New at Reason

Tim Cavanaugh | January 7, 2005

Patrick J. Michaels cools off the post-tsunami global warming hysteria.

Comments

|1.7.05 @ 9:35PM|#

The point they were making is that global warming leads to more flooding and recent events underscore the danger from flooding.

But I guess you don't get into reason magazine without attacking a straw man.

|1.8.05 @ 3:22AM|#

Does anyone else who's read Crichton's new book State of Fear find this slightly ironic?

|1.8.05 @ 6:35AM|#

The point they were making is that global warming leads to more flooding and recent events underscore the danger from flooding.

No they don't. Tsunami flood. If anything, the yearly floods in the region that kill thousands already alert the public to flood dangers.

Recent events underscore the danger from tsunami. Big difference.

But I guess you don't get into reason magazine without attacking a straw man.

Irony at it's best.

Warren|1.8.05 @ 11:58AM|#

I'm glad to see Patrick getting ink here at Reason. Is everyone familure with Meltdown?

|1.8.05 @ 1:46PM|#

Looks like I spoke too soon the othe day.

I've now lost count of the number of times the envirofundies have gotten on this. Even to the point of claiming GW was the CAUSE.

|1.9.05 @ 2:08PM|#

I'm in no way competent to evealuate the relationship between global warming and tsunamis, but Patrick Michael's article is garbage -- a collection of ad himinem attacks, straw men and either ignorant or deceptive statements.

For example, "the global warming crowd," which includes every honest scientist on the planet and "sea-level elevation increment caused by global warming is 1/274th of that caused by the tsunami."

This article wouldn't make the cut in my college newspaper.

|1.9.05 @ 3:30PM|#

I article points out that funding goes to the scientist that claim to study the biggest problem. That point rings true. When one of my professors went over the procedure for writing funding grants, he said the introduction was where we should argue that the fate of the world rests on the results of our research.

|1.9.05 @ 4:56PM|#

Miss Luisa,

Unless global warming is happening and is causing undersea earthquakes there is no relationship between global warming and the tsunami.

Actually, even if global warming is happening there is no relationship. Undersea earthquakes aren't caused by slight increases in average temperatures.

Mr. Bartram,

My sources tell me that the earthquake was the result of French atomic testing that was secretly outsourced to India to prevent Greenpeace interference and was in collaboration with Exxon-Mobil, ELF, Shell and YUKOS for the testing of experimental oil exploration and extraction and indigenous people exploitation techniques. I also think the Hunt brothers, George Bush, the international space station, RFID and bin Laden were involved somehow but I can't prove it yet.

QFMC cos. V

|1.10.05 @ 12:44PM|#

Fabius, I never said, nor implied that global warming plays any role in causing tsunamis--find yourself another straw woman.

It's obvious though, that a higher sea level means the potential reach and damage of a tsunami increases in low-elevation coastal areas. A 2 inch rise in sea level might mean additional square miles of flooding in many places.

|1.10.05 @ 1:42PM|#

If a 2 inch rise in sea levels turns a freshwater wetland so salty that its native plants can't grow, and the wetland loses its capacity to trap water as a result, the effects of flooding will be much worse.

|1.10.05 @ 1:45PM|#

Fabius

Have you thought of pitching this to Michael Moore? I'm sure he and his expert team of researchers will be able to make another prize-winning documentary.