A half century of disastrous wildfires and flawed land-management policies bring disaster home to Angelenos.Seems only yesterday, doesn’t it, the massive Camp fire (2018) killed 80 Californians and laid waste to some 150,000 acres of northern California. Closer to LA, the 2017 Woolsey fire burned over much of the same areas back in 2017, another big wildfire once again devastating Malibu and Pacific Palisades this week. The earlier fires should have served warning for elected officials … [Read more...]
The Unfolding 2024 Atlantic Hurricane Season
Before the 2024 hurricane season began June 1, the National Hurricane Center had announced its prediction of an active hurricane season.Strong El Ninos are accompanied by a persistent jet stream coursing eastward from the Pacific Ocean over the northern Gulf of Mexico. The jet continues out over the Atlantic Ocean and disrupts clusters of thunder storms before they can organize into a stable circulation pattern defining a tropical storm system. During the El Nino cycle a nascent tropical storm … [Read more...]
Legal Hunting Reduces Deer Collisions and Should Be Encouraged
An average American may not realize that the chances of bagging a buck on the highway while driving are much greater than when hunting with a rifle in hand. Deer hunting seasons are now open in a majority of our states. But it is many the unfortunate driver who has already slain a deer with a vehicle. Image: Creative Commons under UnsplashA Cornell University study explored the growing problem of individual or small groups of deer venturing onto our highways. Collisions are usually … [Read more...]
The Media Loves an Apocolypse
If you can’t convince all the people with straightforward advocacy, then conduct a poll and use the results to convince anyone who will listen. Lately, this tactic would seem to be the AP's preferred mode of operation. Abe Lincoln said it somewhat differently.Image: Creative Commons under UnsplashThis time AP thought better of running out its climate guru Seth Borentein to unveil another of his well-worn stories regarding who's more at fault for weather-related disasters—mankind or … [Read more...]
China Schemes, Biden Dreams
China’s long shadow looms across the global scene, extending far beyond its military presence stationed close by the Taiwan Strait. Barely 100 miles separate Taiwan from the Chinese mainland. It is a little island inhabited by an industrious population, home to computer chip makers and a U.S. ally that is still being governed as the Republic of China by the democratically elected successors to the Chinese Nationalists. Image: Creative Commons under UnsplashThe Nationalists relocated to … [Read more...]
Are We About to Lose 40% of our Species?
The preservationist group NatureServe just released a report concluding that some 40% of animal species in the US will go extinct in the near future due to climate change. Their predictions may turn out not to be quite accurate since other factors at work determine which species survive and which go the way of the dodo bird and ivory-billed woodpecker. The analysis the report depends on has been severely criticized for lack of rigor by Canadian and Finnish … [Read more...]
Munich Re Cries Foul, Florida Policy Holders Quake
According to Reuters, Munich Re is complaining bitterly, along with several other pre-imminent international re-insurers about its massive weather-related losses during the calendar years 2021 and 2022. The role of re-insurers in the insurance market is simply to back up the many standard casualty insurance companies that may wish to deal off part of the potential liability from catastrophic losses (mega-claims) filed by their policyholders, who may sustain economic damage from one of a … [Read more...]
California’s Deluge: Unprecedented? No. Missed Opportunity? Yes.
According to Dictionary.com, the term “atmospheric river” originated with scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology back in the 1990s. More recently, the term gained currency with climate-change advocates as a way of boosting their dodgy narrative. Lately, the mainstream media picked it up and applied it lavishly in accounts of the recent heavy rains in California.Image: Creative Commons under UnsplashThe rain-making phenomenon, common around the globe, occurs at various … [Read more...]
Thoughtlessness Leads to Tragedy for Man and Beast
The adage “familiarity breeds contempt” applies to behavior around wild animals, whether in herds of bison or elk, or a roving bear, cougar, or gator.Wild animals larger than an average-sized dog should be given a safe, wide berth, as a matter of course. They are not part of a petting zoo.As the 2022 tourist season draws to its close, several untoward incidents, some involving reckless behavior around large animals, have been reported that, unfortunately for the humans involved, proved dangerous … [Read more...]
Should Climate Change Take the Blame for Hurricane Ian’s Carving a New Inlet in Florida?
The mainstream media continue efforts to convince a credulous public that Hurricane Ian was something unique that resulted from the combined overall effects of human-induced climate change.The implied assertion is patently untrue.Weather.com posts a clip showing devastation along one of Florida’s barrier islands near the point of Ian’s landfall. No beach structure remains intact in the photo and there is a small inlet that has been cut into the strand, formerly a continuous … [Read more...]
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