Scientists say a new epoch marked by human impact—the Anthropocene—began in 1950s

It takes a lot of blind faith to accept the current narrative on climate change. It’s why you see climate nutters run from actual evidence produced through application of the scientific method. They want their faith, not evidence.

If we humans are keeping the planet from cooling then we should all be very thankful. A cooler planet would be devastating to humanity. Can you imagine a little ice age type event with 8 billion humans? Yikes. That’s what is scary, not AGW.

 

Exactly. It didn’t matter that they were making a huge mistake in 1922. It matters a great deal now.

Unfortunately climate nutters can’t admit such mistakes. This means there will never be correct effective solutions because correct effective solutions require correct identification of causes of the problem.

But of course governments don’t want solutions. The “problems” give them fuel to consolidate and increase power over the governed.

All you and I can do is point out how the populace is being used.

Isn’t it interesting to observe the inverse correlation between PF member’s fear of climate change and their actual knowledge of climate science in particular and the natural world in general?

 

With me, it is really not based on any real knowledge of the climate at all, but this past historical records of climates of the past. Specifically the last 2.5 million years or so when the current series of ice ages began.

And they have all followed rather predictable patterns. Including multiple warm spells and cool spells both during and after them. It can be seen in the ice cores, in the mud on the ocean floor. In the fossils we can find on the land as well as in the oceans. And the rock strata that have been laid down as well as the strata that has been altered or removed by the ice sheets.

I really could not care less about the climate today, or yesterday, or 20 years ago or 100 years ago. In the live of a planet over 4.5 billion years old, that is not even the blink of an eye. It is like asking somebody what they remember about the 27 leap seconds they have experienced since 1972.

Yep, anybody over 51 years old has had an extra 27 seconds given to them, 27 seconds out of over 1,608,000,000,000 seconds they would have lived by then. So on a scale like the lifespan of the planet talking even a decade of things being warmer or cooler is insignificant. And there are so damned many variables that it should boggle the mind of any that think they can solve it.

I wonder how many old enough to remember the Gulf War remember the screams that if Iraq blew up even 300 oil wells it would cause a "nuclear winter" that would devastate the planet. Well, at least one of the scientists that had their name in that famous 1990 paper actually retracted his claims, when over 730 oil wells were blown up and set on fire. And many of them burned for almost a year. And the actual impact on the global climate was insignificant.

And over the decades I have actually looked at their predictions, then shook my head. We have had major volcanic events, nothing on the climate seems to reflect that. We had what was largely a global shutdown for over a year recently, once again almost no impact. Add it all up, and to me it seems far more like they are wetting their index finger, seeing what it is like at that moment, then basing everything off of that. And changing the figures to meet the theory, the exact opposite of what scientists should do.

 

Well you know more than 99.9% of climate change activists. And you can THINK and REASON. That’s more important than specific knowledge.

 

Given that I live in a semi rural area the impact was more pronounced. And what we saw was global, the animals left the surrounding countryside and started roaming the empty streets. If every human being dropped dead tomorrow life on this planet would continue.

The planet will survive until the Sun engulfs it in about 5 or 6 billion years when life will be vaporized from the surface along with the water and atmosphere.

What we are doing is altering our environment to the point where it will no longer be habitable for our own existence. Will homo sapiens disappear as a species, will it evolve, will it remain as it is, hard to predict with any assurance. The pollution we produce is toxic to ourselves but we have not reached a point where we can learn that if we do not address it then it becomes an existential threat to our own existence. There will be collateral damage because we can already measure the damage we have done to date and extrapolate when it will reach critical mass.

The stress on the global food supply chain is also showing signs of failure. Staples like chicken and eggs are becoming scarcer and violent storms are destroying crops and washing away top soil. This is not a sustainable ecological survival model.

Will the planet care if we don't survive? Will it matter? When looking at the evolution timeline from the first cell to ourselves it is clear that there is a process of building upon what previously existed. Ocean life is what survived snowball earth but if that were to happen again there would be seeds that would survive and be the "starter kit" for plant life on the surface when amphibious sea creatures would evolve into land dwellers again. The vegetation provides a low risk food source. Given the head start will life evolve for there to be another species that will be examining the remnants of our space debris in several hundred million years hence?

No matter what happens we will be a part of it, not as we are currently, but the elements within us will be recycled as part of the process.

 

But that is all on a local level.

I often laugh, as most people tend to live in large cities and have absolutely no idea what it is like to live in a more rural area. In not only North Carolina but California I often lived in such rural areas that seeing deer in my yard was not uncommon. And that was not even during COVID, that was just how far away from a big city I was so such things were common.

Are we impacting large areas of say California? Yes, unquestionably. The underground water tables are being pumped lower and lower every year, and many species of trees are now having problems because their roots were never evolved to go deeper. But that is still just local, there is zero impact on the actual climate from any of that, or in areas outside of that local area. Excessive ground water pumping in California is not going to affect the ground water tables in Idaho, or Wyoming, or Oregon.

And almost all of those "changes" are only on the surface. Moving a river to flow from the American River to the San Francisco Bay and moving it to Los Angeles is not really going to affect anything. Moving a huge amount of water from the Colorado River to Los Angeles is really not going to affect anything.

As for food, often that is because of simple inflation. But other things can impact that also. Like California, which has put in some damned strict laws in regards to both milk and eggs which has pretty much made it illegal to bring either of those products in from out of state. There the prices for both are much higher, but not from supply and demand but because they have eliminated the ability to bring such products into the state so the supply is entirely local and not enough so prices have risen.

Not unlike the issue with gas in that state. California is one of the highest gas production states in the nation, yet also has the most expensive gas. Because they have put in mandates that gas sold in California must have certain additives and other things that no other state has. So the refiners have to literally produce two different "flavors" of gas. One for export to other states, the other just for California. And if they do not produce enough for use inside the state, then there is a shortage and the price rises. Because it is illegal to sell that gas made for outside the state of California inside the state.

But those storms are nothing new, there have always been the occasional violent storm almost everywhere every few decades. I remember in 1982 shortly after I moved to California when Hurricane Olivia smashed through. For those that think Hurricane Hilary a month or so back was unique, it is not. Olivia was just as bad, with high winds and massive flooding all over the region. And it was not even the only one hitting, because at the same time another tropical storm remnant was plowing into Washington.

I remember not being able to go to school because there was a two foot deep river running down one of the streets I had to cross to get to school. I simply looked at that, turned around, and went home. It was the same storm that caused most of the piers in Southern California to be destroyed, some not being rebuilt for years because of that one storm.



California and that region has for centuries been on a drought-flood cycle. Typically five to eight years of little rain, then massive storms that drop massive amounts of water. And it was likely that way for thousands of years, but our written records only stretch back to the time of the Spanish. But that is why so many of their cities (Sacramento, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco) ended up being built in some of the worst locations. Because what seemed like perfect land during those dry years were all prone to horrible flooding when those one year in a decade storms raged through and flooded out almost everything.

But do not think for example the flooding in California this year is either unique, or due to "global warming". It happens all the time, roughly every decade. And some have been worse than others.



Those who have never lived around Sacramento likely have no idea how extensive the dike network there is. It is massive, and stretches from north of the city all the way to the San Francisco Bay. And like Seattle, the entire city was eventually lifted 20 feet (6 meters) and filled in so most of it would reside above the river level.



That is not "global warming" or "Climate Change", I am old enough to remember that happening multiple times. And in looking through past records I have seen proof of it happening over and over and over again, stretching back centuries.

 

I too can recall severe storms in my own youth that are similar to the ones we encounter nowadays.

What is different to then and now is the FREQUENCY of those severe storms. Local flooding because of poorly maintained storm water drains is an annual problem. However having a 2nd severe storm less than two months after the first meant that the impact was considerably more devastating. Without the time to restore the backfill on the supports for the roads and bridges meant that the 2nd storm was able to undermine the foundations resulting in road collapses and bridges being closed for being unsafe.

In the space of 2 years one scenic route has been closed to public access 3 times and it is unlikely to be restored before the next tourist season begins. The 2nd storm arrived just before a local festival that draws thousands of people to the area, it had to be cancelled entirely.

It will take a great deal of money and time to restore this infrastructure. The problem as I see it is will they just patch it up and we will the same problem the next time we are hit by double storms?

While in NJ I was called out following hurricanes making landfall. By far the worst was Sandy which blacked out the entire state's electrical grid and people were working from home because of impassible roads when corporations were closed.

 

Thankfully, costs of storm damage as percentage of GDP has fallen drastically globally. As has loss of human life. There is much to be thankful for. I can see how closure of a scenic route can tear one up emotionally when economic cost and cost in human life is falling rapidly.

 

They really are no more frequent.

Remember, it was about a decade ago when they were predicting the most damaging hurricane season was about to hit, and we then went 3 years without a hurricane touching down at all in the US and far fewer than normal in the Atlantic.

And I remember 2005, when we got hit not only by Katrina, but also Dennis and Cindy. And in New England, hurricanes are unusual but in no way unprecedented. In both 1778 and 1782 the region was hit by two major hurricanes each year. That is 4 hurricanes hitting in 4 years. In fact, looking through the records there are multiple years that had two hurricanes hit New England in a single year. In 1950 they got hit three times in one year.

But what you are describing is nothing unusual, they get hit less often than Florida and the Gulf Coast, but they have been hit often enough historically that there is absolutely nothing exceptional in the frequency they are getting hit at today.

As for drains being clogged, that is a local maintenance and engineering issue and really has nothing to do with the storm at all. And a lot of infrastructure has issues like that nationwide due to lack of maintenance or not upgrading them as demands increased. In fact, one of the few that does not is actually the LA area. Because after multiple deadly floods that killed thousands they built a massive drainage system that was so over-engineered that it still works fine to this day. And also makes a really cool setting for movies and TV shows.





If the second one seems familiar to older members, that is where the Six Million Dollar Man fought the Venus Probe, and countless other movies and TV shows. And the control point where Snake started and ended in Escape from New York, it was the launch complex in Gattica, and a slew of other things. But after the Flood of 1938 they built a massive flood control system more than able to handle the runoff from those kinds of events. Most of the time the amount of water running down it is not much more than the creek in my backyard now. But during bad storms it can easily flood to over half way up that area. And the same above is the south side of the Sepulveda Flood Control Dam. To the north, every few years that will fill up to 10 feet or more with water being held until it can be released as the river level lowers.

But it does fill on average once or twice a decade. And we were on the edge of the evacuation area in 1971 when the Van Norman dam almost collapsed. If that had happened, the water would have raged through much of the San Fernando Valley until it hit that dam.

But most times bridges collapse due to poor design or maintenance. If they are not maintaining it properly, doing inspections, and ensuring that the foundations and pilings are secure then it would be expected that flooding would cause them to collapse. And I will be honest here, I lived in Connecticut for a while. And most of the engineering I saw out there scared the crap out of me. Bridges and overpasses that I would refuse to stop under because I simply did not feel safe being under them. I guess here coming from California shows, as we rarely have such issues during flooding as all of our bridges are built to much higher standards due to the earthquake risk. They really are overengineered to an almost insane degree, and when compared to those on the East Coast it is like looking at a tank, while NE has small sports cars.

I never got used to how "cheap and flimsy" the bridges looked out there, and was glad to return to the West Coast where they felt safer.

 

I have to agree with regarding the difference in infrastructure but to be fair on the East coast it was never "planned" ahead because no one had a clue what a nightmare traffic would become. On the West they had plenty of open land to work with which made it easier to build highways. You saw what happened on the I95 just north of Philly, that they had it repaired in 2 weeks says a lot but nothing has been done to address the fragility of every other bridge on that corridor from Maine to Florida. NJ is also famous for the tire fire under Route 80 which exposed another weakness.

 

Oh, it was no different in the West either.

Here is one of the most well known freeways in the LA area, in 1962.



And it was just like that and unchanged until the 1980s



Pretty much the exact same thing, they just ripped up the grass median in the center and added to high occupancy "diamond lanes".

And here is the same pass, in the modern era.



And to be honest, in most ways the traffic does "flow" better in the east, as when they were built most of those areas already had high populations and high population densities so they understood better how things would flow. On the west, when most were built they literally went almost "nowhere". Long distance travel and trucking routes, not where a million people a day or more would commute. Most of the systems in LA are so far over capacity it is not even funny as the people spread out more and more in search of affordable housing.

When I was growing up in that area 5 decades ago, the San Fernando Valley was the "Family Suburbs", not many moved farther than that. But by the early 1970s, that was becoming the Simi Valley. Then by the mid 1980s, the Santa Clarita Valley was where they were all going. And by the 1990s, it had become the Antelope Valley out in the Mojave Desert. Today, it has actually moved all the way to Kern County and near Edwards Air Force Base. And the infrastructure built on the West Coast never predicted that kind of insane growth. However, they did have earthquakes so tried to engineer for that. Which is why you have far less elevated roadways than on the East. Almost all are built almost exclusively at grade level, other than overpasses and interchanges. Even bridge approaches are at grade whenever possible.

But I have seen the population in LA double in my lifetime, and everything is straining to try and handle the overload of people. I'm really starting to think that Charlton Heston needs to come in with the "scoop" and solve the problem.