Why we should name hurricanes after fossil fuel corporations

[Seshmeister]

https://apps.facebook.com/theguardian/commentisfree/2012/nov/06/hurricanes-climate-change-fossil-fuels


Why we should name hurricanes after fossil fuel corporations


Bill McKibben

https://static-secure.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/About/General/2012/11/5/1352118842407/Sandy-global-warming-008.jpg

'The sea level in New York harbour has gone up a foot as the climate has warmed. Sandy had a big head start on flooding out the city.'

Photograph: Nasa/Getty Images

Tuesday 6 November 2012
Hurricane Sandy's intensity is connected to global warming caused by fossil fuel use so let's pin the blame where it belongs


As gutsy New Yorkers begin the task of drying out the city, here's one thought that occurred to me last night watching the horrifying pictures from a distance. It's obviously not crucial right now – but in the long run it might make a difference. Why don't we stop naming these storms for people, and start naming them after oil companies?

Global warming didn't "cause" the hurricane, of course – hurricanes are caused when a tropical wave washes off the coast of Africa and begins to spin in the far Atlantic. But this storm rode ocean waters five degrees warmer than normal, so it's no great shock that it turned into a monster. By the time it hit land, it had smashed every record for the lowest barometric pressure and the largest wind field.

Most of its damage, of course, came from the savage storm surge, washing over the Rockaway, into Holland Tunnel. It was astonishing to watch on TV as the Lower East Side became a part of the East River. And one reason that surge was so high? The sea level in New York harbour has gone up a foot as the climate has warmed. Sandy had a big head start on flooding out the city.

The fossil fuel companies have played the biggest role in making sure we don't slow global warming down. They've funded climate denial propagandists and helped pack Congress with anti-environmental extremists, making sure that commonsense steps to move toward renewable energy never happen. So maybe it's only right that we should honour their efforts by naming storms for them from now on. At the very least it's fun to imagine the newscasters announcing, "Exxon is coming ashore across New Jersey, leaving havoc in her wake", or "Chevron forces evacuation of 375,000".

At 350.org, the climate change campaign that I helped found, we're sending out an appeal to our worldwide mailing list today. It asks two things: that people send money to the Red Cross to help with relief efforts along the Atlantic seaboard, and that they send a message to the oil companies asking them to stop funding election campaigns and use the money for recovery efforts instead.

That would help clear the air in DC, and it would also help New York: Chevron, for instance, donated $2.5m (£1.6m) to a GOP super-Pac last week, the largest single corporate donation since the supreme court cleared the way for such influence-buying. In the face of this tragedy, it would be the very least they could do, a tiny start toward repairing the damage they've caused. For a decade, anyone named Sandy is going to have to endure hurricane jokes. Seems much fairer to pin the blame where it belongs.

This article first appeared on the Daily News website

[Kristy]

The fossil fuel companies have played the biggest role in making sure we don't slow global warming down.

Who or what exactly is this "we?" The douche in the SUV? The college kid with his iPhone that has more petroleum made plastic parts in it than the local tap water? Oh, I know, all those morons in Wisconsin who burn coal to keep their fat-as-fuck asses warm? There is no conspiracy theory when it comes to corporate greed. This article is another poorly researched blame THE MAN for the current state of your shitty life. To blame Chevron for Sandy is like placing Pete Townshend in charge of child daycare. It makes no sense. The truth is "we" suck at the giant tit that is big oil and as long as big oil continues its vampirific reign sucking the earth's blood companies like Chevron are every consumers wet nurse. You can put up all the eye sore windfarms you want, not one of them is ever going to stop a hurricane.

[Nitro Express]

I won't deny climate change. But I always ask, where are these people trying to steer us with this information? It usually is a global tax of some sort and it's usually an oligarch family or a contact of theirs doing the selling. You know. The same people who own multinational corporations, and want to consolidate wealth into more easily to control unions and currencies. If you want to blame global warming on someone, blame the Chinese.

The truth of the matter is this earth has been changing long before man was ever on it. There are rain forests below the antarctic ice. Glaciers used to cover what is now dry land. Huge lakes and oceans covered what is now desert.

Not only is this planet warming but all the others in the solar system are as well. Our sun that usually runs an 11 year solar cycle is off that cycle and seems to be more active than usual. I think there are so many variables that it's more than just what we are doing. I think it's bigger. So I don't buy into the sky is falling, we are all going to die and by the way we need a global tax sales pitch. Especially from oligarchs like the Rothschilds.



The truth of the matter is scientists will admit we know very little about this planet, especially the deep oceans. All a sudden in the last few years, we have become all knowing experts on the planet and think we can play the role of God and save it. It's a bit silly.