When You Have A Hammer, Everything Looks Like A Nail
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.