Hurricane – Update 2023

OPS-75 As I write this post, we are closing out 2023. By the time you see this post, we will be living 2024. I do hope everyone’s Christmas was Merry and that your New Year will be Happy, full of family, friends, and opportunity. 2023 was an interesting year that highlighted the importance/reality of energy, food, financial, etc. security versus the incessant, ideological all CO₂ emission reduction, all the time narrative being pushed by the UN/WEF and their puppet minions. The anemic closing statements at December’s COP28 reflected that sentiment. Despite substantial pressure from the NGO and political crowd, phrasing that would phase out fossil fuels was not included. There are still leaders out there (few and far between in the Western developed world) that recognize that fossil fuels are still and will be for a long time, a necessary and important component of the energy mix going forward. However, this post will not get into that complexity. Focusing instead on one key component, tropical storm/hurricane activity.

#climatechange #delaythegreen #globalwarming #showusthedata

So, what did the 2023 tropical storm/hurricane season deliver? According to our ideologically driven political leaders and their minions in the media, extreme weather is ravaging the planet, and the extremes are accelerating! Just one problem, the empirical data shows exactly the opposite. Tropical Storm activity has been declining since the mid-1960s (almost 60 years) and Hurricane/Cyclone activity has been declining since the mid-1980s (almost 40 years). For 2023 specifically, the number of Tropical Storms (68) was close to the post-1950 low (a period that accounts for 86%+ of humanity’s CO₂ emissions). The number of hurricanes/cyclones (35) was right at the average for that same post-1950 period. So, anytime you hear a politician, legacy media representative or social media troll say that hurricanes are getting stronger and more frequent, they are either incompetent, ignorant of the empirical data or lying. I would lean towards lying and incompetence, since the empirical data trends have been evident for decades.

The empirical data speaks for itself. You do not need to be a rocket scientist (or a climate scientist (whatever the definition)) to see that “climate change” (i.e.: rising CO₂ emissions) are not leading to more or more extreme hurricanes/cyclones. The opposite is true. Obviously, the increasing storm activity narrative is a lie. In general, the same story applies to other forms of extreme weather. A normalized summary plot of various extreme weather events is shown here. Strange, how extreme weather events are heading down as CO₂ rises. For those that want more detail/discussion, you can go to my CSS-52 – Extreme Weather Events post. If you are feeling adventurous, you can go one step further and explore some of the other empirical data sets that show CO₂ has at best a minor impact on climate (CSS-53 – CO₂’s Moneyball Moment). That post also shows the unmeasurable effect that we can have on the planet’s future temperature to go with the unnecessary, economic devastation that will be created by our current ideological “green” initiatives (spending trillions to save billions).

This post also investigates the misleading statement that climate change (as defined by increasing CO₂ emissions/concentrations) is leading to increased extreme weather event monetary losses. Misleading is being kind. Given that the trends in extreme weather events are trending down or are statistically flat, “climate change” cannot (I repeat cannot) be the reason for the increased capital damage. The increased costs are due to humanity’s desire to build ever more expensive infrastructure in sensitive areas (flood plains, coastal and forested areas, etc.). If you build your dream house along the Florida coast, you are building in the line of fire. Climate Change policy has also played a key role in the elevated costs. The huge and unnecessary “green” initiative expenditures have contributed significantly to our current inflation crisis. Future NetZero, renewables, EVs, ESG, etc. expenditures will just further compound the inflation problem leaving an enormous, debilitating debt burden for our children and grandchildren.

Fossil fuels are and will continue to be a necessity to our way of life long into the future. Despite, the simplistic, unscientific ‘CO₂ is almost solely responsible for climate change (i.e.: Global Warming)’ narrative, the knowingly ignored natural cycles will be cooling the planet over the next few decades. And make no mistake, cooler temperatures kill significantly more people than warmer temperatures. Fossil fuels will be required to survive those colder temperatures, just like they have helped to reduce climate related deaths by roughly 97% over the last century. Like it or not, our society requires fossil fuels (including the renewable industry) and will require those fossil fuels long into the future. Note, emission improvements to reduce pollutants are still necessary in very industry. CO₂, despite the current negative ideological fixation, is not a pollutant and should be welcomed for its ability to act as plant fertilizer, enhancing drought resistance in plants and providing moderate, beneficial warming.

Here are some additional articles/papers/posts that provide further context to this discussion.

Climate Short Story (CSS)

CSS-52 – Extreme Weather Events

Extreme Weather Events

CSS-53 – CO₂’s Moneyball Moment

CO2’s Moneyball Moment