I wish everyone in the path safe and hope the worst does not come anywhere near what some are predicting, but can't note the irony that climate change has totally disappeared from the political conversation. This is precisely the crazy insane storm weather that our scientist models have predicted--along with those record droughts we are experiencing all over the world in this, yet again, hottest year ever).
I can't help but comment here since this blog is filled with otherwise good people who have become obsessed that climate change is some urban planning conspiracy theory to get them into bunkers and riding trains. (As if climate scientists gave an iota about the suburbs--just switch energy sources and carry on your lifestlye). They buy the Coch Bros propaganda crap hook, line, and sinker.

It is simply mind-boggling to me that people cannot--or refuse--to connect the massive scale of our collective impact on the world with changing it. You see that clearly with clear dangers such as Nuclear accidents, but slow dangers such as climate change, just can't possibly be connected to the billions of gallons we have pumped and burned? Check out the latest photos of our newest fossil fuel source Alberta Tarsands here. The scale of physical devastation, or transformation, beggars belief. Ignorance promotes the powers that be.

This is our future, weird, disrupted food systems, and "franken storms". Welcome to the Anthropcoene. Godspeed.

So Al Gore invented bad storms too?

Here's a candidate for world's most depressing document:

http://www.exeloncorp.com/assets/energy/powerplants/docs/Oyster%20Creek/bro_oystercreek_pib.pdf

Jack - "world's most depressing document"
JK - Wrong!
It shows bus routes for evacuation! That should lift every Portlander’s spirits - you take the bus while evacuating.

What I want to know is if their diesel backup generators are as stupidly placed as they were in Japan. And I still wonder why Japan didn't fly in generators after the tidal wave.

BTW, I can go for no nukes as long as we have lots of low cost natural gas (currently from fracking.) No more blood for oil - drill here NOW!

thanks
JK

Hey, that document isn't depressing! They clearly have a graphic showing how unstable atom nuclei can be used to make toast!

To paraphrase Bill Mahar, "so heat melting ice is just a theory".

PS: and all the best to Cousin Jim!

P-native:

The history of the United States is full of "killer storms". The pre-historic record of violent weather across the entire globe is even more astonishing, but CNN wasn't there to televise it, and nobody blogged about it so you can go on believing EARTH IS MUCH WORSE TODAY BECAUSE OF HUMANKIND.

I think it is quite a stretch to say that people don't believe in climate change. Of course the climate is always changing.

The original argument over the past few years was human-caused global warming. That is the real statement most have an issue with.

In any case, history shows there have been numerous weather related extremes and disasters; many occurring long before mankind walked the earth. Some even blame dinosaur farts.

And as one poster noted accurately, CNN wasn't there to cover a majority of them, so none are top of mind.

That's OK - in today's Oregonian a letter to the editor basically says our record dry spell is due to climate change/global warming. No proof or evidence needed, just she says it therefore it is.

We've had crazy storms long before. We did even before the 1800s. It's just that there weren't as many people around, and the Native Americans thought weather was a gift (or punishment) from God rather than actually studying it as a natural event. So replace wacky Indian religious culture with wacky White Man psuedo-scientific culture that mimics religion. It's all the same to me.

Shadrach: ... slow dangers such as climate change, just can't possibly be connected to the billions of gallons we have pumped and burned?
JK: That is correct - there is NO PROVEN relationship.

Shadrach: Check out the latest photos of our newest fossil fuel source Alberta Tarsands here.
JK: That is fuel that lets people move quickly and conveniently. The more of it we find the lower our energy cost which improves people’s lives. Why do you oppose improving people’s lives?

Shadrach: This is our future, weird, disrupted food systems, and "franken storms".
JK: Please enlighten me: Just what is the actual evidence that man’s CO2 is causing climate change?

Of course we all know that Nature puts out 96% of the CO2 compared to man’s 4%, that Al Gore's ice cores show CO2 increases FOLLOW temperature by about 800 years, that unusual weather, melting glaciers, etc., is not proof that man is the cause, that the climate was warmer in the medieval, Roman, Egyptian and Minoan times and water vapor causes more greenhouse effect than CO2.

Thanks
JK

This Hurricane is not unusual. It is hurricane season and this area of the country is in the range of hurricanes.

What is special is that this is a hugely populated area and has many flood-prone areas.

The Nuke plants are very worrisome because we stick our heads in the sand and think that nothing bad can happen here in the good ole USA.

Another reminder to be prepared for natural disasters - that BC quake could be a prequal to something much bigger and closer to home.

Tim,
The largest Atlantic hurricane ever--gaining speed over the very warm ocean, combined with a winter storm pulling an Arctic blast down from Canada is unusual, to say the least. "Unprecedented and bizarre" is one headline. Have you ever heard of a tropical hurricane bringing a snow forecast? No, because it hasn't happend before.
Yes, there have been major, major weather events in the past, I never claimed that there weren't. But no, I don't believe this storm is apocalyptic, just a scary symptom of changing times. Historically those with the most punch have often been volcano related (Look up the summer of 1815 or Lake Toba for the really fun ones--hell Toba almost killed off our species). Which is interesting since volcanoes pump a whole bunch of gases and ash into the atmosphere--not unlike the all the gasses we burn daily, or the crap our factories our spew daily (now conveniently located in China so we can forget about them). Chopping trees down to pump CO2 into the atmosphere = warming and rapidly changing weather.

Furthermore, what's really interesting is the earth has already gone through CO2 periods before like when the north pole was tropical . I am not saying we are going to die. I am just saying we are obviously contributing to these freak storm events, which are becoming more common. But hell what do scientists know anyway?

I hope Jack is right that we don't hear about these plants anywhere else, because the nuclear angle here is a frightening one. Like the ongoing Fukashima disaster.

An aside to JK: Here you have gone and again intermingled some correct statements with some blatantly wrong ones. You also utterly lack technical imagination. That I am typing this on an ipad in Madrid, Spain should let you know that I don't share your limited belief in our abilities to innovate technologically--and improve lives at the same time. You however seem to believe we peaked in the 60's and should just be happy. Whatever.

We've had these debates before and I have no real interest in continuing them. Scientists put a man on the moon, if 97% of them studying an issue are certain that there is a connection than I am not going to arrogantly assume they just want to f with my lifestyle and look for a compromise (technological innovation). You however shoot the scientists. Your ideology clouds any reason, or your personal belief in your own infallibility. The gas companies and their Arab owners are happy to feed you more confusing crap to muddy the issue. It is late here. Good night.

Shadrach: An aside to JK: Here you have gone and again intermingled some correct statements with some blatantly wrong ones.
JK: Please be specific - what was wrong with what I said?

Shadrach: You also utterly lack technical imagination.
JK: You launched the ad hominems. before you produced any evidence.

Shadrach: if 97% of them studying an issue are certain that there is a connection than I am not going to arrogantly assume they just want to f with my lifestyle and look for a compromise (technological innovation).
JK: I see you aren’t into looking behind the scientifically illiterate popular press. Had you looked you would have found that 97% number came from a carefully selected sub set of climate scientists - mainly the ones who rake in millions in research grants for their institutions.

Shadrach: Your ideology clouds any reason, or your personal belief in your own infallibility.
JK: Does your making that statement mean you cannot cite any actual evidence that CO2 is causing climate disruption?

Shadrach: The gas companies and their Arab owners are happy to feed you more confusing crap to muddy the issue. It is late here. Good night.
JK: I hope you know that the climate “scientists” have raked in about $20 billion over the years from government subsidies, while the “gas companies” money has been a drop in the bucket. Why don’t you pick up last Sunday’s Telegraph (or was it the week before) where you can read about HADCRUT4 showing no warming for the last 16 years. You might also want to look at HADCRUT3 which shows slight cooling. You also might want to look at NOAA data:
Enter 1996 to present, annual mean temperature contiguous USA here:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/cag3/na.html
You will find a temperature increase of 0.01 deg/decade or 0.1 deg per century and headed down as the sun comes out of its almost unprecedented historic active phase.

Again I am simply asking for real evidence that man’s CO2 is disrupting the climate.

Thanks
JK

Shadrach is simply a victim of recency bias. The entire Eastern Seaboard has a proud history of hurricanes, tropical depressions, gales, and Noreasters. The indigenous people had their own names for this phenomenon, but they lacked barometers or a written language, so Shadrach should be forgiven for not knowing about their severity.

More here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_England_hurricanes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Colonial_Hurricane_of_1635

The most capable Scientists of AOML's Hurricane Re-analysis project estimated the Great Colonial Hurricane of 1635 was the worst in recorded history.

Notably, the anthropogenic component of global climate change was much smaller in 1635, with a total human population that had been decimated by war, famine, and (you guessed it) climate change.

"recency bias." That's a howlin' good one. It explains psychology, or psychological influence sometimes in some situations ... and this situation is NOT one of those times. Because the 'recent' event this time is bigger stronger worser weather than the immediately previous 'recent' remembered event, which was bigger than the 'recent' before that, and the one before that was bigger than the one before that which was bigger than the one before that ... yeah, 'recency bias,' that's the ticket. As long as we disregard that the 'bias' in this case tilts in favor of the facts on which is based conclusion of each person's judgement.

As opposed to the other way around, the Karlockian way, preset in conclusion on which facts are based ... without judgement. And that's called confirmation bias.
Seen here thus: "97% of them (climate scientists) studying an issue are certain that there is a connection ... (stupidly) assume they just want to f with (your) lifestyle ... shoot the scientists. Your ideology clouds any reason, or your personal belief in your own infallibility."

And seen in massmedia mindmolding here: Meet The Wall Street Journal Columnist Dismissing Science, SHAUNA THEEL, Media Matters Research, Oct. 29, 2012

The mechanism by which ideology such as this [psychologically] influences our scientific views is confirmation bias. We place greater weight on evidence that confirms our beliefs, while ignoring or resisting conflicting evidence. This can be a challenge when confronted with a convergence of evidence and a scientific consensus, but confirmation bias is up to the task. Let's look at some examples.

The most common manifestation of confirmation bias is cherry picking, where one carefully selects a small piece of data that paints a friendly picture and overlooks any inconvenient evidence.

[...]

So what happens when 97 out of 100 of climate scientists agree that humans are causing global warming?

Those who reject the scientific consensus lavish their attention on the 3% minority, magnifying their significance and turning a blind eye to the 97% ....

Read the Media Matters Research to find the cites of "evidence" (oh so deeply desired to find ... NOT), in facts for judgement.

(Really and truly, JimKarlock like LarsLarson, the EXTREME adamancy of your ABSOLUTE certainty of your science-blind self-conviction is about 2 standard deviations from clinically Normal human psychology and you might better have yours checked and likely medicated, in my professional Medical Psychologist opinion. Really. Truly. You're glaring. Flaming nutso zealot. That's not ad hominem; U R specimen.)
(P.S. pssst!, JK, LL, people are whispering about you behind your back. You shouldn't let anyone say something derogatory about you uncontested. You must SMASH them and BASH them and browBEAT them into BLOODY SUBMISSION until they stop saying you are wrong.)

Just alerted to a fire at Oyster Creek NGS. No other details, other than source claimed to work there.

Tenskwatawa, I see you still can’t find any evidence that man’s CO2 is causing climate disruption. The best that you can do is rely on an alleged authority. They tried that in Russia and millions died. See Lysenko. Also look up Eugenics and the millions that died because people followed authorities instead of actual evidence. Your faith in alleged authorities tells us all we need to know about your thinking abilities.

Thanks
JK

'fire' and 'Oyster Creek' not (so far) found together.

There is 'fire':
http://centralny.ynn.com/content/top_stories/606684/investigators-look-into-nine-mile-fire/

SCRIBA, N.Y. -- Federal officials are trying to pinpoint what sparked a small fire at the Nine Mile One nuclear reactor in Scriba. Flames broke out inside an electrical panel Monday evening. It was quickly put out by workers.

('Nine Mile,' 'Nine Mile' ... why does that name ring a bell ...?)

And there is 'Oyster Creek':
http://enenews.com/reuters-just-6-more-inches-of-water-could-submerge-new-jersey-nuclear-plants-pump-to-cool-spent-fuel-pool-new-footage-of-flooding-next-to-oyster-creek-video

Reuters: Just 6 more inches of water could submerge NJ nuclear plant’s pump to cool spent fuel pool — 25 hours to boiling without more coolant — New footage of flooding nearby (VIDEO)
Published: October 30th, 2012 at 1:29 am ET By ENENews

Think of it as "Geologic Recency Bias", Tenskey.

When using the words "Worst ever" in geological time, we have to go back further than a human's penultimate memory.

If you're going to attribute changes in weather to anthropogenic climate change, then your chronological frame of reference needs to be (at least) a dozen centuries, if not several millenia. A 100 year to 300 year look-back is an insufficient data set.

Why? Because global population was too small to have made a substantive contribution to greenhouse gas emissions in the 17th Century. Unless you think the existence of 900 million people was a pox upon the Earth.

If poor Mother Earth couldn't support 900 million people, then 7 billion is surely a disaster in the making. Or, perhaps other factors are influencing climate change more than humans?

We're safe, dry and not glowing in the dark. Lost power for a few days, which is a mere inconvenience, considering the devastation that surrounds us.