist climate activists is in some ways hard to fight because it's such a simple narrative. They're doing evil things to advance their agenda. Simple as that.

By contrast, the real truth is messy and complicated and sometimes ambiguous.  Which is why we do need to be patient as I and others try to set the record straight, at least to the best of our knowledge.

ARSONISTS AND ACTIVISTS

Most conspiracy theories begin with a grain of truth and then go off in some odd direction.  That's the case with Australia's fires.

There's no question at least some of the catastrophic fires were started by arsonists.

Back in November, as Australia's fires were getting going in earnest, the BBC reported that Australia's National Centre for Research in Bushfire and Arson said 13% of the bushfires are started deliberately and 37 percent are suspicious.

Australian research suggests that revenge is a primary motive for these arsons, says the BBC.  They start a fire with the intent of destroying property belonging to a former employer or ex-partner, for example.

The BBC says other arsonists are the "weird Pete down the road" who is odd, marginalized or angry at the world in general.

Now, it's most certainly possible a handful of these "weird Petes" are extremely concerned about the climate and start fires to prove some sort of point that only their own mind can understand. Remember, no matter which group you single out - climate activists, fossil fuel executives, men, women, straights, gays, religious, atheist, you name it - there's going to be a couple crackpots among all the rest of the normal people in these groups.

So yeah, somebody outspoken about climate change could conceivably have started a few of the fires. We just don't know. At least not yet.

However, there's no grand conspiracy among climate activists.

That's not going to stop the conspiracy theorists from pushing this idea anyway.

Some odd website called Granite Grok, which looks to be a right wing activist page (which is fine!)  out of New Hampshire said that four members of an climate NGO set fires in the Amazon last year.   They allegedly took photos of the fires they set and sold them to the World Wildlife Federation for a pile of cash.

Supposedly, Leonardo Di Caprio donated a lot of money toward this effort.

Turns out that's not true. As Voice of America reported on December 4:

"Police last month accused several volunteer firefighters of setting forest firest to get funding throuh local NGOs in Alter do Chao, a tow of fewer than 10,000 people on the bank of the Tapajos River in Para state (Brazil).  Federal prosecutors quickly said their investigation found no such evidence, the local pollice officer leading the investigation was removed from  the case, and a judge ordered that the firefighters be released from prison."

But still, conspiracy-friendly publications like the obscure Granite Grok keep repeating the false narrative to a willing fan base.  Right wing Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro is also keeping up this story, despite the complete lack of evidence.

Pressed by reporters, Bosonaro said he could not name the NGOs involved, that he had no written records of these allegations and the accusation against the NGOs was just his feeling.

Riiiiight.

Social media is rife with the climate activists setting fires on even flimsier basis.

One Twitter user, who I don't want to identify because I don't want to give them publicity, wrote. "Hundreds of arsonists have purposely lit bushfires in Australia to perpetuate a fake linkage between #ClimateChange. The UN's #ClimateChangeHoax elites are getting desperate now, because, they know that you know, CO2-driven climate change is a hoax! Wake up."

This Twitter user did not offer a shred of evidence backing up their accusation.

MEDIA ROLE

The conspiracy theorists will tell you that these shenanigans are really happening, but the mainstream media is covering it up because they are in bed with climate change activists.

I was in journalism for more than two decades before a media corporate cost cutting move resulted in my getting laid off and deciding to take my life in a new direction.

But I'm still very familiar with how a journalist's mind works and what any mainstream newspaper or television station would do if presented with proof climate change activists and organizations were deliberately setting fires for money and using it to promote their agenda.

First of all, there would be the impulse to report with the motivation of doing the right thing. On top of that, this would be a blockbuster scoop, one that would earn a newspaper or television station more viewers, more awards, and more income.

It's called capitalism, and these big (and small) media companies would love to win the fame and fortune to find a story like that, provided it's true.

And what of those alleged climate activist arsonists?  Climate activists are by definition big environmentalists. Do you really think they enjoy those photos of suffering, burned koala bears and kangaroos in Australia? Like the rest of us, those activists are horrified by those images.

Plus, a climate organization that sets fires would be exposed sooner or later. These activists know that. Even if one or a few of these groups are corrupt, that's strong motivation to keep their noses clean.

We all need to learn media literacy is thoroughly as possible. Learn what news organizations and media outlets are most professional and strive for accuracy as best as possible.

When activists on any side of any debate say something, think critically. If you follow their logic, does it make any sense? It's also worth it to check with trusted sources to verify whether these activists and organizations are really what they say they are, and not "sock puppets" for some industry or political group.

For gawd's sake, before you donate to either a climate change activist group or a climate change denial group, check to see if they are not crooks. There are sources to determine whether charitable donations for groups actually go for the intended purpose.

On social media, take things with a big grain of salt.  There are plenty of bots, sock puppets, political groups disguised as regular people and charlatans out there.  Learn who to trust and who not to.

All this will make you a smarter person. And maybe help solve some of world's problems instead of just yelling about them.

Australia Wildfires Really Are A Global Big Deal

Firefighters in a losing battle with the Australian bushfires.

I know that for the past couple months, I keep returning to the extreme wildfires in Australia, which incredibly, keep getting worse and worse.

In fact, there's a lot of media reports and weather forecasts that indicate Australia will have the worst part of the crisis yet by Saturday, as a combination of near record heat, continued drought and erratic winds will stir up the giant fires even more. 

Mass evacuations continue amid a rising death toll, widespread destruction, and a section of Australia burned that is at least as big as Belgium. Dramatic videos are at the bottom of this post.

The real reason I keep bringing the fires up is the obvious situation that this is a huge new story.  It also is, if you'll forgive my oxymoron, a microcosm of the global climate crisis writ large

Yes, yes, I know the bushfire crisis in Australia is not 100 percent caused by climate change, as some of the more strident activists would have it.

Wildfires have always happened in Australia,  pretty much every summer. This year, a  natural cycle that has brought drought to Australia, which has exacerbated the  fire situation.  On top of that, more and more people have moved to the so-called urban-wildland interface, which has made for an increasing number of potential human fire victims.

Apocalyptic scene of a mother taking her two sons
(under the blankets) out in a boat on a lake to
escape the Australian bushfires. Photo by
Allison Marion.

But there's no question that climate change has tipped the scale to make what would have been a terrible fire season absolutely catastrophic. It you make a climate a little drier, a little hotter and a little windier, in this case through climate change, you get something like the current Australian cataclysm.

We've seen this type of thing all over the world, although Australia is among the most devastating examples. I suspect the terrible wildfires in California in 2017 and 2018 were made much worse by climate change.

On the opposite extreme, epic floods, like the Hurricane Harvey inundation of Houston and much of the rest of East Texas back in 2017, likely would not have been as bad if climate change had been absent.

Australia's current summer of fire also highlights the current state of climate denial among the world's so-called leaders.

The escalation in "natural" disasters - ones that might have happened anyway but in recent years were made worse by climate change - coincides with a global rise in right wing populist "leaders."

For some reason, some, but not all of these right wingers, like Donald Trump in the United States, Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro, and yes, Australia's Scott Morrison, are strident climate deniers, or at least, they don't give a damn about it.

Trump, Bolsonaro and Morrison have all labeled climate change as "fake news."

Bolsonaro went as far to falsely accuse climate activists, including Leonardo DiCaprio, of setting or  having people set Amazon forest fires last year to boost their political agenda  While Morrison has certainly not copied Bolsonaro, his poltical supporters have.

I notice on Twitter, where fake news really thrives, a lot of climate deniers have retweeted patently false "news" that 200 climate activists started the Australian fires to advance their agenda.

Australians awaiting rescue from a seaside beach as bushfires
close in on them.

As always these awful deniers take something that has a grain of truth and then totally falsify what's really going on.  It's true that a lot of the Australian fires were set by humans, either accidentally or on purpose. 

These obviously weren't climate activists setting this blazes. It was stupid people doing some outdoor burning despite all advice against it, or pyromaniacs who get their jollies out of inflicting immense pain and suffering by starting wildfires.

Australia's Morrison acknowledges the existence of climate change, but says the current conflagration isn't caused by it.  And he supports and encourages the nation's coal industry, and resists calls to downsize that industry.

So, the fires continue. The death toll will mount, more destruction will happen, and then when the fires are out, or more likely before then, we'll move on to our next climate-related disaster.

Some videos:

Here a firetruck is overrun by the fire front in New South Wales. Firefighters in the video try desperately to get under blankets to protect themselves from the intense heat. Happy spoiler: They survived



A woman attached a GoPro to her forehead as she battled to save her home from the fires:



This is Mallacoota, as residents were forced to flee to the beach, a risk of having to dive into the ocean to escape the flames. The blood red sky and the darkness in the video were taken during the day, a testimony to how scary and intense this crisis was and is:



Here's some aerial views to give you just a little taste of how extensive these wildfires are:



To give you an idea of how serious this is, Australian media have begun calling this, accurately, a humanitarian crisis. That's the kind of phrase you hear when a Third World country is having a catastrophe, not an advanced nation like Australia. Here's the video that shows this:

We Need To Talk About Greta Thunberg

Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg was named
Time Magazine's Person Of The Year, and
some older white men are triggered again. 

Greta Thornberg, the now-famous 16-year-old climate activist, was named, to virtually nobody's surprise, as Time Magazine's person of the year. 

Thornberg dominated headlines for much of 2019. with her activism, which really brought to the fore a youth movement that is holding much older world leaders' feet to the fire on the subject of climate change.

All this seems to have a special talent for triggering white, rich men.

A lot of people expected Thunberg to be named Time's 2019 person, including me. Also predictably, the Time magazine announcement on Wednesday triggered more, um, triggering among mostly older, white guys.

Donald Trump Jr. the president's son tweeted, "Time leaves out the Hong Kong Protesters fighting for their lives and freedoms to push a teen being used as a marketing gimmick."

 Well, yes, there's lots to be admired about with the Hong Kong protesters, since they're pushing for democracy and all. The Hong Kong protesters seem to be more into democracy than Don Jr's father, but I will save that discussion for another day.

Seems Junior, the author a bad book called "Triggered," was himself triggered. Also predictable.

As usual, Junior was nothing compared to his father, the supposed president of the United States.

Today, our petulent president tweeted Thursday, "Greta must work on her Anger Management problem, then go to a good old-fashioned movie with a friend! Chill Greta Chill!"

Of course, Thunberg immediately clapped back at Trump by changing her Twitter profile to read, "A  teenager working on her anger management problem. Currently chilling and watching a good old-fashioned movie with a friend."

This is the second time Thunberg made President Trump look like the hapless Looney Tunes coyote being played by the road runner.

 During a September United Nations speech, Thunberg said, "People are suffering, people are dying, entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales and eternal economic growth."

Our beloved President Trump responded on Twitter (of course!) mockingly:

"She seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!"

 Thunberg immediately changed her Twitter bio to: "A very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future."

Yes, I know this is supposed to be a weather and climate blog, but I'm struck how a climate activist like Thunberg can make so  many mostly middled aged and old white men so nervous.

Quartz earlier this year noticed this, too. 

Says Quartz:

"In Australia, Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt has called Thunberg "freakishy influential...with many mental disorders.  Sky News commentator Chris Kenny Described her as a "hysterical teenager." who needs to be cared for."

She's also been called a "mentally ill Swedish child," unstable and a "millenarian weirdo" who needs a spanking."  

Greta Thunberg took Trump's mocking words toward her
Thursday by changing her Twitter bio page in a way that
threw Trump's words right back at him. 

All this over some teenager from Sweden who is outspoken about climate change, albeit one who managed to create a global platform for herself.

Conservatives have long railed against climate change activists. Just ask Michael Mann, an atmospheric science professor at Penn State and an outspoken advocate against climate change.

He's used to political and person attacks though he certainly doesn't like it

I suspect Thunberg is a threat to male conservatives because 1. She's a girl. 2. She won't shut up like "good girls" are supposed to do.

Instead, she claps back, as we saw with her Twitter war with Trump today.

Thunberg is also a sympathetic person, a youngster who has made herself into a poster child for how climate change will affect future generations.  It's a "think of the children!" argument, one that skeptics of climate change really don't like.

Conversely, Thunberg is lionized by climate change activists, because of her poster child status.  The following isn't meant as a diss: Every movement, every argument really needs a succinct advertising symbol to get their point across.

I also don't mean to belittle Thunberg at all for being a poster child or symbol.  She created this, and it takes a lot of brain power and talent to pull this off. She also doesn't let the incessant criticism get to her, which is extremely hard, let along a teenager to do.

She has inspired millions of youth to take up activism with the climate change cause. It's usually the youth, and often women, who lead the charge when change is needed. Thunberg understands this, and  has used this understanding to great effect.

As a side note, Thunberg has Asperger's, which maybe doesn't help her interact well with some people. However, she says helps her focus on the task at hand and helps her deflect criticism. Which is probably part of the reason she has accomplished so much at such a young age in the climate change battles.

Some on social media have taken to quoting Shakespeare regarding Thunberg: "Although she be but little, she is fierce."

Fierce is a great word to describe Thunberg. She'll tell it to your face, that's for sure.  At her UN speech back in September, she thundered to world leaders,  "We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth."

It's hard to say whether climate change is as existential a threat as Thunberg makes it out to be, but there's no question it's a biggie.  Over the next decades and centuries, it will cause countless deaths, cost us all fortune upon fortune, promote suffering and wreck the enviroment throughout much of the world if something isn't done.

Given that climate change is such a worldwide threat, and given that politicians and world leaders have largely given the crisis a pass so far, Thunberg has succeeded perhaps more than anyone else on Earth in getting us talking about the issue.

After all, you can't laugh at today's lame attempts by Trump to insult Thunberg without at least mentioning climate change. '

Maybe for that reason alone, Time made a wise choice by declaring Thunberg the 2019 Person of the Year.

Weather Channel To Interview Presidential Candidates On Climate

The Weather Channel will interview nine presidential candidates
on the subject of climate change. 

The Weather Channel is wading into the politics of climate change.

The popular weather network will interview nine presidential candidates on the topic of climate change, according to the Associated Press.

Rather than  have a town hall style thing or a debate, which just usually devolves into "I'm better! I'm better!" the Weather Channel will conduct individual interviews.

However, Donald Trump declined to be interview.  He doesn't believe climate change is anything to worry about. Probably a Chinese hoax or something, he says.

Arguably the Democratic front runner, Joe Biden, wasn't interviewed. His campaign said the problem was scheduling conflicts, reports the AP.

Candidates will be interviewed at specific sites that highlight climate change.  For instance, Sen. Bernie Sanders will discuss the issue in a California town wrecked by wildfires. Sen. Kamala Harris will talk at a flood-prone spot along the Mississippi River.

The AP says all three Republican challengers to Trump agreed to interviews. They are Joe Walsh, Bill  Weld and Mark Sanford.

Besides Sanders and Harris, other Democratic candidates to be interveiwed are Sen Cory Booker, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, former Rep. Beto O'Rourke and Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

The Weather Channel admits that some people find the network a refuge from politics and might be dismayed by this series. But the network says a lot of viewers are interested in the subject.

I agree. I hope these are thoughtful interviews and I hope the journalists questioning the candidates don't let the politicians slide by with platitudes. The candidates  need to back up their statements and  reveal, as thoroughly as possible, their plans.

Climate change is finally becoming a big concern to voters and not a moment to soon.  It will be a major issue in the 2020 campaign, so kudos to the Weather Channel for doing this.

John Oliver Slams NWA Privitization Efforts

Once again, on "Last Week Tonight," John Oliver took an obscure, dry subject and turned into entertainiment and real information.

He tackled weather on Sunday.  (See the video at the bottom of this post.) Specifically, his 16-minute segment covered the National Weather Service and Republican or conservative efforts to privatize it.

As I've mentioned in this blog previously, so called free market types think that the National Weather Service shouldn't be giving us potentially lifesaving forecasts for free. We should pay for it from private weather companies.  

I'm overdramatizing it, of course, but as Oliver points outs, the private weather companies depend on the National Weather Service for a large share of their output.  The NWS is the source of their raw data.

True, private weather companies like Accuweather and The Weather Channel do perform great public services, and frankly, I'm glad they're around. I applaud any and all efforts to educate the public about the weather, hazards, climate change and all kinds of important stuff.

These private weather companies are certainly crucial in that effort.

Oliver's segment focused on the Myers family, which runs Accuweather.  The Trump administration tapped Barry Myers to run the National Weather Service a couple years ago, but the Senate has been sitting on the nomination, so Myers hasn't started serving yet.

Myers has long lobbied Congress to limit free public distribution of information and data from the National Weather Service.

Do note that National Weather Service data, provided to the public free of charge, includes such life saving things as tornado, flash flood, hurricane and blizzard warnings.

As Oliver points out, turning everything over to private weather companies risks limiting those warnings to only those who can buy information from private weather companies. If you can't afford it, sorry, you don't find out the tornado is heading toward your house until it's too late.

This, of course, would be a worse-case scenario if the NWS were privatized, but it's worth considering

John Oliver makes all this easy and entertaining, so it's worth watching his segment. Here it is:

Wimpy, Disgusting NOAA Official Gaslights, Bows To King Trump, Uproar Ensues

In issuing this statement last night, NOAA's top brass decided to
soothe Donald Trump's fragile ego with this lie.

Sometimes I get political in this blog. This time, I'm going at it with both barrels, because I was so outraged last night I couldn't sleep.

Yes, this goes back to Donald Trump's obsession with Alabama and Hurricane Dorian.  Things with this got much worse late yesterday.

Despite all evidence to the contrary, an unnamed NOAA official bowed and curtsied to Cheeto Trump and said that Trump was right all along, that Hurricane Dorian did indeed threaten Alabama, despite what the expert National Weather Service meteorologists in Birmingham, Alabama, and pretty much everywhere else said.

Yeah, some unnamed NOAA Trump cultist threw Alabama scientists under the bus. Very blatantly and wrongly, too. As you might remember from a previous post in this here blog thingy,  Trump on Sunday listed Alabama as one of the states threatened by Dorian.  The NWS office in Birmingham, Alabama, issued a tweet 20 minutes later, assuring Alabamans that Dorian was not threatening them.

These meteorologists wisely tried to avoid panicking people with an incorrect forecast. You know, trying to protect the public. Like they're supposed to do.

But screw the public. Above all else, Trump the baby has to be appeased. He's been incredibly whiny all week that no, he was right, Alabama was threatened by Dorian. He just couldn't drop it.  He's too insecure to admit to being wrong.  Even though his original Alabama forecast was just a case of him misspeaking. Something every president since George Washington has done.

All Trump had to do is correct his statement, and move on. Everyone would have forgotten about it. But Trump, who seriously needs counseling, kept pushing all week. All. Friggin. Week.

Which led to last night's idiotic, gaslighting statement which read in part:  "The Birmingham National Weather Service's Sunday morning tweet spoke in absolute terms that were inconsistent with probabilities from the best forecast products available at the time."

This statement from NOAA is totally, 100 percent pants on fire a lie. The best forecasting and probabilities - actually basically all of them - indicated that Dorian would definitely miss Alabama.
I went over this in a post the other day. Go ahead and re-read it. 

And forecasters turned out to be correct. It turns out Dorian's effects on Alabama consisted of a few wispy cirrus clouds that briefly decorated the sky over the far eastern part of the state.

Besides, if the NWS meteorologists in Birmingham were wrong last Sunday, why didn't the head honchos at NOAA correct them then? When Dorian was supposedly threatening Alabama. When the public needed to be protected. The answer is everybody knows the Birmingham meteorologists were correct.

Here's what really gets me. Who is this damn NOAA official who's so afraid of a mentally challenged, oranged-skinned idiot who somehow found his way into the Oval Office to blatantly lie like that?  To absolutely insult and dismiss some of the nation's finest, most diligent scientists?

I find it telling that unlike so many press releases, this one from NOAA was unsigned. We don't know exactly who wrote it, but I'm sure our investigative journalists will find out.

Predictably, pun intended, the reaction to this outrage from the NOAA spokespeople from meterologists, other weather geeks and the general public is, well, outrage.

David Titley, a former NOAA chief operating officer tweeted: "Perhaps the darkest day ever for @noaa leadership. Don't know how they will ever look their workforce in the eye again. Moral cowardice."

Texas Meteorologist Matt Lanza said this, also not mincing words: "This is a complete and utter disgrace. The NWS in Birmingham's tweet was 100% spot on with the absolute terms it chose at that time, and anyone telling you otherwise is a liar. Trump is taking NWS, arguably the most effective government agency & trying to ruin it to save face."

You tell 'em, Matt!

James Spann, a revered longtime Alabama meteorologist who never delves into political issues, did this time, tweeting: "The tweet from NWS Birmingham was spot on and accurate. If they are coming after them, they might as well come after me. How in the world has it come to this?"

The Washington Post Capital Weather Gang nailed the danger this NOAA gaslighting puts Americans in:  

"The Weather Service's mission is to protect life and property. By releasing the statement admonishing the agency for an accurate forecast, NOAA may be seen as putting politics before facts. This could undermine forecasters' abillity to carry out their mission to the point where people may come to see its weather forecasts as political and untrustworthy."

National Weather Service employees are understandably demoralized. "The hard-working employees of the NWS had nothing to do with the utterly disgusting and disingenuous tweet sent ot by NOAA management tonight," said Dan Sobien, president of teh NWS Employees Union.

As noted, I don't know who wrote the bogus NOAA release last night. But the director of communications for NOAA is Julie Kay Roberts.

I hope journalists hound her with the following questions (and any additional good questions):

1. If Alabama was under threat as of last Sunday, why were residents of that state not warned then? Why did you wait until Friday night to contradict the meteorologists at the NWS office in Birmingham. Wasn't Friday too late?

2 NWS in Birmingham's Sunday statement that Alabama was not threatened by Hurricane Dorian turned out to be totally accurate. So what's the issue?

3. Since it turned out Alabama was not affected by Dorian, should we have been paying more attention to the Carolinas, which were affected?

4.Do you believe the meteorologists at NWS Birmingham or any other NWS office are incompetent? If so, what are you doing about it

5 Are you concerned the statement released last night would cause the public to lose confidence in NWS forecasts, and thus ignore potentially life-saving warnings?

We're waiting for answers.

Not Alabama: Reivigorated Dorian Targets Carolinas

Devastation in the Bahamas. Image via The Weather Channel

Seemingly indestructable Hurricane Dorian gathered some strength yesterday from the warm Gulf Stream waters east of Florida and is now slogging its way toward the Carolinas, where a lot of damage seems inevitable.  

Early this morning, the National Hurricane Center said Dorian was 75 miles south-southeast of Charleston, South Carolina with winds of 115 mph.  Charleston and surrounding areas were already getting gusty rainbands and flooding by dawn, and it will get worse.

Storm surges will range from four to eight feet in many areas, and water levels might rise well in advance of Dorian's strong winds. Many streets in Charleston were flooded by storm surges early this morning. Additionally, six to 12 inches of rain are in the forecast for coastal areas of the Carolinas.

Dorian was also spinning off several tornadoes this morning. There has already been several reports of confirmed tornadoes with damage in North and South Carolina.

Dorian is still expected to parallel the Carolina coast, and might come ashore at least briefly anywhere between South Carolina and North Carolina's Outer Banks.  It'll be close enough to cause hurricane force winds, especially east of Interstate 95.

Trump o Wednesday tried to defend his incorrect Sunday statement
that Dorian would hit Alabama, using an outdated National
Hurricane Center map altered with a Sharpie making it look
like it was headed toward Alabama.

This after all the extreme destruction in the Bahamas, where the death toll has risen to 20. Authorities expect to find more fatalities. Many injured people were airlifted to hospitals in Nassau in the Bahamas. (There is little hurricane damage in Nassau, as Dorian passed well north of that city.)

Meanwhile, we had our own unfortunate hurricane sideshow Wednesday in the White House.  President Trump falsely or mistakenly said on Sunday that Alabama would get hit by Hurricane Dorian.

After that little gaffe, he could have easily corrected himself and moved on. Anyone can make a mistake, and everybody would have forgotten about it.  

About 20 minutes after Trump said Sunday Alabama would be hit, the National Weather Service in Birmingham, Alabama tweeted out assurances to the public that the state was fine, no need to panic. Trump could have then said, "Whoops! We have updated information, Alabama is OK after all."

But oh, no, not Donald! He actually wasted time Wednesday showing a doctored National Hurricane Center map that had been very outdated by the time he made his Alabama comments on Sunday.

Here's a National Hurricane Center map issued Sunday morning,
hours before Trump's Alabama gaffe. He could have consulted
this map, which (accurately) predicted Dorian would
avoid Alabama and parallel the Florida coast instead.

The map was from three days earlier, showing a projected path for Dorian into the heart of Florida. Worse, Trump or more likely somebody on his staff took a Sharpie and appended a further path on the map into southeastern Alabama. Trump needs his own reality,  you understand.

Of course, you'd think a president would have the latest information from the National Hurricane Center. By Sunday, the NHC forecast had Dorian moving northward, paralleling the Florida coast (which is exactly what actually happened.)  Why wasn't he using Sunday's NHC information on Sunday?

By the way, it is technically illegal to falsify a National Weather Service forecast or statement.

Trump later cited so called "spaghetti plots" which are maps that show what each computer model thinks would be the path of the storm. (The lines go in many directions, so all the lines on the map look like a bowl of spaghetti, hence the name.)

The spaghetti plots that Trump said indicated possible Dorian paths into Alabama were issued four days before his statement, so they were outdated. If Trump is that interested in spaghetti plots (doubtful) why didn't he check them Sunday morning, when all of them had Dorian missing Alabama?

Instead of laughably trying to defend himself with big efforts to defend his lies, maybe Trump should focus on a hurricane response in the Carolinas, and to see what the Bahamas need from us.

Dorian Traumatizes Bahamas By Sitting There For Nearly Two Days

Astronaut Nick Hague took this photo of the eye of Hurricane Dorian
on Monday.

Hurricanes stall out and become stationary sometimes.

But I'm not aware of anything like Dorian, which has sat near one island in the Bahamas for something like 30 hours, all the while subjecting the people there to an incredible storm surge and devastating winds.

I really worry about the psychology of the survivors. Anytime someone experiences a category 4 or 5 hurricane, it's traumatic. But the worst of the storm is usually over within several hours and people an then go about the business of picking up the pieces. 

That's terrible, but not as bad as the Bahamas.

Storm surges, sometimes in excess of 20 feet, lingered all day. So did winds exceeding 100 mph. Videos emerged of people trapped in attics. Of storm surges coming into the second floor of a home. Of an airport that looked like a view of the open sea, hundreds of miles from shore.

At last report there were five confirmed deaths in the Bahamas, but I'm sure that toll will rise dramatically as people will finally be able to get in and assess things once Dorian finally starts moving away later today.

More videos at the bottom of this post.

I have to say the National Hurricane Center has been an amazingly steady hand in the extremely difficult, high-stakes forecasting for Hurricane Dorian. 

Had Dorian been way out over the Atlantic Ocean, 1,000 miles from land, it wouldn't make that much of a difference how long it stalled, or when it decided to turn north.

This situation is much more scary.  When it turns north will determine whether Florida gets a terrible disaster or just a glancing blow. Forecasts from the National Hurricane Center are critical for emergency managers to determine who evacuates and who doesn't.

Too few evacuations could mean deaths. Too many are an expensive inconvenience. So far, the NWS forecasts have been spot on.  Donald Trump's criticism notwithstanding.

Trump caused some confusion when he said Alabama was being targeted. That was an error, because when he said that, Alabama was under no threat and the National Weather Service in Birmingham felt compelled to put out a statement telling Alabamans to chill and not worry about Dorian.

Of course, media reports of this hiccup were blasted as fake news by Trump, and his supporters blasted the National Weather Service for, um, being accurate.

But all this is a sideshow. I'll go with what the scientists say

The meteorologists (scientists) at National Hurricane Center continues to believe Dorian will start a northwestward, then northerly course later today. They're still not expecting it to come ashore in Florida, but that doesn't mean the Sunshine State will avoid bad weather. Not at all.

But at least there's a good chance that the strongest hurricane force winds will remain offshore. Still, there will be gusty winds, damaging waves and storm surges and the risk of heavy rain.

Plus, we still don't know exactly how close Dorian will get to Georgia and the Carolinas and strong the storm will be at that point.

It does look like Dorian will miss New England, except maybe clip Cape Cod and the islands with rough seas and gusty winds.

An overview from the Washington Post:



Storm surge inside a house:

Storms Were A Bust; Burning Amazon, Tropical Storm Chantal

Water drops rest on one of my Country Club variety day lilies as
the evening sun somes out Wednesday in St. Albans, Vermont.
Areas south of me got much more rain than my gardens did.

Ahead of yesterday's weather, I asked in this blog thingy if it would be boomer or bust. It could have gone either way.

Well, it was a bust, except in far southern Vermont.  Good news if you don't like wind damage to trees and powerlines and such. Bad news if you wanted a lot of rain.

Most of Vermont did manage some weak thunderstorms and most places got some decent rains.

I missed out up here in St. Albans, Vermont with only 0.2 inches. Though we did squeeze out a brief shower this morning for a bit of additional wetting.

Enjoy it, because for most of us, it's not going to rain again for several days.

The storms did prove to be pretty intense further south, including the far two southern counties of Vermont. Tornado warnings went up west of Saratoga Springs, New York, near Lawrence, Massachusetts and near Hartford, Connecticut, but I'm not aware of any confirmed touchdowns.

Today, the actual cold front will come through, so we'll transition during the day from the humid stickiness of this morning to a dry, comfortable evening.

There will be that hint of autumn in the air, especially Friday and Saturday, with high temperatures just making it into the low 70s for many of us, with most of us getting into the 40s at night.

AMAZON BURNING

Smoke from Amazon fires can be seen from space, as you
can see from this satellite photo via The Weather Channel.

A much, much  more serious situation than strong thunderstorms is unfolding in the Amazon rain forest now.

As NPR reports, more than 74,000 fires erupted in the Amazon this year, with 36,000 or so starting within the past month. Big cities like Sao Paulo, Brazil, are getting pretty smoked out by these fires.

Subsistence farming and ranching is responsible for much of the Amazon deforestation and fires, and it hasn't helped that the relative new far right wing Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has railed against enviromental regulations because he thinks it hurts economic development. He has also cut funding and staff to environmental agencies, says NPR.

NPR and other news agencies also say Bolsonaro has baselessly accused NGO's of setting the Amazon fires as revenge against his administration for cutting funding to them. Which is rich. So the NGO's who are trying to save the Amazon are burning it down in a snit.

Bolsonaro sounds a lot like a United States politician whos name rhymes with Frump, but what do I know?

We've been fretting all summer over worrisome wildfires in the Arctic, Siberia and parts of northern Canada, but the Amazon fires could be worse.  The Amazon sucks a lot of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Destroy the forest, and release the CO2 into the atmosphere to boot, and you get more bad climate change news.

Sigh.

TROPICAL STORM CHANTAL

By now, the Atlantic Ocean should be beginning to bubble up with tropical systems, storms and hurricanes. It looked like this year we might have gotten through a rare August without an Atlantic tropical storm.  But then....

Chantal formed the other day at around 40 degrees north latitude, which is awfully far north for a tropical storm to form. It is only one of six tropical storms since at least 1950 to form that far north - basically southeast of Newfoundland, as the Category 6 blog notes. 

This weak tropical storm was able to get going because it was just on the northern edge of the warm Gulf Stream. (Tropical storms and hurricanes need warm water to survive.)

Chantal was always a fairly minimal tropical storm, with top winds in the 40 mph range. It's expected to die out over the central Atlantic any minute now.  However, there are signs that the tropical Atlantic is awakening, so in the coming weeks we're going to have to watch for more tropical storms and hurricanes - ones potentially more threatening than the isolated and lame Chantal.

Climate Change Indeed Dire. But Most Of Us Won't Die Of It Tomorrow

I'm glad kids are into activism to fight climate change, but let's
stop scaring the bejeezus out of them and let them to
their climate change work. 

Another rather dire climate change report came out this week, one in which it envisions a world in 2050 where society has broken down.

At least a billion people would be displaced.  Large parts of huge cities like Mumbai, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Manila and Shanghai would be abandoned. The weather would be too hot for human survival in major food growing places in the world.

The heat and a decline in insect populations would mean severe food shortages and skyrocketing prices worldwide. Wars and upheaval would occur as nations struggle to deal with refugees and shortages. The internal cohesion of behemoth nations like China and the United States would unravel.

All this just 31 years from now.

As CNN describes it, the report by the Australian-based National Center for Climate Restoration is not a peer-reviewed scientific study, but tries to model future scenarios based on current research.

I can see the plausibility of this worst case scenario like this Australian study envisions. I also want to be careful here. I'll preface by saying that yes, climate change is an existential threat.

Things are already bad. People are dying from climate change. It will keep getting worse as long as the world keeps heating up. We need to really mobilize on climate change, right now if not sooner. I'm not making excuses for inaction.

For some reason, though, I don't think things will go to hell quite as quickly as a lot of the dire predictions say they will. Humans are adaptable. It's just that we need to start the adaptation now. I also think we have the energy and gumption to do that. We just need to let that energy blossom.

I understand the fear factor in these reports. Fear is motivating. Humankind does need to be motivated. I really don't think the world will have completely gone to hell in a handbasket by 2050.

But by then, more people will have died, or will have become climate refugees, or lost their livelihood.  So we owe it to them to work on climate change, even if the numbers aren't as big as the scary forecasts predict.

I also worry that the most dire, and in my opinion exaggerated fearful positions would paralyze us. It's too big to handle, so I'll just have to watch the world end, would be the reaction. That would be counterproductive, to say the least.  

Since last summer, people have been harping on a UN report that says we have 12 years to drastically transform the world's energy, food and transport systems to avoid the worst consequences of climate change.

If we don't do this, the 1.5 degrees of warming will have been reached by between 2030 and 2052.  Again, that scenario is bad.  It will make current conditions look like a piece of cake.

The girls holding this sign are probably right about current
governments, but if we don't instill fear in these kids,
I think they will do a better job than the current generation. 

But this 12 years to act mantra seems to have become to some a message that if the world isn't entire transformed in 12 years, we all die in 12 years.

Again, this is making people too fearful, too despondent over the future.  It's almost as if the peddlers of the most dire warnings want people to give up.

Any effort to combat climate change will help. Minor efforts will only help just a tiny bit. Major efforts could really turn things around. Let's be real, though, and not panicked.

Panic leads to poor decision making. Even the UN report from last year addresses this. According to Scidev.net:

"'Any poorly designed policy is going to have unexpected consequences,' says Joyashree Roy, an economics research at Jadavpur University in India, who coordinated the report's summary for policymakers. 'For example, if we adopted bioenergy at massive scale, this may lead to competition for land, which in turn may cause food prices to spike.'"

These words of caution are lost in the popular culture. I have one small example.

Yesterday, I saw the new movie "Godzilla: King Of The Monsters."  It wasn't a very good movie, frankly. But one thing that struck me was how a character in the film said that humans had become a fever, an illness affecting Planet Earth. The monsters in the movie were working to re-establish a healthy equilibrium to the planet.

Yes, I know that's silly. Godzilla monsters are not the solution to climate change or anything else. But I'm struck by the total lack of optimism that human beings can turn things around. And that humans are entirely a problem. As we all know, some humans can be purely evil, some glorious. Most of us muddle through and do the best we can.

I know at first, second and third glance there's not much cause for optimism. Egocentric politicians worldwide, including, ahem, certain so-called leaders in the United States, are far more interested in establishing cults of personalities for themselves rather than work on solving the world's problems.

Too many so-called leaders are in it to enrich themselves, and not help humankind.

Still, I remember my late father describing his youthful journey through the Great Depression and World War II.   His is known as the "Greatest Generation."

The Depression and World War II were existential crises, just as climate change is. I sensed in my father's oral history a sense that society had decided at the time that we would get through this, that we would prevail.  There was misery, yes. But optimism that we could prevail.

Franklin D. Roosevelt's first inauguration, uttered in the depths of the Great Depression contained the famous line, "The only thing to fear is fear itself."

I wish Roosevelt was around now to rally us like that. In an odd sense, I wonder if people are perversely taking comfort in fear. When you're fearful, you want to wrap yourself in a cocoon, to avoid all the scary things out there. Like the Godzilla monster of climate change.

Now is the time to be bold. Now is the time for our leaders to stop with the fear mongering and start giving us real tasks for us to collectively hold on to.

I notice young people are striking and marching in an effort to prod the old men who run the world to do something with climate change. That's good. But since the old men peddle in scare tactics in an attempt to cow these young people, to control the population and line their own pockets, it's time for the young people to do more than march.

That will take bravery. Let's tell these kids to go ahead and take charge, and to overcome the despair the old guard is trying to instill in them. And yes, the scary climate change scenario press releases are in part the workings of the old guard. Everyone likes their own fifedoms. And they don't want to give up power. Scare tactics work. At least sometimes.

Climate change won't end the world in 12 or 30 years. We still have a chance for the youngsters to create the next "Greatest Generation." whose good effects will linger for dozens of future generations.

I think they're up to the task. The kid are alright.

TV Meteorologist Fired After On-Air Racial Slur: Fair Or Not?

Jeremy Kappell, a television meteorologist in Rochester, New York,
was fired after saying a racial slur on air. He says he flubbed his
words, but those who support his firing say he still shouldn't
have said it, and was not quick enough to apologize. 

Television meteorologists always have to contend with live TV. They risk embarrassing themselves with on air pratfalls, or screwing up their words, or the wrong image comes on. Anything can go wrong.

The meteorologist in this story said he just jumbled up his words on air in this story, but plenty of other people said it was more than that.

During an on-air weather forecast for WHEC in Rochester, New York, now former Chief Meteorologist Jeremy Kappell was showing a live shot of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Park. Kappell appeared to call it the "Martin Luther Coon King Jr. Park," according to the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle. 

That "coon" is obviously a racial slur.  After pressure from local race leaders, which led to pressure from Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren and City Counci Presidet Loretta Scott to have Kappell fired, the television station did so.

Chapel said the whole thing is a misunderstanding, that he didn't mean to say "coon," but he stumbled over his words and what sounded like "coon" came out.

"That was not a word I said, I promise you that. If you did feel that it hurt you in any way, I sincerely apologize," Kappell said in a Facebook post. "Martin Luther King Jr. came out way too fast," he said, so the whole name got screwed up, and the word "coon" was accidentally inserted during the flub, he explained.

He's also mad at the television station for firing him. "I am extremely disappointed at the decisions made by my television station, who I expected a certain level of support from and I did not receive at all," Kappell said.

The people who run WHEC are having none of that. "We believe strongly in holding our reporters and anchors to the highest standard," said WHEC General Manager Richard A. Reingold about the firing.

The station followed up with a statement saying, "An utterance such as this, with no immediate apology, regardless of intent, is unacceptable an inexcusable."

There is an audio of what Kappell said about 3:10 into this commentary video, in which you can clearly hear him say "coon."

"For tomorrow, Martin Luther Coon - King Jr day is going to see temperatures in the low 60s......" was what came out. From there in the broadcast,  Kappell continued on with his forecast.

City officials, like Mayor Warren (who is black) said in a statement: "It is beyond unacceptable that this occurred. There must be real consequences for the news personality involved and also for the management team that failed to immediately apologize and address the slur."

On the other hand, some prominent black television news and weather personalities are coming to Kappell's defense.  NBC Today Show host Craig Melvin said, "Anyone who's done this, as long as we've done it on air, you flub, you make mistakes. It would seem as if the guy made a genuine mistake."

Longtime NBC meteorologist Al Roker said in a tweet that he thinks Kappell "made an unfortunate flub and should be given the chance to apologize. Anyone who has done live TV and screwed up understands."

Inside Edition said Wednesday there are two competing Change.org petitions concerning Kappell. At broadcast time, an "I stand behend Jeremy Kappell" had received more than 33,000 signatures. A competing Change.org petition called "Do Not rehire Jeremy Kappell after his racist words" had just 12 signatures.

I know that's not a scientific poll, of course.

Hindsight is 20/20, but I wonder if Kappell would have saved his job if he acknowledged right after his on-air fumble that he screwed up and apologized right there.

What do you think?

Government Shutdown Is Stupid and Bad For Weather Forecasting And Research

The government shutdown is screwing around with the National
Weather Service, including areas of public outreach, science,
research and other critical areas. yes, the whole situation is stupid.

The government shutdown, as you know, is a real pain in the buttinski. It's affecting a lot of people, including the National Weather Service, and weather geeks like you and me.

We're still getting forecasts, alerts, warnings etc., but other programs are curtailed. Outreach, communications with the public, research, meetings, and other activities are on hold.

The boilerplate message during the shutdown from the National Weather Service is this:

"Due to the government shutdown, all public National Weather Service activities have been canceled or postponed until further notice. The National Weather Service will continue to provide critical forecast, watch and warning information to protect life and property throughout the shutdown."

I imagine moral is poor among NWS employees, but they're are dedicated to protecting the public. I've certainly seen no erosion in the accuracy or timeliness in the many various winter storm, flood, tornado, high wind and other warnings that have been issued since the shutdown began.

Still, starting salaries for the NWS are at $28,000, and highest salaries are not much more than $100,000 for some people in top managerial positions. These guys and gals are NOT rich, so I'm sure they're all worried about how they will pay their bills.

One very regrettable effect of the shutdown is that National Weather Service meteorologists were barred from attending the American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting this past weekend in Phoenix. This meant hundreds of scientists, including those from the National Weather Service, had to skip it. 

The Washington Post had this to say about the situation:

"'This meeting is where scientists hatch new ideas for lifesaving methods and warnings,'  said Dan Sobien, the president of the National Weather Service Employees Organization. 'Any delay in that research could someday cost someone their life, and that person could be you or me,' Sobie said. 

Not having NWS meteorologists there to collaborate 'will likely cost many more lives than the absence of any border wall, anywhere.'"

Sobien might be overblowing the situation, but he has a point: Scientists getting together a big meeting like the AMS annual do spark creativity and research, so the government shutdown probably helped stymie some needed weather and climate change research.

Not that the Trump administration  cares or takes seriously any scientific facts and research. Especially if it conflicts with their agenda. But that's another story. 

Another effect of the shutdown, at least for the AMS conference, is it has thrown scientific sessions and town hall meetings into chaos. (Bonus for Trump: He loves chaos, too!)  Because NWS personnel were in charge of convening many of these sessions, the were either canceled or they had to scramble to find substitutes

Weather and climate research is on hold, too, due to the shutdown:

Says Time magazine:

"Scientists and engineers working on projects unrelated to the day-to-day safeguarding of American lives and property have been sent home. Efforts within NOAA and NWS to improve weather modeling have been paused, as have continuing training programs for weather staff, both of which are essential to improving long-term weather prediction. For some forecasters, the standoff over the border wall is immaterial compared to the real progress that is being lost due to the shutdown."

National Weather Service meteorologists are working without pay.  The National Weather Service is, or was, one of the best places to work if you are a meteorologist. But these stupid shutdowns make working for the NWS less appealing, so the NWS risks losing the best and the brightest. 

Working for private meteorology companies is fine, but I worry about how research at these companies might be bent in the name of enhancing corporate profits. 

Here in Vermont, some data and services are  not available. Today, there was to have been a webinar out of the National Weather Service in South Burlington on understanding NWS radar images online. But that was canceled because of the shutdown. Sucks. The webinar would have been useful to me, and I'm sure quite a few other people.

The USGS monitors the Lake Champlain water level, and most of that data hasn't been available since the government shut down.. Their website frustratingly says:

"Due to a lapse in appropriations, the majority of USGS websites may not be up to date and may not reflect current conditions. Websites displaying real-time data, such as Earthquake and Water and information needed for public health and safety will be updated with limited support. Additionally, USGS will not be able to respond to inquiries until appropriations are enacted."
 
Worse, the government shutdown is making it hard or impossible to get good readings on the amount of water in the snow up in Vermont's mid and high elevations. I don't really know if someone is monitoring snow water equivalent, but the general public can't access it.

That data is important, especially as we move more and more into winter. You need to know how much water is in that snow to determine the potential for flooding from runoff during thaws.  This data helped the National Weather Service in South Burlington forecast flooding in Vermont just before Christmas, and just before the government shutdown. 

So yeah, the shutdown is lousy for weather geeks, too. I guess politics, um, trumps science, public knowledge, access to data, and government responsibility.

"Meet The Press" Abandons Climate Deniers; Actually Has Worthwhile Policy Discussion

"Meet the Press" host Chuck Todd devoted the entire show on
Sunday to the subject of climate change. He pointedly
omitted climate change deniers from the discussion. 

The Sunday morning talk shows usually annoy me. Just a bunch of political pundits trying out their spin of the week. Usually the remarks make headlines, sure, but the whole thing can be obnoxious.

Pardon the pun here, but Sunday's "Meet the Press," hosted by Chuck Todd, was a breath of fresh air. I'm calling it that because Todd devoted the hour-long program to climate change.

Click on this sentence for a full transcript of Sunday's show. 

Todd opened the show by saying this: "We're not going to debate climate change, the existence of it. The Earth is getting hotter. And human activity is a major cause, period. We're not going to give time to climate deniers. The science is settled, even if political opinion is not."

What followed was more of a policy debate on what to do about climate change, which is what the nation and the world as a whole should be focusing on now.

Panelists on the show included climate scientist Dr. Kate Marvel, who, among other people on the show, saying climate change is now, and we have to start dealing with it now.

Todd had previously been criticized for a "Meet the Press" episode in November in which he hosted Danielle Pletka of the conservative American Enterprise Institute. Todd didn't challenge Pletka when she said "We need to also recognize we had two of the coldest years, biggest drop in global temperatures that we have had since the 1980s, the biggest in the last 100 years. We don't talk about that."

That statement is completely false.  True, 2018 and 2017 are ending up marginally cooler than 2016, which was the world's hottest year on record. But 2018 and 2017 are fourth and third hottest on record.  

Obviously, I'm going to get pushback about this post from a host of climate deniers and skeptics regarding this post. Social media is packed with them. There's already been a lot of climate denier yelling and screaming on social media about Sunday's episode of "Meet the Press."

A lot of the pushback involves cherry picking past weather events as "evidence" the world is not warming. For example, I see a lot of people citing the extreme heat waves in the United States during the 1930s.

I  can cherry pick, too.  It's true that 1934 was one of the hottest years on record in the United States. It ranks sixth behing 2012, 2016, 2015, 2006 and 1998. (Note those are all recent years). For the Earth as a whole, though, 1934 averaged out a wee bit cooler than average, notes Skeptical Scientist. 

True, those Depression-era heat waves, particularly in the Great Plains, remain easily the most intense by far on record in those regions.  There have always been weather extremes like the Dust Bowl heat waves of the 1930s. The issue is that weather extremes are getting more common, and, generally speaking, more extreme.

I think I partially get where the climate denial crowd is coming from. Most of them are politically conservative, and, to oversimplify, don't like the government telling them what to do. Fair enough.

The concern in this crowd is that if we deal with climate change, that could mean more regulations, more government action, more impinging on their "freedoms."  I just wish these conservatives would get real and get in on the debate.

It would be useful to get ideas from conservatives on how to deal with climate change in a way that does not restrict personal freedoms, in a way that boosts the economy, creates jobs, stays in line with the free enterprise system.

We could really use their ideas.  I'm not being snarky at all. I really mean this.

I think Sunday's episode of "Meet the Press" was done in part because people are freaked out about the extreme weather events of 2018, such as the devastating California wildfires, Hurricanes Michael and Florence, and the big heat waves and flash floods that hit different parts of the nation and the world during the year that's just now ending

Few people would say these weather events were "caused" by climate change, but there's a compelling case to make that many (but not all) of them were probably made worse by global warming.

I"ve also heard climate change skeptics say the world might well be warming, but that's just a natural cycle, unrelated to human activity.

Marvel, on Meet the Press Sunday, said that the warming is largely man-made is perversely comforting. If it were a natural cycle, there would be pretty much nothing we could do to stop it. But since the warming is largely caused by fossil fuel emissions, we can cut back and switch to other alternatives and, over time, slow and stop climate change.

Nobody thinks such an effort would be quick or easy, but you have to start somewhere.