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When You Have A Hammer, Everything Looks Like A Nail

March 11, 2011, 12:17 pm

Via Tom Nelson, here is an article today at Grist about today's Tsunami's called "This is what climate change looks like"

So far, today's tsunami has mainly affected Japan -- there are reports of up to 300 dead in the coastal city of Sendai -- but future tsunamis could strike the U.S. and virtually any other coastal area of the world with equal or greater force, say scientists. In a little-heeded warning issued at a 2009 conference on the subject, experts outlined a range of mechanisms by which climate change could already be causing more earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic activity.

"When the ice is lost, the earth's crust bounces back up again and that triggers earthquakes, which trigger submarine landslides, which cause tsunamis," Bill McGuire, professor at University College London, told Reuters.

When I look at events today, I think not of "climate change" but of "development".  Compare the casualties from today in Japan and Hawaii and the US west coast to those in, say, Indonesia.  Development saves lives through better construction, better communication, better early warning systems, and better transportation networks.   If one really wants to think about today's events in the context of climate change, think about the alarmists' proposed tradeoff between small and uncertain changes in the climate vs. almost certain reduction in development through climate-change programs.

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Category: Climate

10 Comments

  1. Don:

    Ok, let's look at KNOWN chages to geology caused by the loss of ice: Scandinavian fjords and the Great Lakes region for southern Canada. Both of those landmasses are rising (in the case of Sweden, if I remember correctly, about 4 inches per decade). Where are the Great Lakes and Fjord quakes? Do you remember the Great Heron Tsunami?

    Climate alarmists should stick the science they already DON'T understand, rather than involving other sciences they have no clue about.

    March 11, 2011, 12:22 pm

  2. Sam L.:

    And considering development--the New Madrid fault quake of 1811 affected the Mississippi valley (in Missouri). St. Louis would be a real mess if that happened tomorrow.

    March 11, 2011, 1:51 pm

  3. blokeinfrance:

    The centre of the earthquake was 15 miles below the epicentre, i.e. quite deep in the earth's crust.
    That pesky carbon gets everywhere!

    March 11, 2011, 3:38 pm

  4. Dr. T:

    I am confused. How is an earthquake and subsequent tsunami related in any way to the expected effects of runaway global warming? Do the AGW proponents believe that a warmer earth will suffer more earthquakes?

    I actually wish that AGW was real. It would be a good way to stave off future ice ages that would be catastrophic. Planet earth's return to the temperatures it experienced 1200 years ago probably would have a net positive effect.

    March 11, 2011, 4:27 pm

  5. David Onkels:

    Your explanation is one step removed from the real explanation, which is the increased wealth that results from free enterprise: free men, free markets, the rule of law, which together generate the economy in which science-based, carefully-enforced building standards can exist.

    That said, huge land movement, including the apparent subsidence which exacerbated the effects of the tsunami, will overwhelm the most carefully-crafted building codes. The lost of life and property in Japan will be horrific.

    March 11, 2011, 6:35 pm

  6. gadfly:

    Using an argument that seemed to incorporate Michael Chrichton's "intoxicating vanity" argument against AGW, Limbaugh had this to say today:

    RUSH: By the way, what is the impact these videos make on you when you look at them? It makes me feel so insignificant to look at this -- and I can't help attaching, you know, political reaction to this. Here we've got these never-ending scare tactics: Global warming is gonna raise the sea levels, man-made destruction and all that. This is a bunch of people sitting around minding their own business. This is just the earth. It just happened. I have no doubt they're gonna try to claim global warming had something to do with the earthquake and the tsunami. Well of course they will. That's the only thing they've got is to try to tie natural disasters to what they have been forecasting. But you look at some of this video and you find out how insignificant we are.

    A little gallows humor here: "Godzilla made me do it". Seriously though, the destruction and the real videos were eerily reminiscent of the Japanese giant monster movies.

    March 11, 2011, 10:35 pm

  7. Gary Mount:

    If, as the warmists say, the removal of the weight of the ice causes earthquakes, then what of the added weight to the ocean floors as that weight gets shifted from above ocean land, to sea level and below land. There should be an reaction / opposite reaction as the weight is still there, just in water form instead of ice form.

    March 12, 2011, 4:54 am

  8. Dan Smith:

    I was wondering how long it would take for some idiot to link earthquakes with "climate change." The answer is, less time than it takes for a tsunami to travel from Japan to Hawaii.

    March 12, 2011, 8:48 am

  9. me:

    Honestly, this is no joking matter. I had a headache yesterday, and I am pretty sure global warming is to blame ;)

    March 12, 2011, 10:51 am

  10. Dr. T:

    @me: Curling up in a nice, big chest freezer should cure that global warming headache.

    March 12, 2011, 4:21 pm