don’t forget coal ash
8
It really bothers me that people think that Humpty Trumpty cares about the environment. All he cares about is $. He would destroy the planet if it meant more money in his pocket. His greed knows no bounds. His whole life has been an existence of wealth. That was handed to him. He has never had to work an honest hard days work. For honest pay. He schemes he lies he cheats. Anything to get over on somebody else. As president he is using the American people to obtain his goals of greed. If we really care about the planet and its resources. We must get rid of Humpty Trumpty.
14
My daughter lives and has her own cafe business in North Carolina. Every time we visit there, we see one abhorent situation after another. Gashes in red dirt hillsides where grading for new roads continues unabated. New buildings including a motel built directly along a riverbank, obviously within the flood plain. Scattered housing of every type sited on hillsides and glens, accessible only by one lane dirt roads. It often looks to us as a land of grifters, led by drifting politicians.
11
I don't get the big deal of driving to NC from D.C. It has to be cheaper than flying. It isn't the same as chartering private jets or using military transportation for vacation. It sounds more like a hit job concocting a scandal due to politics with Homeland security. I am skeptical.
1
Most of us watched or listened to yesterday’s press conferences in N.C. and SC pretty much knowing how it would pan out. And most of us were not even surprised at the pandering, glowing words of praise heaped on trump. I hope all that groveling pays off.
Politician after politician uttered the words that trump wants to hear the most. The group was carefully culled,obviously no invite to Chef José Andrés, whose World Central Kitchen came into the state of N.C. and set up field kitchens ahead of the hurricane. I’m positive it was Chef Andrés organizational skills that co-ordinated so many of the hot meals that were sent out to the victims, the courageous volunteers, and first responders.
What was noticeable was, though, that no one asked trump how his new trade tariffs were going to affect the rebuilding efforts. After Jan 1, 2019, items that are needed to rebuild homes and replace lost possessions are due to rise by 25%. That replacement washer and dishwasher will cost much more.
I hope anyone who voted for trump thinks carefully about the words he utters. For the most part, with trump, talk is as cheap as often as it is a blantant lie.
28
With you on all of the above & below. But it should be added that flooding and the damage/catastrophe of it is also a result of Global Building along the coastlines. It's not necessary for you to sell North Dakota in winter as a great place to live, but Global Building is also real.
5
I wait with excited anticipation for the day that a hurricane or even just rising sea levels overtake and ruin Mar-a-Lago.
Ha! I wonder if Trump would then take advantage of government assistance.
12
What is it about so many conservatives...to be utterly dimwitted regarding climate change. How is this even a partisan issue when everyone is being affected by this well-documented reality? Trump is terminally dumb, so his ignorance is easily explained, but many seemingly intelligent conservatives are little better. Removing information about climate change from government web sites and hiding climate change research reports doesn't actually change reality. Only within the minds of climate change deniers — all of them conservatives.
Eclectic Pragmatism — http://eclectic-pragmatist.tumblr.com/
Eclectic Pragmatist — https://medium.com/eclectic-pragmatism
18
The World will keep on going, when we are all living on boats and trying to stay where the best fishing zones are, around the poles, because the tropics have wet bulb temps that kill humans. It won't matter much to the school children which nation or office holder didn't do their part, as we all used Oil like there was no tomorrow to be paid for.
It will be okay, You all like to eat jelly fish don't you? They say with a little salt they taste just like ,, salted Jelly fish, I mean sorta like good chewy noodles, that kinda can be slurped down just fine.
They will make new meals out of them and you all will mostly forget about what Florida looked like, and the taste of bananas and all those other things you can't get as often.
So just ignore all those odd CO2 numbers for now, it will not matter to you if you are over 50. Much. Unless you like fresh clean drinking water and non-jelly fish meals.
9
So many different possible approaches to all of the problems suggested in this editorial. One that we can do something about right now is to stop eating hogs.
14
Trump neglected to bring the paper towels!!
17
you know that guy that bought the brooklyn bridge just might be interested in a bunch of pink pig poop.
9
Instead of a wall along the Mexican border, we should excavate a 2000-mile long ditch, fill it with pink hog manure, and christen it TRUMP MOAT.
A suitable monument that you could see from space.
All in favor?
29
I understand tens to hundreds of thousands of pigs and chickens that were locked in pens and not evacuated died in the flooding. Added to the lagoons of pig poop that are sprayed in air when the lagoon gets full and pollute all the (mainly poor and black) surrounding areas, this is horrendous. If we can't stop eating animals, at least plan some other method and place to house them that doesn't create a moral and environmental disaster.
16
The pink pig poop is a perfect visual representation of the Republican-controlled and moronic North Carolina state legislature. To the citizens of North Carolina, I am truly sorry for your terrible suffering from Hurricane Florence and wishing you a speedy recovery. You deserve better.
13
I read elsewhere that 77 pig waste "lagoons" (that word sounds too nice, like some romantic spot in the N. Carolina countryside) have been breached in the state or will be soon as flood waters continue to flow. So, it is important to understand that Hurricane Florence was an environmental disaster as well as one hitting property and people.
This is what we should expect. When we have systems that are set up that involve great risk and don't have to respond to environmental regulations in a way that would involve greater protection, disaster awaits. One problem becomes another, then another until they overwhelm the human ability to deal with them.
What about the beaches along N. Carolina's coastline? Will there be something swirling and pink beside you if you venture in the water? These beaches are the source of vast sums of money from tourism and vacation houses.
By the way, I haven't seen any mention of it elsewhere, but I have heard from second hand sources that the sweet potato crop, one of the main sources of farm income in the state, was set to ruin by the rains.
I just returned from the N. Carolina a little more than 24 hours ago and it was apparent also that a lot of tobacco and cotton crops were destroyed, too. How much federal money will be pouring into the state as compensation to farmers who otherwise say they hate the federal government and vote against it at every turn?
18
@Doug Terry
Yet, the republicans are telling us that the social safety net is a waste of money, that it's socialism, that it needs to end. Yet, they don't seem to feel that way when it comes to moving their pig farms to a non flood plain at the tax payers expense, or course.
Yes, it's hypocritical and normal for the republican party to decry things like Medicaid, Medicare, Food Stamps, Social Security, etc, etc. As socialist, or a waste of tax payer money. Until something like a hurricane comes along and suddenly big government is what you need, so that WE the tax payer can rebuild THEIR homes, move THEIR pig farms, that THEY allowed to be built on a flood plain.
The republican party talks a good talk, about smaller government, and self reliance, until the economy crashes, or a hurricane comes along. Then it's a flood of tax payer money.
20
Oh dear! It's my state you're describing , but not to fear. We have a fine, intelligent governor, at least one exceptionally fine Congressman (David Price), some committed public servants in the Legislature and Judiciary, and a strong Attorney General. These days I have to look for the bright spots and HOPE.
14
The solution to the pig problem (Can't solve the Trump problem in this response. One pig problem at a time.) is to go to technology. We put those genetic engineers to work and get their gene splicers cranking. Yes you guess it, homing pigs. A splice of homing pigeons and pigs. As the waters rise the pigs take to the air and return to higher ground.
We'll probably have to work out some kinks with the FAA and Amazon drones. That's going to happen when pigs can fly.
11
Lake Norman, Trump asks, how is that area? How dumb does he think we are? Plenty obviously. yes, and that comment about having a good time as he hands someone a hot dog. Lord lord. Pink pig waste and so much damage shows the utter lack of policy, planning, or anything to offset the real damage of flooding and damage, whether on beaches or along rivers. Three percent w/flood insurance in S. Carolina, was it five in N. Carolina? Just pitiful for those caught in this disaster. We are a wasteful and plain old mean country.
17
@Katalina
Didn't Trump go on the air, and say that FEMA is ready for the hurricane. I'm surprised Trump didn't throw rolls of paper towels to go with the tax payer funded hot dogs, that really should have been supplied by those self reliant republicans that they like to talk about. But I can hardly hear them over their egos.
5
Let me get this straight--irony, satire and sarcasm fully understood--you think government, which consistently produces political "leaders" of the same caliber as Donald Trump, are, or should be, responsible for the climate, the weather and the level of the ocean? Gimme a break! Go back to your therapist and see if she can interpret the root cause of your political fetish.
3
Give me a break. The government (not just “government”) doesn’t produce politicians. It produces and enforces laws. Those laws determine what’s legal and illegal. They are written and sometimes enforced by our elected representatives. Do you prefer some other system?
The government enables us to cooperate as a people in ways we otherwise cannot. No country on earth builds roads or raises armies privately, at least none you’d like to live in. The government creates opportunity by providing education and healthcare regardless of ability to pay. It could do a better job; we all can improve. But, again, no civilized country relies primarily on private healthcare or education.
Climate change is only one more example of something only the government can affect. Without a carbon tax, private interests have every incentive to dump as much carbon into the atmosphere as is convenient. Environmental degradation does not appear on the balance sheet in the the government puts it there.
So, yes, we want the government to act on climate change, to prevent more and worse hurricanes, among other things. Not because it’s perfect, but because only it can.
20
Gail: Were the hot dogs all beef?
7
Other than Louis Gohmert and perhaps a few others, no one in Congress is so stupid that they don't believe in global warming. Even President Trump is not that stupid. It's all about their donors and corporate short term greed.
14
'The ocean is rising, but at least we've got hot dogs' hog lagoons and Big Pork tiny cloven hoofs waddle waddle on the mist.
7
What is created when toxic coal ash meets toxic pig poop? NC's going to find out.
13
Sure miss "no drama Obama"
17
If we all become vegetarian we won't have to worry about hog poop lagoons anymore.
8
All points made are valid and good; however, we need to identify the true evil of Republicanism. And in identifying them we must find ways to defeat them and there ability to offer warm blankets to everything remotely vile, ignorant and/or evil that’s preventing us from intellectual growth and prosperity. Its irresponsible of us as a society to not have the tools to adequately address those who shout from the rooftops that “2 2 = anything but 4”.
4
Speaking of time, tides, and Trump:
Please keep in mind that it wasn't us that voted for Trump. And now I am really angry, because I feel like the Electoral College knowingly went ahead and hired a narcissistic, bloated, out-of-shape lifeguard, who can't swim and knows nothing about first aid.
13
@PB
You have another opportunity to change that coming up very soon.
1
I hate to spoil the party by pointing out the link between factory farms and climate change. Factory farms contribute more to climate change than emissions from automobiles. That's without the environmental degradation from the feces runoff, without mentioning the problems with antibiotic resistance that stem from the widespread and negligent misuse on said farms.
Everyone who enjoys eating dead animals because it "tastes good" is complicit.
Oh and Gail neglected to mention the millions of animals that died by drowning on these farms. And maybe the 2 women who died in the custody of SC police while being transported to a mental health facility would have fared better had they been tied to the roof of the van like Seamus, Mitt Romney's pooch.
11
Your editorial made me laugh while making very good points about what seems to be a hopeless situation around climate denial and allowing developers to continue to build in areas we know are doomed.
10
NC 20 is a 501(c)4 non-profit incorporated in 2010 to spur economic development in 20 coastal counties and to "concentrate primarily on actions to prevent regulation and rule making not based on science".
Ms Collins, shouldn't we recognize The NOT SCIENCE Police for their contributions? From their website:
"A number of NC 20 Board members were intimately involved with (Sea-Level Rise), but Larry Baldwin, David Burton, John Droz and Bud Stilley played prominent roles."
"NC 20, with help from Rep. George Cleveland and the NC 20 legislative delegation, was subsequently able to convince the Department (of Crime Control and Public Safety, headed by Secretary Reuben Young) to use historic data which showed no acceleration.. Drs. Robert Dean, Professor Emeritus, and James Houston, Director Emeritus, (U. Florida and Corps of Engineers respectively) have a comprehensive, worldwide study documented on our website that shows a slight negative acceleration, meaning even the slight linear increase in SLR is beginning to level off."
"In June of 2012, the North Carolina State Legislature sided with NC 20 and passed H819, a bill written by Reps. Pat McElraft and Bill Cook. The bill essentially provides for a more scientific study and the elimination of any rules, regulations, or polices mandating a 39” planning benchmark until a more, open scientific investigation determines the likelihood and direction of SL changes."
http://www.nc-20.com/nc-20-history.htm
5
Before we give the current Governor of NC a lot of grief for what's wrong, a little background is in order.
In 2015 Gov. Roy Cooper (D), narrowly defeated incumbent Pat McCrory (R) former Duke Energy Exec.). McCrory would not concede defeat until mid Dec.
Immediately following his election, the republican controlled house passed legislation to drastically curtail the governor's authority. This includes their refusing to obey the NC Supreme Court's order to re-draw districting maps that were clearly drawn for the purpose of gerrymandering. They've since vowed to fight all the way to the SCOTUS (enter Kavanaugh they hope).
More recently they've legislated the removal of a 9th non-partisan citizen on the Board of Elections leaving an equal split R - D, which can be decided by other means to favor republicans.
www.newsobservor.com/news/politics-government/article217651375.html
The NC republican legislature is actively engaged in power seeking, ignoring the will of the people of NC, utilizing means unethical, dishonest and probably illegal (unless you own the courts), to push an agenda detrimental to the well being of the citizens. McCrory also refused to expand Medicaid as provided under the ACA.
Their refusal to recognize or even acknowledge climate change is all of a pattern that puts business interests first.
They, like Gov. Rick Scott (R) FL, who forbade state use of the term climate change, will choose power/$$$ over their citizen's health every time.
16
@Deb
Well, if you vote out the majority which apparently is the republicans, and replace the majority with democrats, have them repeal the changes to the gubernatorial powers.
1
How do you get these guys to pay attention......
Fine Them.....big time........if you can establish a
Government in Washington willing to do so.
5
See, this is why it's so much easier to feel deep compassion for the individuals whose lives are devastated and a disturbing schadenfreude for the entire area of trumplandia they represent.
2
FEMA's Brock Long is turning out to be "Brownie" without Brownie's "competence." When echoing his lord and master's criticism of the scientific study to determine the real deaths from Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico he questioned why there was a need for the survey in the first place.
See you at Lake Norman for a round of golf in a couple of weeks, Brockie, to celebrate the yooge success of your latest work.
11
Personally, I'm getting more optimistic as the disasters compound. During Bush II, I, and some others, thought folks would get woke, as it seemed the Repubs were getting exposed for the fakers and charlatans they were. But no, we had to live thru 8 years of Repub hate mongering and truth denial. But now, with a Putin assist, we're living in a post-truth unreality show staring the "great" leader. Folks can only keep their eyes closed so long. I'm thinking it won't be long now...
11
Can we please pass a law that states that no federal money will go to low or no income states that deny climate change and fail to enact measures to mitigate its impact? I'm tired of my hard-earned tax dollars going to bail out states with low or no income tax that think it is just fine to develop like crazy in sensitive areas then expect our tax dollars to bail them out of the inevitable horrible consequences of their poor policy-making. This is especially true when our federal dollars go to help people who built expensive beach homes instead of taking adequate care of helping and relocating the poor people whose only homes are in low-lying areas. Enough already!
18
Just as with air and other water pollution, hurricane devastation is no respecter of state boundaries. What you see in NC now is already moving toward SC and flooding everything in its wake.
I live near Myrtle Beach, SC, but closer to the county seat, Conway. SCDOT says the roads are flooded between my house and downtown Conway. Luckily my street was flooded on Monday but clear now and the houses in my neighborhood were not flooded.
But many neighbors are no so fortunate. There are areas that flood every time we have a big rain. The houses are continually rebuilt with national flood insurance money. That should stop and the people living in those floodplains need to relocate.
We have over 100 golf courses in our area. Maybe Trump needs to buy one so that we too can be protected.
Short of that, the county government needs to come into the 21st century and deal with where our burgeoning population can live. We cannot keep building in marsh areas and floodplains. Yet the county has almost 4 times as many people as it did only 35 years ago. They buy new homes but they are ignorant of what the land was before they came.
9
Where would we be without her story of Romney's dog on the roof over and over again, till even his dog nodded off on the roof. Collins never quits a topic that pushes her own laugh button even though her readers are starting to gag.
Now she has Trump raised on her own pitard over and over again. She acts as if he's the cause of the ocean's rising, when it's the hurricane of media spinning up these tides that try us all.
Since Dowd semi-retired, Collins has become the new Snark-in-Chief. Those who think her columns a hoot-full are all NYT libs. If it's true that "Time and Tides Wait for No Man." even Trump, those same innundations are swamping Collins.
1
@Lake Woebegoner - No one is forcing you to read it.
5
Dammit, Gail. As if we didn't have enough to worry about you have to bring up pink hog lagoons. I didn't know there were such things as pink hog lagoons to worry about.
Is there anything else The Orange Hog has ruined that we don't know about?
11
The irony of the hog lagoon problem is that pork is one of our major exports to China (at least for the time being). In the discussion of the tariff issue, it's been noted that in effect, the US is exporting pollution to China in that in some cases the regulations regarding pollution are laxer in China than in the US, allowing certain industries to operate there with less regulation.
So now, we are knee deep in the pig poop problem in North Carolina, inheriting a problem that could have been outsourced to China!
6
In November 2016 an unexpected Category Zilch hurricane of right wing wetness hit the American voting booth. Waters of unearned riches rose dangerously in the bank accounts of the super wealthy, while a storm trooper surge inundated the national dialogue leaving unprotected immigrant children and protected confederate statues in their wake.
The pools of pig poop were swamped and excrement flowed over the land.
As the floodwaters recede we survey the damage here and abroad, and it is immense. We will begin the cleanup in November.
The awful smell, I fear, will invade our olfactory systems for years to come. Pig poop is a harsh contaminant.
12
Trump described impending Hurricane Florence as 'tremendously big; tremendously wet".
Yesterday, as he was leaving to 'survey' the damage, he described it as "The wettest we've seen, from the standpoint of water'.
There is no tragedy that he will not compound with his ineptitude. English teachers everywhere are banging their heads on their desks.
26
@Carter Joseph
Along with the science and civics teachers.
7
Maybe the toxic waste spewing from North Carolina electric utilities coal ash waste pits will meet the toxic waste spewing from the pig poop ponds and kill each other off. That's more likely than there being anything like Trump's Clean Coal.
9
@rich
Or maybe it will hover over the state legislative houses that have created the stench.
1
The caption for the second photograph should be corrected. That's not a "hog farm". It's a hog factory.
2
@Betty's daughter A farm raises animals or produce. A factory builds stuff. Hog or pig farm is correct.
5
Well - on another front -continuing to fill his admin with the lowlifes from every corner of the Gerat GOP Swamp - ta da:
Darlyl Issa will be coming on board to use his new position as head of trade development to corrupt THAT department!
Welcome
9
So we get another sleazy grifter as a cabinet/sub cabinet level director, Brock Long. If you take a job in DC, you move to DC Brock. I am pretty sure Don the Don could have found someone within driving distance of the Capitol with better credentials than this lickspittle. And Trumps uber fuhrers complain about teleworkers in the federal workforce. This guy is the biggest grifter of all. Plus he drags aides with him, to and fro. GOP/Trump: hypocrisy is thy name.
12
I know about CAFOs (Confined Animal Feeding Operation), which are usually hog or chicken "farms". In the late '70's I worked in one that was originally a dairy farm but had been converted to raising pigs. The funniest part of the job was, in order to go in the barn, you had change out of your clothes, shower and into pants and shirt that had been laundered in the barn and wear rubber boots. Then you stepped into a pool of disinfectant before entering the hogs' homes. All this was done to prevent the hogs from catching a disease or becoming infected with some free-roaming bacteria.
The stink was eye watering, and instinct made you breathe through an open mouth to minimize the assault on the sensitive nerves in the nose whose job it is to warn you to run from things that smell bad, like skunks or rotting corpses. Eventually, the nasal receptors hit failure mode and you just went about your chores.
The pigs pens had slatted floors so their pee and poop could be collected in what was a pool of pee and poop a few feet or inches (depending on when the pit was last pumped out) below. Pretty nasty. (Now, take a moment to recall you had to change into sanitized clothing to get here.)
At the end of the day you felt like you had the Spanish Flu. But it was just your body revolting to the day-long exposure to foul gases.
Now, North Carolinians are getting the chance to have this experience in the comfort of their own homes, without having to change clothes. Lucky them.
17
"Huge body of pig poop" is a fairly apt description of He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, dontcha think?
16
So these miscreants impersonating Public servants are either liars, fools or idiots. The other option is that they are all of the above.
7
Is it coincidence that the man who chucked paper towels at the Puerto Rican citizens as they struggled to recover from the worst hurricane damage with the highest death toll in recent American history passed out hot dogs to folks struggling to recover from a hurricane that spilled massive amounts of pig poop across their state?
11
Soon the Republicans will have a pompous press conference to announce that they have successfully solved the 'pink pig poop lagoon' problem.
The poor pigs have drowned.
10
I don't see why the pig poop lagoons couldn't be sprayed onto Trump's golf course. It's a win-win.
12
Trump seems to love the razzle dazzle of a catchy tagline.
How about "DRAIN THE HOG LAGOONS!"
For added excitement, Trump can use this odorous event to blame the Democrats for causing pigs to poop in the first place. Those piggie excrement lovers!
Trump supporters will eat it up.
7
Lagoons filled with hog manure--perfect monuments to the Trump mis-administration.
11
As if not enough carcasses already floating in the Fear this week, Gail – you have to go and slay a sacred shibboleth of government-incented gentleman pork farming...
Hog lagoons...
Till this very morn – till the second cup – thought of them as little different from the bucolic and benign water hazards of the back nine of a place like the Chevy Chase Club...
Toxic only to those shooting 90’s or worse – while someone from the other party watching or taking videos...
From 35000 feet, they look virtually identical....
If the hogs coalesced in groups of four across the pastures, would need AI to tell the two apart...
Way things are going, you need you to sheathe your stiletto, or I won’t make it through the week...
More specifically, please hold off on any etymology of Foggy Bottom till after the vote – and the recounts...
.....
As Nietzsche said:
“That which doesn’t drown you, covers you in pig poo”
As more than one US Senator has said:
“If you aren’t making sausage – you’re being made into sausage”
Once the Fear subsides, Gail – we can get back to the really frightening stuff...
Like Halloween...
Was going to go as a frightening president this year – but Putin costumes already rented out...
So – going as an ineffective one...
The good news - have my choice of antebellum or postbellum...
3
Our increasingly porcine president visits the land of hog farms.
7
The pink pig poop lagoons have, indeed, flooded, with their contents spilling into the countryside polluting farms and fields and contaminating drinking water. Seems like poetic justice for this group of Trump's base. But that's kind of mean on my part. Climate change is real. Rising water levels are real. More intense storms and summer temperature change is real. Maybe spilling a little pink pig poop will get their attention.
9
According to the Washington Post Fact Checkers, Trump has passed the 5000 mark on lies and misleading statements. So I think it is reasonable to assume nearly every public statement he makes is incorrect - "fake facts".
This adds to the scientific consensus that global warming at the hand of humanity is real. Seems to me that it would be reasonable for journalists to add a preamble to any news items reporting Trump's public statements saying something to the affect that: there is a high probability that the president's remarks are either false or deliberately misleading, and assuming the opposite has low risk.
Maybe Trump would take the hint. I know, when pigs stop pooping.
10
This is a liberal publication which censors the comments when you are critical of it or the opinion columnist. So I'll be more sensitive in my comments in hopes it gets approved.
The data given in this article is junk. In 2100 we will see 39 inch increase in the water level. That's 82 years and about 0.5 (0.4756) inches per year.
This is yet another reason that people can't believe the news media. We are not robot that do think for ourselves so living on a waterfront property, I've not seen this increase.
This article lack editorial review. There could be more effort in providing data about global warming. Writing something like this to trash the president of the Untied States is real not presenting news that is relevant or helpful.
It’s opinion? That’s why Gail expressed opinions here. Her editors asked her too.
Liberal, I don’t know. The NYT has a host of conservative columnists not much brighter than Trump. The other kind, you see, are rarer than dry hogs in North Carolina.
39 inches in 82 years. So, uh, that’s ok? Are there any houses in your area that are 100 years old? Do you think maybe we should start planning now, or wait until the waves are lapping at the front step?
7
@Steve - The NYT has a Climate section. Try reading it.
7
@Steve The New York Times published and videoed scenes of the flooding. It described the hazards of pig feces contaminating drinking water. Do you consider this "fake news?"
2
Trump played it 'presidential' on his trip to the disaster area - expressing his heartfelt sorrow for people's losses, and promising the government of The United Sha-takes, would never never them down. Ugh! Pig poop by another other name would sound as sweet.
6
Time to get the big corporations to do something about the pink pig poop. This is a disaster. Total contamination. Funny, no one has asked about the pigs or the chickens. They weren't relocated.
64
@heysus Sadly thousands drowned. Big Ag should be ashamed to run these monstrosities. (Yes, vegan.)
@heysus why is it that the hog industry needs a federal bailout? as in - we pay for their relocation? Hello - how is this something the taxpayers should be paying for.
So what to do in this brave new world of “alternative facts” and kangaroo courts in the banana republic once known as the once and always great USA? Stand and be counted! Vote! VOTE!! VOTE!!!
12
I was so hoping some of the pigs would seek higher ground on the Trump golf course.
14
More Gail Collins, please. Her voice is too rich for Twitter. I avoid Facebook like the plague is it. She belongs in the NYT.
8
The biggest hog lagoon of them all can be found at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
17
So now that only 9% of North Carolinians have flood insurance, it will be on the backs of the federal government to pay for the rebuilds. Another red state sucking the coffers dry while the blue coastal states pay in and pay in and pay in some more.
10
@Armo.
Blue States have the same thing ( c.f. Sandy- NY, NJ, MA; Irene-ditto; California ( less than 10% purchase earthquake insurance).
At this point, I am not shocked by any of the lunacy from the White House. Nothing that Trump does has any backing by the smallest thread of common sense, let alone evidence or decency. If Americans don’t wake up and vote out these morons then I guess Americans deserve the environmental destruction that will destroy humans.
11
Just one small nit to pick: I think you mean "climatic disaster" (". . . the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is supposed to be our go-to expert on climactic disaster.")
3
Probably, you meant "climatic disaster" instead of "climactic disaster." But maybe not.
8
Gail: In your rambling disjoining railing you forgot to blame Trump for the hurricane!
I would agree with you but then both of us would be wrong.
Gotta say, handing out those hot dogs today, Trump looked as happy as a pig in a hog-lagoon.
10
And yet the North Carolinians continue to vote for these clowns. Let 'em sink or swim on their own, in their own pig manure. If they don't want to do that, then let 'em join the rest of us here in the 21st century.
6
Trump is debasing the Office . His ridiculous comments are bad . The prestige of the Country is suffering . But worse than that are the actual policies like the denial of climate change or the tariffs . Stupidity is never a good policy in the long run , even it feels satisfying in the short term .
8
I like the Trump golf course idea. We could also consider a statewide Trump water park.
The truly crazy thing about all this is that North Carolina is still Trump country, even after climate change flings its disastrous results directly at it. Hundred year storms are now consistently occurring every couple years or so. Go figure, I guess some idiots are just gluttons for punishment.
Unfortunately being the good people most of us are we also get to cover the costs of these annual catastrophes.
5
It is time for the racists, sexists, and xenophobes who vote republican, and claim to be pro life, to realize that climate change brings more intense storms that hurt more people. Of course, they care more about preaching than helping.
5
Having located 20,000 lost pallets of rancid bottled water in Puerto Rico, FEMA will now have plenty to send to North and South Carolina.
Now if Trump could only find the millions of boxes of paper towels he's lost.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/12/us/puerto-rico-bottled-water-dump-weir/in.
8
Why do people keep calling this administration a swamp when it so clearly is a cesspool?
I’m rapidly coming around to calling it a hog lagoon, however. It has the right smell to it.
8
But at least we’ve got a hot dog in the WH with more mustard than any of us have ever seen.
3
Never mind the flood victims. Is my golf course OK? Talk about narcissism in neon lights.
12
No, Gail, not much hope environmentally from the Trump regime. Expect the opposite. They are determined to destroy the world in the most profitable way for themselves. Let the Democrats and millenials figure out how to fix things. Then sabotage the cleanup by stealing the funds. Two hundred some odd countries in the world and we're the only ones not in the Paris Accord. An agreement that we brokered! C'mon Putin! Kim Jpng Un, step up. Trump's your chump. Talk some sense into him. Not for the sake of democracy or the USA, of course. LOL You live on earth too though. Maye you'll be the last to go. But without people to dictate to, what's the fun of totalitarianism?
5
Keep that FEMA director wright where he belongs - in the hog swamp soup.
5
To all the self-righteous NYT commenters who insist NC citizens "deserve" this unprecedented flood event simply because we GOP representatives, may I be so bold as to present a few facts?
The Federal courts have ruled the gerrymandered districts created by NC legislature are illegal. NC voters are almost evenly split between GOP and DEM voters, yet we have 85% of our US Congressional seats filled by GOP. The voters of NC are being robbed of accurate national representation by our GOP State legislature.
These same NC GOP state legislators who created these illegal districts are the ones who voted to ignore the warnings of NC science community who researched and authored the report on sea-level rise. Few of us who live near the NC coast are convinced the state legislators know more than our scientists.
This is not a regional fight - it is a national / global fight to throw off the regressive dominion of the fossil-fuel industry and their paid-for representatives. Just in the US, Houston and Harris County had as much as 60-inches of rain from Harvey, Puerto Rico was devastated by Irma, California is experience massive wildfires year after year, and Florence rained out over NC, dropping as much as 40-inches of rain near Southport NC.
So lets drop the smugness and support each other in rebuilding our nation. Vote in 2018 mid-terms as if the nation's life depends on it>
10
Gail, Always enjoy reading your columns. Keep 'em coming.
7
First things first, Ms. Collins.
That about Mr. Pruitt demanding a police motorcade as he drove to dinner--my! that made me laugh. In the long, opera bouffe catalogue of Mr. Pruitt's misdoings. . . .
. .. .that one got by me. Delightful!
And the strange-smelling Pepto Bismol--well gosh! You took Pepto Bismol, I thought, to relieve acidity--
--not bring it on.
Well boys--back to the drawing board!
Let me get serious.
Remember Mount Pelee? A volcano on the island of Martinique. In 1902, Mount Pelee erupted.
And the city of St. Pierre was wiped out. Eliminated. It comes to mind because. . . .
. . . the powers that be resolutely, implacably DENIED any such thing could happen. They had an election coming up. Voters had to be swayed. Placards posted. Speeches made. All eyes were fixed on that election.
But some were disquieted. Newspaper people. Trouble-makers. "The fake news media" we would call them. They printed their findings. Mount Pelee was restless--not a doubt. Trouble was in the offing--not a doubt.
And these reports were ignored. Or suppressed. Or contradicted by various "experts."
Till Mount Pelee really DID erupt.
Horribly!
Everyone died. Politicians--office-seekers--time-servers. EVERYONE.
(Except one guy. He was in jail.)
Folly comes at a price. You hear me?
You North Carolina legislators.
A high price.
Very high.
5
Well, at least the golf course on Lake Norman gets piled high with manure, even in the absence of a flood.
5
And you think someone who ran for office dressed as a clown was out of line?
4
Finding humor here is beyond even Gail.
1
Trump’s 2020 slogan (assuming he isn’t in an orange jumpsuit) should be “Drain the pig ponds.”
4
Come visit Trump Lagoon!!! Plenty of beach front property still available!!!
3
Trump believes climate change is a “hoax”. Can anyone with half a brain please explain how he reached this conclusion? We have two big elections coming up. Please America vote ignorance, ineptitude, and misinformation out of office.
10
How does Trump maintain his weight of 239 lbs? Look at the photo; he's twice the size of Long, who maybe weighs 170. I can only hope some of those Big Macs are clogging his coronary arteries.
10
@David Ballantyne - Every morning I wake up and check the headlines hoping he will finally have gone one burger too far.
2
The incompetence of Trump and the cast of venal grifters he surrounds himself with is stunning. Get out there in November and flush the hog waste from Congress.
10
FEMA should have given Mr.Trump a pair of waders so he could walk the devastated neighborhoods and see the plight of people who have lost everything.The only water Trump is acquainted with is that in water hazards on his golf courses.He does not even know how to talk about water except to say that it is wet and surrounds islands.There is no way the plight of the people in North Carolina will influence him to change the oil and coal people who have hijaked the EPA and its goals.
9
See here is the problem: Gail's very first sentence "O.K., I know you're obsessed about sex and the Supreme Court". Kavanaugh's attempted rape is not about "sex". This is about criminal assault and battery as well as criminal trespass. Why does Gail make lite of it? ITS NOT FUNNY!
2
Donald Trump's view of extreme weather and the resulting disasters is more than a little odd, but it's easy to see why.
This is a man who received a $17,000,000 insurance settlement when Hurricane Wilma knocked off a few shingles and blew over the odd tree at Mar-a-Lago. The money was not required for repairs, so it ended up in his pocket.
A quote from his live-in butler at the time:
“That house has never been seriously damaged,” said Senecal, discussing Mar-a-Lago’s luck with hurricanes. “I was there for all of them.”
Trump is all about Trump. And if Trump stands to make millions off catastrophic weather, how can it be bad?
11
Every Congress member from North Carolina voted against Hurricane Sandy relief. Every one. Karma?
16
"Maybe North Carolina could declare the entire state a Donald Trump golf course."
Highly unlikely. Even if the republican statehouse passed such a bill, Governor Roy Cooper is a democrat and would surely veto it.
On a more serious note, thank you Gail Collins, for the essay. It was a joy to read something, anything, not about Kavanaugh.
2
The problem, Gail, is that there are too many people living on the coast. The developers, together with local governments eager for tax revenue, have built on fragile land, have redirected natural river flows, and have destroyed the inherent ability for nature to recover from floods. This cannot be called climate change. While people are impacting the earth in many ways, and climate is certainly involved, it's the population growth that is driving the destruction of the ozone, deforestation, loss of water sources and good land for farming. It's population control in these fragile areas, and population control in general that is needed. Globally, but especially in China, India, the Middle East and Africa.
3
Thank you for persisting about the immense damage the growing anti-stewarding of our hospitable earth does.
3.4 million chickens and turkeys, and 5,500 hogs, have drowned. Sickening, innit? Literally ...
https://www.apnews.com/b92e6d5c0eca4e5392b3a6c47ff3d242
Why, after Matthew's floods, did the billions spent cheating on elections by Republican allies not go to cleaning up this mess?
I know, because it was more important to get trickle-up, criminalize poverty, prevent "those people" from voting, and segregate bathrooms. It was more important to assert sperm's rights than treat women as fully human and help children's families with health care. It was more important to make it easy for anyone to acquire arsenals of high-powered killing machines so the "militia" can apply "second-amendment solutions" if the majority win elections and elect reasonable people who care about humanity, not just the wealthy and powerful.
Disgust is too kind a word for the people worsening the deathly unhealthy predicament in which we find ourselves.
Their solution? If we mess it up too much, we can go to Mars. Never mind the prohibitive expense and unfaced realities. Months spent near space reduce bone density. The health risks we haven't solved for even short trips are legion.
How's about we heal our hospitable home, and work together to solve problems and teach tolerance and truth, not lies, hatred and exclusion. Try the Gospels if you call yourself Christian!
6
Maybe the next trump golf course could feature one of these lagoons as the water hazard.
9
Long visits home and is railed for it. Trump spends hundreds of thousands every trip to Florida and we are supposed to turn a blind eye.
5
Rex Tillerson was right.
9
I attended an informational meeting yesterday involving Senator Tim Kaine. What a breath of fresh air that was compared to the fetid porridge tossed out on a daily basis by Trump and his cowed bunch of flunkies in Congress, the White House and elsewhere. More power to the Tim Kaine's of this world. He and people like him are what made America great, not those who couldn't care less about anything except how much money they have in their stock portfolios.
10
One swamp creature after another spending money on personal travel and unneeded luxury. This administration has no ethic when it comes to spending our money. I guess that's because only other swamp creatures oversee things.
7
The ocean is rising, so don't build your house near the coast.
6
The only beings I feel sorry for in this sorry tale of human foible and woe is the hogs. 5,500 of them have drowned in their own waste.
May all those who contributed to North Carolina voting for Trump drown in their own and hog waste as their beautiful coastline rises to take their homes along the Atlantic Ocean.
Mother Nature has spoken and she's not happy with what's going on with Republican mis-information, anti-science, and anti-women - including Krysten and Brock and Don Sr. Of course FEMA will give the locals funds to rebuild in the same places. And the storm and the water will be worse next time and the next time and the next.
Someday those folks will be immigrants going to higher ground. In the meantime, vote Democratic. Democrats are on Mother Nature's side in this hog fight. And don't forget - Mother Nature is a woman, too.
7
Yeah, that'll help. Drown the humans, pity the pigs.
It's help FOx&Friends, it's what it'll help.
As a former North Carolinian, please allow me to assure your readers that the wealthy farm owners in North Carolina don't really give a rip about the hog waste lagoons. They would much prefer to just dump the hog waste directly in the river as they did for years and let the folks down stream worry about it. Which is almost what they do anyway since they spray it on crop land where it washes off into....the rivers.
The hog farmers control the State Legislature - a body that brought you the infamous "bathroom bill" replacing it only after they figured out it was costing them money. Oh, and what did they replace it with? A bill that allows local governments to decide.
That's North Carolina politics folks. Strong legislative branches and weak executive branches - a throw back to Colonial times and a hot bed of Republicanism.
154
@George in the Swamp, just plain and simple these days: Republican Party and their Oligarch bosses = immorality, criminals, hypocrites, etc, etc, etc.
4
The Creature from the Pink Lagoon
My screenplay’s ready to go.
96
Perhaps if Trump and other members of his administration and the GOP controlled Congress had a hog lagoon put in next to the White House and then outside various government buildings they'd appreciate how it feels to be next to one all day every day of the year. And then, if we added a few epic downpours so there would be an overflow into the main streets of the capitol... Nah, they still wouldn't get it.
6
@hen3ry: Interesting post. We know that congress intitiated sserious legislation for the dus the dust bowl in the ‘30’s when its dust reached Washington.
3
@hen3ry Perhaps sending small tin containers, like some candies come in, full of hog poo would work. Wrapped in attractive plastic, no one would notice until they opened them. A gift from their constituents.
4
At least the poop lagoon doesn't ask its cabinet members to take turns saying how much they like working for it.
127
Haiku
Willful ignorance--
There"s no defense against it...
Heads stuck in pig poop.
8
"This is a tough hurricane, one of the wettest we’ve ever seen from the standpoint of water.”
Heckuva job, Trumpie.
14
"Maybe North Carolina could declare the entire state a Donald Trump golf course."
You think you're kidding.
You are kidding...?
6
Climate change. It’s all funny until people get hurt. And die. And humanity goes extinct.
Here’s an oldie but a goodie that relates to floods. You’re probably familiar with this well-known animal fable:
A frog and a scorpion are on the same side of a river they both need to cross. The frog tells the scorpion that it will give the scorpion a ride on its back, but only if the scorpion promises not to sting it. The scorpion agrees, and they set off. The scorpion soon stings the frog. The frog exclaims: “Why did you do that? Now we will both die.” The scorpion explains: “I couldn’t help it. It’s in my nature.”
Now for a reading comprehension quiz. Match the item in Group A with its partner in Group B:
Group A: {frog, scorpion}
Group B: {Trump-GOP, voters}
So how did you do?
If you linked frog to Trump-GOP, you must be a Trump supporter. That’s just wrong. In fact, that’s very, very wrong.
If you matched frog to voters, then you are awarded full credit for managing to maintain some sanity since the last election.
If you happened to swap Democrats for Trump-GOP and then made them either the frog or the scorpion, you get a few points for creativity. Democrats are by no means perfect, that’s for sure, but we must recognize that they best serve the needs of the country.
Collectively, we all failed this quiz two years ago. But this is America, and we have another chance in just a couple of months. Let’s hope this time we can make it across the river alive.
7
A Trump visit AND pig poop lagoons. The jokes just write themselves, don’t they ??? And no paper towels, that was disappointing. Maybe next visit. Also, I believe that HE has finally taken the advice of his Physicians and/or Attorneys and is now medicated. He was much more of an approximation of a normal human on the TV clips of the visit, and ye olde Twitter machine has been underused, by his standards, for awhile. Or perhaps GOD has finally told Him to shape up, before November.
Too late, Donald. Your carcass is cooked. Seriously.
11
@Phyliss Dalmatian
I suspect he has been momentarily — but only momentarily — stunned by the public revelation of his mushroom problem.
5
The time has long past for The Times and all of its writers to call for him impeachment and removal from office. Next up, Pence.
7
@Ed
However emotionally satisfying that might be in the long run it's a losing proposition. Not only would we end up with President Pence, but we would make a martyr of Trump giving his supporters another grievance to wallow in. Better to just concentrate on electing as many Democrats to state, local and federal offices as possible.
6
Don't forget the two women, both grandmothers and mothers, who were being transferred to a mental hospital while chained in a sheriff's van, who drowned when deputies drove into the floods instead of away from them, chose to drive through a street that was closed, and when they were trapped in the water, saved themselves but left the two women chained in the van to drown. Disgusting.
739
Thank you Linda for understated perfection of yet another grotesque impunity chronicle from the contagious age of Trumpian perversions. Add this human nightmare to the pandemic tome of criminal acts of man mislabeled as act of god. Our deepest condolences to the patients and families made to suffer so acutely and unnecessarily.
5
@Linda Yes. I hope they are prosecuted for manslaughter.
3
This is a horrible heart wrenching story plus the babies killed by trees falling on trailer park homes plus the thousands of farm animals killed. I am not yet veg but have not eaten anything with 4 legs for close to 40 years. I need to take the final leap. What is so upsetting is the fact that despite the USA claiming so much religiosity there is so little respect for life that is not wealthy, the mentally ill and probably the babies were people of colour.
These recurring disasters are not having a sobering effect to cut methane and CO2 emissions. Perhaps if we flew Inhofe, Long, and Trump over one of the flooded hog waste lagoons and dropped them in for an up close and personal experience they would realize "It's the global warming, Stupid." Short of that, I am not optimistic.
112
So the Carolinas, land of religious republicans and libertarians, is awash. As FEMA rushes in and federal dollars flow, where are the anti-government cries from the multitude of Koch "think tanks" on the virtues of self-reliance and the horrors of feeding at the public trough? Alas, it is true -- there are no libertarians in a disaster zone.
17
It's time to scrap the entire Hurricane naming system. From now on, let's just go with a single name that's easy to remember. As in: "The National Weather Service expects Category 4 Hurricane Inhofe to hit Cleveland early tomorrow after leaving a swath of destruction along the entire Eastern Seaboard before reforming over Hudson's Bay and leap-frogging into the Great Lakes. Meanwhile three other storms: Tropical Depression Inhofe, Tropical Storm Inhofe, and Category 7 Superstorm Inhofe are lined up off the coast of Africa and headed west. These latest Inhofes are the first of the 2025 Atlantic season, which now lasts from February through November.
Cleveland's Mayor remarked, 'Our city was Inhofed three years ago; how much more can we take?'"
7
Future President Bloomberg will do a much better job.
Sure, he'd hand out rice cakes instead of hot dogs, and he doesn't believe in anyone having a good time, but he'd put the right people in the important positions.
If this had happened on Bloomberg's watch everyone would already be on terra firma, then a few weeks later they'd be wishing for another hurricane after he made the inclusion of bike lanes a condition of the recovery effort, but at least they'd be dry.
Oh, wait. This is North Carolina. Tobacco country. Maybe they're better off with Trump. Bloomberg would send them a shipment of 16 ounce cups and tell them to bail themselves out.
3
@Taustine: NO. No more businessmen presidents. We need to make an effort get rid of businessmen at every level of politics. It is clear that most of them treat government as a trough at which to fatten themselves, their donors, and their cronies.
We need teachers, academics, artists, social workers, nurses, call center operators, environmentalists, and many from other walks of life who have real life experience working with the manifold problems this country faces, from medical and student debt to housing, food insecurity, and navigating the huge obstacles that out-of-control consumption and corporatism have thrown into our path toward sustaining human life on the planet.
14
@Gary Taustine Bloomberg would have stayed in the Paris Accord, and advanced the battle against global warming, which would better be done as biosphere destruction. Look it up.
5
@Allison
Of course, I would love to see people from other walks of life as president, and maybe one day we'll get there, but for now we have to be realistic, if it comes down to Trump v. Bloomberg, who would you choose?
What other Democratic candidate in the current pool of suggestions has a chance to beat Trump in 2020?
"Maybe North Carolina could declare the entire state a Donald Trump golf course."
The only part of the environment Trump DOES care about is golf courses. The flood waters may be deep, but Trump is shallow.
9
If Democrats gain control of Congress, and after that the Presidency in 2020, how about passing stringent legislation preventing the inflow of any federal dollars to states that refuse to adhere to federally mandated flood control policies, planning, and procedures, in addition to not insuring any property flooding risks located in those states. Tough love? You bet, when every other attempt at changing harmful behaviors have largely failed.
By the way Gail, any inside info as to how many of those hot dogs the Fake President ate while on his photo op to the Carolinas?
15
Trump wouldn't recognize a sunset if he saw one.
3
@Frederick Green: Even if he did recognize one, he wouldn't be admiring it; he'd be wondering why it wasn't setting directly at his feet.
5
We can't expect much out of the FEMA guy. He's too busy trying to avoid saying anything offensive about Trump which is pretty much a full time job. Meanwhile, as the earth heats up, Trump wants to burn more coal. Republicans can't govern.
22
I believe some of the highest points on the Florida peninsula are about 39" above sea level. If the ocean rises by 39" in Carolina it will be a bit more further south. Say good bye to Miami Beach, Disney World and the rest of the rich old people's paradise. Or... good riddance, which ever you prefer.
The nations of Europe found they could not cope with the mass migration of drought refugees from Syria; and we were only talking a few million people seeking asylum from Global Wierding. When that number turns into the billions we are finally going to understand why the Joint Chiefs of Staff rate climate change as a top priority for national defense.
If we think the chaos and anarchy that exists withing the t rump administration and his party is something to see; just wait for the chaos and anarchy that will accompany the movement of 80% of the 7 billion people who live near coastal areas.
Coal is not coming back.
Extraction of oil and gas is coming to an end.
Not because of the onerous regulations that don't really seem to exist in the real world; but because the costs of alternatives is dropping, which means the profits involved with those industries are rising.
We need to send t rump; all republicans; and their enablers in the koch bother's world to the dustbins of history. And we need to do it NOW!!
18
You observe:
"The president came in for some criticism when, while distributing free hot dog lunches, he told one flood victim to “have a good time.” It is absolutely true that our commander in chief tends to babble."
Well, Gail, at least he avoided tossing the hot dogs into the crowd, as he did with paper towel rolls in Puerto Rico. Progress has been made!
14
I think most people don't care about an issue unless it affects them directly and personally. Whether its pig farms or climate change. You have to make a connection between cause and effect first, but as Al Gore so aptly pointed out, it is just an inconvenient truth. So we ignore it, until it personally slaps us in our face.
5
This is not a Democrats vs. GOP thing. It is an Earth thing. And we keep blowing it.
6
Have a good time?? Have a good time?? I hope the recipient of that hot dog and "Have a good time." was a Trump voter who now understands the disaster is not just related to the flooding.
21
here's a thought- we, the human race, are done. we have reached the tipping point.... no, not the climate change tipping point, we passed that 30 years ago at least. the tipping point i refer to is the human ignorance tipping point. we now have enough ignorant people that what the rest of the curious and intelligent populace thinks or does makes absolutely no difference. enjoy the ride down.
6
Trump: “I’ve spent my entire life and business looking at the untapped potential in projects and in people all over the world. That is now what I want to do for our country.”
Gail's column today is helpful in assessing how businessman Trump and his "very best people" are "managing" climate change, the environment, and the environmental disasters we face.
How smart was Trump to bring back dirty coal, reject renewable energy sources (where there is much more money to be made in the future), and put business interests over clean air and water needed to sustain life.
How mind-boggling brilliant was Trump to rescind and scrap the environmental regulations Obama instituted, and how clever to put the most corrupt and incompetent people in charge of every government agency the Kochs and GOP don't like because they interfere with business profits.
So how good are businessmen as US Presidents?
When historians and political scientists evaluate the best and worst Presidents in our history on leadership, political skill, character integrity, there is a pattern. In the 20th and 21st centuries, the worst US Presidents were those who were businessmen, many of whom were successful at business but not at being President: Hoover, Coolidge, George W. Bush and Harding.
Truman was an unsuccessful businessman, but rated as a good president.
Reagan said government was the problem. The evidence says mostly when GOP businessmen run it.
Be careful who you vote for. Glub, glub!
8
After nearly two years of trump there isn't much left to say other than vote this November and remove as many climate change deniers as you can.
16
Perhaps Trump should issue an executive order declaring that the sea level cannot rise, that extreme hurricanes and other weather cannot form or hit the USA. Yeah, that will work... after all he is "Master of the Universe."
1
@George N. Wells, and he was “God’s chosen one” to deliver god’s will?!!
Is coastal flooding so dramatically different to 100 years ago?
Or is the apparent increase in such events more attributable to, in the same period: a) massive and heedless settlement of coastal areas including often on reclaimed/improved land, and b) the development of instant world news, which magnifies every natural disaster beyond anything understood in 1900?
What does the data really show? I'd be more impressed with an in-depth study of this issue by the New York Times, sans ideological blinkers if possible (but don't hold your breath), rather than this predictable polemic.
And by the way, a substantial number of scientists do not accept the idea of man-made climate change, or, if it is real, that it is necessarily bad. Why assume a pre-climate change state, on a net economic basis, is superior to a warmer world? It's a form of Luddite thinking, plain and simple, to which the left is chronically prone.
As so often, the left proves more small "c" conservative than its hackneyed targets on the right.
@Gerald
J. Cook, et al, "Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature," Environmental Research Letters Vol. 8 No. 2, (15 May 2013); DOI:10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/024024
Quotation from page 3: "Among abstracts that expressed a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the scientific consensus. Among scientists who expressed a position on AGW in their abstract, 98.4% endorsed the consensus.”
13
@Gerald Ask your question in a form that produces a testable hypothesis. As a counter example, "What does the data really show?" is not a scientific question.
I think you are proposing to test the hypothesis: Has the total coastal land area that floods each year remained constant over the last 100 years? This is an interesting question, and in a cursory search, I couldn't find a study that answers it directly. Many studies have shown that total coastal land area flooding is expected to increase over the next 50 - 100 years. These studies explicitly consider population increase and increased urban area: it is not an ignored part of the problem. There are many excellent science blogs that cover these topics in the way you suggest would be more interesting (i.e. with data). Perhaps you should check them out?
4
@AllisonThanks, I will, fair enough. But the NYT should even more so, given its resources and reputation (?) as a newspaper of record.
Since Americans are most concerned with their property and the next fall tv season , most of us know the sun will come out and the air will clear and we can be assured we’ll all get that pulled pork sandwich just the same.
My heart breaks for the children and the generations to come. We are putting them , our children in harms way over and over again. We let them hide for cover when the shooting starts and we let them run for their life when the water rises and the flames get closer and we make them less likely to afford a better health and education.
America we must protect our coming generations. The world is watching. What are our priorities : better pork and tv or our children ?
5
As a nation and society we dont believe in common sense. Dont inhabit flood plains. Dont build on cliffs. Dont build cities in the desert. The eastern third of NC is going to be under water permanently with sea level rise. Not to mention NYC.
7
People have been wondering why the response here is different than it was a year ago in Puerto Rico. Some claim racism.
Not this time, folks! You see, even though Puerto Rico is a US territory, the people there have no electoral votes and cannot vote in presidential elections. Texas (with Harvey), Florida (with Irma) and the Carolinas (with Florence)--they do, and all of these states went for Trump two years ago. So *of course* he's going to help them... the Puerto Ricans *didn't* vote for him (or anyone), so they can go fly a kite (or use some paper towels).
And of course he's now denying the number of people who died in Puerto Rica as the result of Maria. It's all a conspiracy by the liberal media to make me look bad, he says. I suppose trying to convince him that everything that happens doesn't ALL center on him would be a waste of time.
15
Trump only cares about climate change when it involves one of his golf courses. He was concerned enough over in the UK to to seek funding to build a sea wall around his course due to CLIMATE CHANGE.
Lake Norman, maybe you'll GET THE WALL.
CONGRESS! WAKE UP!
7
Leave it to Trump to reduce the horrors of Florence to a photo op and proclamation that under his leadership the response to Florence was spectacular. These are the words of our eloquent and empathetic president: The storm was terribly big and terribly wet. (Can someone please offer him a crash course in building vocabulary?) As always, Donald Trump has a magnificent grasp of the obvious. Let's hope for a Democratic tidal wave in the mid-terms and 2020 to pull Trump and all his flotsam and jetsam to sea.
15
Gail,
I was praying that you'd include a no-doubt-priceless, snarky take on our buffoon-in-chief's penetrating observation: "one of the wettest in terms of water". Alas, it was not to be, but I still can't stop laughing at this boob's incomprehensible assembly of words and, alarmingly, the fractured thoughts that might underlie them. Thank you for your continuing satiric insights -humor in The Time Of Trump is a last link to sanity.
15
If the flood waters have covered and then recede from Trump's Lake Norman golf course, it will be buried in a deep layer of muck. Which kind of reminds me of his entire administration.
5
Sonnel, of California, warns against conflating weather and climate. However, while the individual storms are, indeed, weather events, the frequency and intensity of such events has increased and this can be attributed to global warming. And should be.
7
North Carolinians can at least take comfort in the fact that Trump gave some of them free hot dog lunches.
This is a step up from the rolls of paper towels he tossed out into a crowd of relief workers in Puerto Rico a year ago in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.
He may have a slow learning curve, but who can say the man doesn't have empathy.
5
First, I'll preface this-While I find Ms. Collins' wit to generally be beyond reproach, the last few years it often strikes me as out of place. Somehow with Trump we have crossed over the line of all civility. Nothing he does is anything but sinister and/or tragic.
So the humor goes on, as such.
Anybody else beginning to notice a sameness going on? A depressing daily decline? Is there really anything funny watching the United States make wrong turn after wrong turn?
Until there are no more wrong turns to make? Thank you Reagan, Bush Sr. and W. And now Trump, who seems to be at war with much of his own cabinet. I don't see how this will end well-I'm guessing it's not supposed to.
16
What you write here Gail is really wonderful to read, and it is also damn serious. This nation has to decide how much we're going to pay for each storm, or, as you write, stop rebuilding these perilous zones after each storm.
I had only a few sips of my Mexican Chiapas coffee this morning before I misread your statement as, "Go North, Carolina", mentally misplacing that comma. I suppose that would be one solution. Nearly everybody I know in Jersey positively worships the Carolinas. They're the ones moving down there into the flood-prone areas. Carolinians could go North.
And trump and his band of misfits can't conclude *any* longterm strategy, let alone one for global warming. All I see is that if you're flooded, trump visits with some paper towels and hands out junk food. But that's far better than when he opens his mouth.
Those little trumpkins just love trump's babbling. They are the true trump believers. They're standing down there up to their keisters in hog poop eating trump hot dogs just waiting for trump to rebuild them. The Times interviewed families who've done this twice. The article noted that they were getting tired of the whole thing.
Well, back to serious science. Florence wasn't what we call a *wind* event. It was a major flooding event, as we well know. But Vermont suffered the same thing from Hurricane Irene. So if Carolinians go North, they could run into the same flooding. Hopefully they don't bring trump with them.
12
Climate change is definitely real, but... please don't confuse weather with climate. Every hurricane or tropical storm is not evidence of climate change... there have been horribly destructive storms for millennia. When anybody thinks, "we can't let this crisis of Florence, Maria, Harvey, Katrina, etc go to waste... must make our point about climate change..." a lot of people are thinking "there you go again, confusing weather with climate" and they nudge away from sensible long-term measures to grapple with climate change.
@sonnel It is the SLOWNESS of the hurricanes which scientists connect with global warming, the same slowness that is making so many of them major flooding events. And that IS relevant here,
8
@sonnelThe only confused people are ones like you. The Carolinas have had two 500 year storms in two years precisely because climate change affects weather. Increasing ocean surface temperatures, due to climate change, increase the severity of hurricanes, weather. We are not confusing anything, you are refusing to engage with unpleasant reality. Informed and thoughtful people don’t “nudge away from sensible long-term measures to grapple with climate change”, immature, thought-free people who don’t want to make an effort to change do.
You are correct in that individual weather phenomenon cannot be traced to climate change. On the other hand, the flooding in the Carolinas is exactly the kind of thing you would expect to see if climate change is real. Sadly, this is only the beginning, and politicians will say nothing that impacts the value of their constituents oceanfront property.
We, even Republicans, will all eventually accept climate change as reality. Hopefully it won’t be too late make a difference.
2
From what I have read, only three percent of N. Carolina home owners have flood insurance and just nine percent in S. Carolina. This surprises me as one would think mortgage companies would require flood insurance in areas prone to flooding as is the obvious case in the southern coastal states.
It makes little or no sense to rebuild these homes in an area which will again be flooded. Hurricane Matthew occurred only two years ago. Some of these same homes were flooded then.
20
@allen roberts
Why it makes you think mortgage companies are backed by banks that are backed by us!
The "lagoon buyout program!" Reminds me of the "whole herd buyout program" proposed to correct the problem of overproduction of milk in the mid-'80s. As some wag quipped, "how come we don't have a program like that for attorneys?"
19
US legislation is entirely driven by lobbyists of large corporations, whose money Congress members need to get (re-)elected, i.e. to manipulate voters with deceptive ads.
So which corporations would benefit from legislation to mitigate climate change? Insurance companies? Not really, they will just raise premiums to drive people in flood risk zones out of their insurance pool. Moreover, the effects of any such legislation are too far in the future. Alternative energy companies? Yes, but their size is dwarfed by the fossil fuel companies who already have a well oiled lobby army in place.
I'm not just talking about Republican failure to represent citizens here. Even under liberal control, the US (and Canadian) government has chosen cheap energy from environmentally awful fracking over a choice for green energy.
It will take a long time to wean Americans from oil.
20
“President Trump does not believe in climate change.”
When discussing climate change, we need to change our terminology from one of religion to one based on facts. One believes in the existence of God, a thing essentially unknowable and unprovable. On the other hand, one trusts verifiable phenomena, the observation of which we call science. Religion demands at some level the suspension of trust in human faculties; science doesn’t exist without trust in the observation of phenomena. Belief systems vary by human being; science is universal. Science that depends on belief is not science.
From this perspective, it is more accurate to say, “President Trump does not trust the science behind climate change.”
31
No, he doesn’t believe it because it gets in the way of profits; there is nothing mystical or scientific in his thinking process.
6
@iridiumred
It is not that Mr. Trump does not trust the science behind he climate change thesis, it is that Trump and the entire Republican Party do not find it convenient or profitable to trust that science.
3
Barrier islands are supposed to be that. Barriers against storms that flood the coast with tidal flooding. Stop building houses on them. They all should be public lands that can be used for recreation but not homes and buildings.
The Republican Party has adapted a win at any cost mentality, that has no moral bounds. The epitome of this is this congress led by Mitch and Paul, the No Nothings and do Nothings . Their plan for remaining in office is to use voter suppression to limit democracy, and denials of science to please their citizens united benefiters. Resist and Vote!
52
@tom
We can't control everything that happens. The ocean goes up and down depending on a lot of variables we yet to fully understand. The 39 inches is there to scare people to join the club the Republicans are ruining the world.
Hurricanes have been with us longer than Donald Trump. Good people disagree with global warming. In my teens it was reported we where going to have an ice age again.
Interesting...when a private citizen loses control of finances she has to suffer the consequences of bankruptcy. Otherwise we get "moral hazard"--people do not face the full consequences of their actions and therefore behave badly. But, when a state government does it, as in squelching an "inconvenient" scientific study, we are fine with sending in the feds and letter the politicians of the state off the hook. ...no moral hazard problem there! The politicians who suppressed that report out to go to jail, just like the rest of us who make mistakes and then refuse to pay the piper.
32
Has anyone explained to Donnie that sea level rise is going to make much of New York City, including Trump Tower and all his properties, uninhabitable? That his heirs and descendants will inherit precisely nothing there? This might come to pass much sooner than we can predict. But he blithely, moronically continues literally pouring fuel on the fire.
32
Why do we have to pay for National Flood Insurance for others who cannot obtain it from private sources due to recklessly building in flood prone areas? Not only do we provide insurance for such building but we also pay to rescue those who have been inundated.
27
@Ros, et al.,
That is the conundrum. Of course, the real estate that comprises the known flood-plains is generally seen as the most desirable and expensive and therefore in need of federally subsidized protection.
If poor folk all the lands near water that tends to flood nobody would care and we would blame the owners for being stupid by building on a flood plain.
The human condition tends to make us desire to be close to the water as well as ignore any and all warning signs that what we are doing is stupid.
1
I wish the NYTimes wrote more about the impact to every day lives from climate change. We only seem to read about it when there is a natural disaster.
30
@Janice Badger Nelson The impact of anthropogenic global warming is an unnatural disaster. Since it is anthropogenic, we can (although it will require significant sacrifice) address the root causes. That the US, in particular, chooses not to is worth reporting. The message is loud and clear enough for the rest of the world. (BTW, The Times publishes a news letter covering the ongoing disturbances and their ramications.)
2
The problem of limited homeowners insurance has gone on all of my rather long life. Insurance companies do not wish to insure people who actually need insurance, such as people in flood and earthquake zones or near nuclear power facilities for disasters involving those elements. There is a state-by-state solution that is possible, but massive Federal relief programs show that this is a national problem that FEMA is ill-equipped to handle.
Homeowners' Insurance should be required to carry a provision to cover a fixed amount of the value of the structure of the home such as 80% of replacement cost regardless of the cause of the damage. As things stand, taxpayers bail out financially devastated homeowners who did not obtain or could not afford flood or earthquake insurance and then have fallen victim to such disasters.
If every homeowners policy sold in America contains such a provision, the added cost of coverage would be spread across the entire insurance pool and be relatively minimal. Further, as the 2011 East Coast earthquake showed, such events can happen in unlikely places. Climate change suggest that more such unlikely events are bound to happen. I do not suggest that taxpayers should bear the burden of additional coverage, rather simply that homeowners as a group cover the cost of protecting one another's home from fire, wind, water, and earth movement, and even nuclear disaster.
13
@Tom Jeff Sadly, you are dreaming or jesting. Consider ... the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare, doing for health insurance pretty much what you suggest for homeowners insurance.
Republicans reject it outright and immediately.
1
Well, Trump and his administration may not believe in climate change, but the insurance companies do. It will be much harder to keep rebuilding in these areas unless the Feds step in.
19
Here is the dynamic. Bad things happen and Democrats attempt to lessen the pain. Republicans stand on the sideline and criticize Democrats for not saving everybody. Many continue to vote Republican, because they feel no pain.
It is very clear that until there is sufficient pain, most people will continue to pick Republican, because they simply don’t care about anybody else.
The problem is that with the environment, the pain will be felt by sufficient people only when it is too late.
46
@K. Corbin: trump isn't sufficient pain?
8
And yet the federal government keeps bailing out those that deliberately build and live in harms way of floods and hurricanes. Why ?
Seems to me that any intelligent being would move to higher ground instead of living in an area that is regularly hit by devastating NATURAL EVENTS which are obviously getting worse all the time.
22
@USMC1954Perhaps you and fellow residents of St. Louis on the Mississippi, along with the 30 million or so who live along the river might want to move to "higher ground."
1
The ocean may rise 39 inches by 2100 on the coast of North Carolina? Is that enough to flood Trump's golf club at Lake Norman? Regardless, that's a lot of ocean from the standpoint of watery, liquid wetness.
19
@WRosenthal I don't believe Mr. Trump worries about 2100. He and we will be dust by then and he does not seem to be too worried about what happens after his and our demise.
1
I believe there was a coal ash spill as well. These pits have been the subject of alarm from environmentalists as well. And here we go... appears they were right.
32
President Trump and the relief and recovery brigades are on their way, North Carolina. The paper towels should be arriving any day. Try and hang in there in the meantime.
39
When the flood waters recede, will we be alerted that oceans are retreating?
6
@Mike We'll pass more laws about outlawing talking about global warming and tell the oceans exactly that.
2
@Mike You don't understand the situation. Flood water will recede, but sea level will continue to rise.
2
Sorry, but this is just depressing. As if we need more "depressing" at this moment with "Russiagate", "Kavanaugh Maw" and Mr. Look at my Thumbs Go!
enough.
15
This is a lot more than "just depressing" to those of us who live in North Carolina. Flood damage is much more serious, and much more expensive in the long run, than "Russiagate", "Kavanaugh Maw" and even Mr. Look at my Thumbs Go! It is insulting that you would consider the storm damage here to be "just depressing" at such a superficial level.
1
@B - Kavanaugh will inflict pain on this country that will make flood damage look like a picnic.
There is good news here.
If the junk science lefties are proven correct, then the entirety of New York City will be inundated, and upstate New York's socialist problem will finally be solved.
There's a silver lining to every cloud.
2
@Objectivist
Next time a storm hits Mass. we in "socialist" New York may rejoice.
1
You clearly don’t what science is, much less socialism
3
@Objectivist Your knowledge of NYC geography is almost matched by your knowledge of science.
4
PLEASE give up the fantasies. Face reality. Climate change is real. The oceans are rising. The earth is hotter. You will not be magically spared when the fires and the floods come. The second coming will not come, will NEVER come.
Christianity is about love for ourselves and others. It is not about escaping from the truth. It is not about magically being taken care of in this life. The book of "Revelations" was a dream and is an allegory. You can take that allegory to heart and reform your life, give away your wealth, follow the teachings of Jesus. But you are not going to be magically transported to a human idea of heaven.
GET REAL
45
@memosyne: If you believe that the second coming is "the fire next time", then God in his wisdom is allowing us to light it for ourselves. He has given us free will to destroy ourselves since Eden.
1
Son to dad: Dad, what is science and what are facts?
Dad to son: I don't know son, were Republicans.
39
As president, Trump continues to play the host at Mar-a-lago.
9
The voters elect these fools, so we get exactly what we vote for.
Not all that complicated. Live with it or change the government. The only other alternative is to just do it yourself in your own life.
123
@Philip Currier Excuse the correction: trump did NOT win the popular vote. We do not elect presidents by majority....unfortunately!!!
Also it is difficult to believe people still trust trump...5 banruptcies, cheated on wives...all 3...fired from Apprentice show and settled every lawsuit. Yet he claims the FBI and Climate Change experts are liars????????????? You have to be ignorant or rich to trust this charlatan.
2
Ms. Collins: A quibble. The controversy currently swirling around the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court is not about, as you write in your first line, sex. "Sex" implies consent. This is about an attempted rape.
57
@Paul Facinelli She could also be referring to Stormy Daniels and the first tidbits coming out from her book.
1
Uh oh. The Donald forget to bring the paper towels. Yet more evidence of dysfunction in the Oval Office
16
Even if there were no global warming it would still be a bad idea to put buildings in floodplains. Global warming just makes the case against building more urgent.
26
Ha ha, that was great! At least laughing at the toxic Carolinas is better than banging your head on a wall trying to convince them about anything remotely related to global warming and flooded toxic pig farms.
It’s already too late; the only remaining option will be geoengineering the atmosphere and that has serious risks and unknown consequences. The government will pay to rebuild, another worse storm will come and disasters will be a way of life until it gets so bad despair will lead to massive science projects to try and get back to a normal climate. And it will not work.
Seriously, don’t you understand? The earth is on path to catastrophic climate change, and it will make the place unliveable. We are all too late. In only two generations, anyone that has kids will be placing them into a awful situation. The entire structure of human cooperation would have to change in a massive and radical effort to stop global warming.
Ha ha ha! Too funny! What are the odds of that happening?
12
In my next life maybe I will be Chinese. It is time to be on the winning side!
9
It's never too soon to start learning the language of the next global power.
Ms. Collins, you are a national treasure. Do us all a favor: Make "flooded hog lagoon" follow the Trump administration around like "dog on the roof of the family car" tagged Mitt Romney's campaign. Please. Pretty please with pink bacteria on it. Please and thank you.
20
No mention of the citizen who won a "free" yacht?
9
@Max Deitenbeck I have met slugs with more personality.
Future generations will hold us responsible for our failures. We should be ashamed.
6
@Amelia - If we don't get our collective butt in gear regarding global warming and slowing/stopping it, there will be very few future generations to hold us responsible for anything.
1
Ms. Collins once again smirks through her column, which is based which blames Trump for global warming and avoids the fact that Obama did nothing for 8 years to impact the environment, other than the toothless Paris agreement. Trump's asserted failures in the last 12 months did not change the weather; it was the failure of O and the dems that has doomed us.
You seem to forget, No (superb name!), that for eight years, virtually every initiative and every piece of proposed legislation was undermined from the get-go. I leave it to you to work out who did that.
Yes, more could have been done - with a more co-operative Congress, for example.
But now, we see the Republicans turning the clock back and doing their utmost to undo everything - in your telling, everything that Mr Obama didn't do.
p.
3
Unfortunately this was all inevitable, and will continue to play out this way, until we reach critical mass.
There are always "climate deniers", whether the problem is lung cancer and tobacco, chlorofluorocarbons and the ozone, air and water pollution, lead in paint, pipes and gasoline, or anything else. There are people who are making money from it, and who don't want it to be true, to be bad, or to impact their wallets.
Enter the Koch brothers.
Then there are all of the pliable people that believe what they read, and only get their information from selected sources, so they willingly and passionately play the game against their own interests.
Enter North Carolina voters.
What does it take to change this? Natural disasters and personal loss, on a scale that convinces 90% of Americans that action must be taken. Sort of like with gun violence and gun control.
Oh, wait. Sorry. Enter the NRA (or, for climate change, the Heritage Foundation, the Global Warming Policy Foundation, and a host of others).
Maybe 95%.
I do believe this will inevitably change. But it takes a Trump, being and giving too much power to the blatantly evil and ignorant, for people to finally wake up, rise up, and do what needs to be done. I do think that this will happen, and Trump and Pruitt and the others are necessary evils that we need – let me repeat that, that *we need* – in order to wake people up before it's too late. We need ultimate stupidity to get us to collectively be smart.
9
Maybe Andrew Wheeler will turn North Carolina into the
coal ash state. Can you play golf on coal ash?
9
What coal industry needs is a “George Washington Carver” talent to do for coal what he did for the peanut,—find new and health and environmentally safe uses for coal!
snarky but on target. hog lagoons are not “treated with bacteria” - they fester with bacteria, many of which are drug resistant as a result of our governments resistance to the recommendations of WHO and the better examples of many countries
23
There's another way to look at this. If the Chinese are behind this, we ought to impose a tariff on them for sending all this water into the U.S. and not taking any of ours. But wait. Look at all the money to be made rebuilding all these houses in the exact same spot where they are now. Keep up the good work China. You are helping to create jobs for Americans and profit for American corporations. And we can look forward to your continued work destroying American communities that need to be rebuilt every few years. How can we get angry at that?
2
To save any state from harm and destruction what needs to be done is to give Trump and his republican toadies a swift kick out with a sharp pointed boot in whatever place hurts them the very most.
27
I can't laugh any more. None of this is funny.
btw, Gail the issue with the SCOTUS nomination isn't about sex, it's about sexual assault. I would have thought a woman like you would be a bit more sensitive and aware of this fact.
12
Didn't think you knew there was a Department of Agriculture.
Just like North Carolina didn't know they had a planning department.
4
Just another story about money and politics. (Aren't they all?)
3
"Maybe North Carolina could declare the entire state a Donald Trump golf course."
Probably would work. That is the way things work in most banana republics, and we are rapidly becoming a banana republic run by corrupt plutocrats.
21
Buying out these massive farms is the ultimate pork project.
It sounds like small organic farmers won’t be eligible for funds since they haven’t created a massive, toxic excrement-storm.
11
“The president came in for some criticism, when while distributing free hot dog lunches, he told one flood victim to “have a good time.”
And after throwing those “...beautiful, soft towels. Very good towels.” to the hurricane victims in Puert Rico, Trump said, “I was having fun, they were having fun.”
From disaster sites, to political rallies, to golf courses, have we ever had a president who spread such good cheer and enjoyed the presidency more? In fact “from the standpoint” of “having a good time,” this is definitely the “funnest” presidency ever!
8
I guess people living near a coastline just has to resign themselves to being flooded almost every year as Republicans stand firm on doing nothing that will benefit the non-rich.
Let's hope the next Florence washes Mar-a-lago away then see what happens, if anything.
18
"Maybe North Carolina could declare the entire state a Donald Trump golf course."
Well, Poland's already using that logic to convince the US to fund a military base there - Fort Trump!
Folks have begun to realize that the only way to persuade Trump is to appeal to his great, gawping vanity.
What an insecure, petty little man we have for president.
30
@HN, he's not a little man, what with that expanding waistline, but a man with a little brain.
1
Probably due to space limitations you didn't mention that we in the Blue states will now be paying, again, for barges to pump sand from the ocean to re-re-re-make the beaches.
22
"this is one of the wettest we've ever seen from the standpoint of water-"
Our President.
57
@Dominique - Not mine, ever.
3
@Dominique
A true covfefe moment.
2
"O.K., I know you’re obsessed about sex and the Supreme Court."
Seeing Brock Long (Hurricanes cause spousal abuse deaths) and Donald Trump (who needs a hurricane) no matter where they are no matter what the issue, that need can be satisfied just by looking at them.
4
I don`t. know about anyone else; but I am getting so tired of waiting for Trump to show just a glimmer of reality in the middle of tragedies that have killed people and ruined God knows how many lives. He obviously just does not get it; when it comes to how 99% of all Americans can not just wander off to one of many personal golf courses while your home has been destroyed and you do not know where your next meal will come from. But hey; have a hot dog and enjoy yourself?! One cannot help but wonder if the man has truely lost touch with reality. If there is no way to force those around Trump to admit delusional and dangerous mental lapses; the U.S. (and the world) are in bigger trouble than even I have feared for 2 long years now. Oh well; off to the golf course.
26
I don't think he's lost touch with reality, Greg - I don't think he was ever in touch in the first place.
p.
@Jerry and Peter; TRUE!
Donald Trump: "One of the wettest we've ever seen from the standpoint of water". Such erudition.
17
Time and tide wait for no man. Just as medieval King Canute -- who failed to make the sea obey his command -- drowned in Norman England in 1029, so will the Republicans and Donald Trump drown in early 21st Century America. Extinction for the Republicans will be swifter than they can imagine, given their demented leader, who throws out paper-towel rolls and doles out hotdogs to Hurricane survivors Not funny at all, Gail Collins. We are pivoting to extreme climate-warming because of human beings' activities on Earth, despite claims that waters flooding our seacoasts are just "climate-hoax". Denying science today is as asinine as denying that the earth revolves around the sun (Galileo Galilei, 1630). Extinction waits for no man, and we're wondering today if the hog waste, chicken manure and coal-ash lagoons will overflow following Hurricane Florence and poison inhabitants of North and South Carolina tomorrow?
10
Why can't we drop the orange ooompaloompa into one of those pink lagoons? Probably smells just like 1500 Pennsylvania Avenue.
21
As numerous Failing NYTimes exposes have pointed out, it's already too late to save the environment. Better to save the money and give the Needy One Percent more tax cuts. There's one good idea here: more Trump golf courses. With lots of water hazards.
4
People who deny clmate science may change their minds after wading around in hog manure and coal ash for a few weeks. They may also change their minds about a president who tells them to "have a good time" as he distributes hot dogs.
13
DT has the most ill-fitting clothes of anyone in an executive position.
9
@Dandy - I noticed too. That pic explains a lot. Anatomically speaking, he really does need a really long red tie.
It is hard to cut clothes for that type of physique. It looks like he has short arms as well as short fingers.
@Dandy
It's like putting a suit on a bowling ball.
1
Do you think they care about the future? 2100 is too, distant for the instant gratification crowd. 39 inches is not that much, ( at least compared to Trump's fingers).
To the crowd in question, the secret to life is understanding the "Greater Fool Theory". kinda like the securities markets.
Get in. Puff your chest. Dye your hair. Show them your Ostrich jacket. Promote the swamp as if it's the Sea of Joy. Then get out and sell the next pipe dream. (Pipes are now legal you know)
Things go bad. Blame the press!
11
I’m surprised Trump didn’t use a hotdog gun to shoot hotdogs to the people. They use them at baseball games to shoot them to the fans and it would have been slightly better than when he tossed rolls of paper towels to hurricane victims in Puerto Rico. Oh, yeah, and have a good time.
13
@Amanda Bonner
A hotdog gun??? Surely, you jest.
@ASW Yes. A hotdog gun. A foil wrapped hotdog is loaded into a hand held thing that blasts the hot dog into the stands at baseball games. I've seen the Fanatic (the mascot of the Phillies) do it at Philadelphia Phillies games and elsewhere. I've also seen the"gun" used to shoot rolled T-shirts to the fans.
Is it really bad that I didn’t feel any personal sympathy for the victims of this hurricane?
It reminds me of those lower-class folks in West Virginia who are dying because of the lack of healthcare. They say Obamacare is the only thing keeping them alive. But they support Trump 100%.
And Trump is a big hero in the Carolinas. Get out your swimsuits. Practice your backstroke.
15
@David G. - Remember that in NC the voting districts are illegally gerrymandered to give the GOP more representation than it warrants, AND that the courts decided to let this November's elections be determined by that map anyway. Trump won NC, but there are a lot of Democrats here who are very effectively silenced.
14
@David G.- Big hero is an exaggeration. Almost 60% of NC Republicans voted for someone other than Trump in the 2016 primary. And slightly more than half voted for someone other than Trump that November in NC.
And some of these counties that have been devastated by Florence are the most impoverished in the state. There are many in for a rough time, as they lost what little they had.
7
I guess you might call Trump's visit to North Carolina a public-relations success inasmuch as he didn't repeat his recent remarks about "dumb southerners."
8
Gail, as concerns those hog farms, one good thing the Prophet Mohammed, learned from the Jewish community around him, was that eating pig meat was not such a good idea, thus there is at least one thing Jews and Muslims share, the Muslim concept of "Halal" as in it is forbidden to eat pig meat. I first learned why thanks to a short story written by my Yale Ph.D. thesis advisor, Professor of Geology Matt Walton, title "Concerning the Killing of A Bear" in Partisan Review I think - a long time ago (1953). He worked as a geologist in Alaska and the bear in question had eaten pig meat with trichina. Not good even for bears.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
6
Joke of the day....irony...heard on local...Canadian radio news...some Greenpeace activist tried to get our Canadian Environment Minister to resign for not doing her job because she could not get the USA to rejoin the Paris Accord. Clearly if that could be accomplished she would deserve a medal! I think the whole planet has gone insane from Ontario premier Ford pretending to be a big shot in DC to trump tossing out hot dogs and rhapsodizing about his golf course which of course will be first in line for flood abatement as corruption always wins the day.
6
Trump will go down as the worst president in the history of this country. He will be know for destroying our reputation around the world and removing the dollar as the worlds currency. It will make the dept payments intrest cost us half our tax revenue.
That's alot for a one term president.
13
It’s hard to be hopeful, when you have a philosophy that spells the end of humanity. Republicans choose the individual over everything else. It is behind every single policy they push. Each and every policy proposal they put forward involves pitting individuals against one another, and calling for zero sacrifice.
It is unbridled selfishness— Don’t ever look at how anything affects anybody else, and never consider future ramifications. Live for today, and hope for heaven.
The ultimate test for humanity is whether we, as individuals, think only of ourselves or take into consideration others. In the past we have faced this question. However, with the environment the stakes are critical.
Those of us who recognize what is happening are chastised as “elitist.” Any discussion we put forward is met with one response— “ they think you are stupid.”
Before enough “individuals” will become willing to face the problem, it will be too late. In the end, the inability to work together well cause us to fail as the human race. We are doomed!
5
FEMA should have given Mr.Trump a pair of waders and let him walk flooded neighborhoods so he could see up close the tragedy of hurricanes.The only water he is acquainted with are water hazards on golf courses.He obviously has a problem with water- he knows it is wet and that it surrounds islands, but beyond that he does not have a clue about the devastation it can cause.There is no way he will encourage his oil and coal friendly EPA to take even small steps to work to address the problem of destruction by fiercer and more deadly hurricanes and flooding.
13
@Janet Michael
Good idea but it kind of doesn't matter because after he takes the waders off, he is on to believe the next person that comes along, what he saw while wading will vanish from his brain.
Republican voters...should get zero "assistance" and pick themselves up by their bootstraps, or get their churches to bail them out. Most of them aren't working anyway so it's not like they pay federal taxes, and if they do, they say those dollars are for the military, not cleaning up hog waste.
14
One does not have to be a genius to understand what environmental and health dangers hundreds of hog farms can cause a community under certain circumstances. After all, hogs excrete--a million of them can excrete a tsunami.
It appears we all knew the foul ramifications of a million hog's waste, except the good people and government of N. Carolina. They allowed this toxic industry to flourish and multiply without meaningful environmental regulations. I say let them wallow in their own--well you know what.
8
Perhaps if Mar-a-Lago was knocked out in the next climate disaster, Trump would be changing his tune. And if that did not do it, perhaps the ruining of the rest of his golf resorts might give him pause to think.
If that did not work, maybe someone would give him a hot dog and tell him to have a good time.
18
Trump's team running his golf course in Scotland are well aware that rising waters may submerge it. The memo has already gotten to the President, but he is cravenly ignoring it to make more profits for himself.
Al Gore and the climate change lobby predicted 10 category four or five hurricanes would make landfall on the continental United States per year for the past 10 years.
Instead we’ve had two or three.
Climate change is a fabrication concocted by the leftists to take over the means of production.
A back door to socialism.
1
@Steve MD - Scientists predicted increased flooding and droughts, animal and insect migration, increased snow fall etc. Every single thing they predicted has come to pass.
18
I hate to break it to you, Steve, but socialism is already well-entrenched in the US. Just look at these southern states suffering largely avoidable environmental disasters - developers, politicians, agricultural conglomerates and others pocket their profits and pass their losses on to the US taxpayer (which includes you, I assume).
Why not rail against that?
p.
6
The very term 'hog farm' denotes such a dearth of animal husbandry practices. Those poor animals.
4
Since North Carolina chose to pretend climate change is not happening - as an excuse to do nothing - can we all just pretend this hurricane never happened? After all, they are probably good Christians, and the Bible tells us “As you sow, so shall you reap.”
8
@Ernesto
North Carolinians did not choose to pretend climate change is not happening. Only the legislators who all came from gerrymandered districts do. Most thoughtful Carolinians were aghast at what the legislature did.
8
Just like with every plane crash, so this catastrophe is the result of a number of things going wrong. Starting, of course, with Donald Trump never having been indicted for his money laundering real estate operations. Obama quashing Biden's desire to run, Hillary thinking she was due the Presidency, and people actually trusting information they saw on the internet. So to paraphrase Trump's latest idiocy, 'At least we get a good laugh out of the deal'.
4
Hi Gail,
I always enjoy your columns, but you made one mistake this time. You write, "President Trump does not believe in climate change." This misses the point. Trump is a Republican, and the ENTIRE REPUBLICAN PARTY [sorry, channeling Trump here] does not believe in climate change. They're okay with creationism, but climate change, never.
Once again, thanks for your humor and sanity.
18
Too bad Ms Collins skipped over the fact that a Chinese conglomerate owns Smithfield Farms, which gets all its pork from the contract farmers who raise the pigs and manage the lagoons. Republicans have come to the defense of this Chinese business with laws to limit their liability and to delay fixes to the open lagoon system. So, there you have it. Trump attacks China, his party protects Chinese businesses. According to Trump, Climate change is a Chinese hoax. So, what's the Mandarin word for "hypocrisy"?
17
We should consume less pigs. Less meat.
17
"It is worse still to be ignorant of your ignorance." St. Jerome
He said it first and I echo it, stupidity and ignorance is a lethal combination and so it has proved as far as Trump, Pruitt and Zinke.
(By the way, multi millionaire Pruitt still owes the taxpayers too for mistaking our Treasury as one giant pool of private trust fund monies for all Trump appointees. Now we can add Long's name.)
The Back Bay in Boston was built on landfill and there are studies showing that total flooding of this area is possible within my lifetime. A sea wall, much more practical than a wall at our Southern Border which will never deter anyone anyway, may be what needs to be done. One plan is to have a large green area working like an environmental 'sponge' which sounds cool but I am not sure if that will be enough of a stopgap.
13
Gail, I love ya, but sometimes even you can’t make the wretched funny.
5
I ran away from buying waterfront property in NC more than thirty years ago.
I discovered that the Neuse River was one of the most polluted rivers in the country with hog feces
from spillage from factory farming. The fish have some infections that do not occur normally in fish to this day.
The chickens and the pigs are coming home to roost.
196
Given Trump's longstanding nonsensical assertions about hairspray, ozone, and his sealed apartment, there is little surprise in the rest of his personal beliefs: https://www.factcheck.org/2016/05/trump-on-hairspray-and-ozone/ .
You cannot get his supporters to focus on this subject: it will take the rest of us getting out to vote. As for that flooded N. Carolina golf course, maybe the the course could confined for use by "Merchants and Golfers of Doubt." But I guess most of that moniker is already in use. (My intent is to pick on Trump's desire for his hairspray and his fossil fuel preferences, not to demean a seriously damaged state suffering from horrendous hurricane damage.)
1
in addition to being an environmental hazard, industrialized hog farms or CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations) are bastions of suffering for millions of sentient creatures These poor animals are trapped in dark smelly overcrowded warehouses to be processed for meat like so many widgets. How barbaric and inhumane we have become, in the pursuit of profit, to turn a blind eye to unimaginable suffering of our fellow creature. Indeed, the fact that millions of trapped and terrified animals drowned during the hurricane was omitted from the article. Animal lives matter. Humans seem to believe we are separate from everything else on the planet, and can destroy with impunity. The consequences of that misguided approach are becoming painfully apparent.
8
Environmental disasters are common everywhere these days. But, two come to mind with with respect to the looming mid terms.
1. The red tide off of both east and west coasts of FL are waking up voters to the neglect Gov Scott is responsible for throughout his two terms. He was recently booed out of his hometown Naples where residents hold him responsible for the red tide that is killing fish, animals, and the tourist trade. His senate run may be in jeopardy as a result.
2. And we have not heard the last of the damage to NC's environment. Hog farms, millions of chickens and turkeys lost, pets abandoned to drown, and much more.
Between the media attention to these and other environmental disasters, on top of the Kavanuts sandal, all of which may just help support the so called blue wave. We can hope.
11
Glad to see the real estate industry controls the NC statehouse just as it does in NY. We New Yorkers like to believe we're oh-so sophisticated, oh-so able to smell a rat, compared to those red state rubes, but when it comes to developers, through our stooges in Albany, we also gave away the store - every year, for about the last 50 years. The one thing Cuomo and DeBlasio have in common is that they're both in the pocket of the Real Estate Board of New York. Our Senators are no better. All we yokels have to do is watch Chuck Schumer on the Sunday news calling for a ban on lickable envelopes and we laughably believe he's fighting for us, and not for his true constituency, New York's ultra-wealthy, which is where 99% of his efforts lie.
3
The Power to decide and the Right to Rule goes to those daring enough to seize control ...and keep it!!
At least Trump didn't throw paper towels to the flood victims. So, using that comparison, this trip was a success for him. But, he is so awkward in his interactions with people, so obviously uncomfortable, his off-the-cuff comments so weird. It's clear he's much more at ease speaking to thousands at a rally than he is speaking to one person. He has little empathy, and it is so hard for him to turn his attention away from himself to someone else that his attempts at sympathy just come across as clumsy. I suppose he deserves some credit for trying to appear like he cares, and most of the people he spoke with seemed to appreciate it, in spite of how strangely he behaves. So, maybe that's all that matters. His supporters expect very little from Trump, and that's what he gives them. Everybody's happy.
12
No more humor pieces, please. They’re not funny. If anything, they underscore a truth: some people, say, the Gail Collinses of the world, know that, because of their whiteness, privilege, and bank accounts, they will never suffer the indignities of a Muslim ban, deportation, being detained and separated from your children, not recovering from a natural disaster. Collins and trump bask in the same privilege and have the same outsized influence by virtue of the pass that society bestows on them.
4
@AB
Nonsense. If you didn't have humor in bad times you might as well give up. The best answer to a president who has never been known to laugh out loud at anything, including himself, is humor. It's no accident that some of his most effective critics have been humorists, like Steven Colbert.
When I was growing up in WW II England, everyone that wasn't away at the war was glued to the radio once a week listening to a comedy show ITMA (It's That Man Again)
15
Gail always tells it like it is...with a humor that I find most appealing!
2
I've observed that Republicans don't care about an issue unless it directly affects them, so until the effects of climate change are obviously killing people or destroying things Republicans need every day, nothing will be done. The silver lining is that whatever species that replaces us won't have political parties to destroy it from within.
4
@Adrienne That's pretty much how conservatism works. Even the conservatives who support gay people having rights, only took that position after they discovered they had a gay family member, and didn't want someone in their own family denied basic rights, although they had no problem whatsoever doing that to strangers.
6
Ms. Collins, your line:
"After all, Trump does occasionally show some concern for nature" reminded me of
Russell Baker's reference to Voltaire in his delightful piece NODDING BY THE MIRE, found in The Rescue of Miss Yaskell and Other Pipe Dreams:
"Even Voltaire, who claimed to find nature the most tiresome subject in French journalism, conceded that he was always moved by the spectacles of a giant oak falling on his unassuming cottage and a wild boar sinking his tusks into a hunting aristocrat"
4
Well, I'm off Pepto-Bismol for the duration and hope that its maker isn't exploring legal recourse.:)
However Gail, as we Yankees know, Tarheels are independent folks with no love for us or the Federal Government, especially the pushy EPA so I believe it behooves us to respect their feelings and not go rushing in with our 'false science' solutions and force these God fearing folks to accept our money with the idea that they'll update their regulations and accept things like flood zone regulations and renewable energy.
If they do let FEMA in to help, may I bigly recommend that great team that saved ungrateful Puerto Rico from the mess that their own decisions created. After all, we want the best for all citizens regardless of where they live or their accents.
BTW, I notice in the background of the photo of the "Weekly Traveler" with the dumpster that Linda McMahon is right there on the ground, so to speak, helping clean up the mess. Golly gee, that makes me feel great and I know the folks of North Carolina feel so special.
2
Why bother teaching science or telling our kids to become scientists when we ignore all the findings and warnings that the field presents to us? Global warming? Nah! The politicians know more about what’s best for us and our future.
11
How can we say we have been Trumped when our porculent way of living vastly beyond the means of the earth to sustain us preceded the master mess of excess?
Something about Trump does fit these times of our reckoning with living large. Strange days have found us being lead by the man big on strange.
When no one is left to write our history, Rome will not hold a candle.
3
Living in one of the ground zero states for evidence of climate change and having a govenor who denies it, I feel it is incumbent to inform the Carolinas residents who have suffered life changing losses to not believe the promises made by Fema. The Florida Keys which was in the eye of Hurricane Irma is still waiting for the millions of dollars owed by fema one year after the storm. The local utility company has to take out a $42,000,000 loan while it waits for check in hand. I urge the victims of this latest catastrophe to the extent they can, to be as self sufficient as possible because Fema is not dependable and waiting for them is like waiting for Godot.
7
I just came back from a trip to Vietnam and Cambodia - highly recommended as an antidote to the navel-gazing of the American public, convinced that the fate of the world depends on the outcome of the midterm elections. In fact, Trump and the US are barely a blip on anybody’s radar in those countries. The most urgent problems are the smoldering anger at their corrupt socialist governments and apprehension about China whose heavy-handedness threatens their economic and national sovereignty. Both Vietnam and Cambodia invest heavily in economic development and are spectacularly successful, especially Vietnam. Development means rise in carbon emissions. But are you going to tell Vietnamese and Cambodians that they should live in wretched hovels instead of modern houses; ride in ox-carts instead of scooters and cars; and cease to attract tourist dollars by building new airports, roads and hotels? These people are human beings and want the same quality of life as we do. Solutions to climate change must be technological: carbon sequestration, genetic engineering to improve species’ resistance and switch to renewables. This will happen regardless of who sits in the White House. Calm down, America, it’s not all about you.
3
Ms. Collins, I can't help noticing that even you are having a hard time finding the nuggets of comedy mixed in with the tragedy of our current reality.
Soldier on! We need you.
4
Absolutely!
p. (another oldteacher)
North Carolina is becoming like Florida. If you want a climate like North Carolina, you should buy property in Vermont. Florida meanwhile is going to sink. That's how drastic the climate shifts could be in the next 50-100 years. The scientist who made these predictions was not talking about some distant future. Within the span of a human lifetime.
Stanley Riggs is more right than he knows. We've already moved beyond climate change prevention. We can't stop what's already happened. A certain amount of change is baked into our future. We blew it. We therefore need to turn our attention now to climate change mitigation as well.
There was a reason all the scientists were telling everyone we should focus on prevention. First, we have no idea how large a disruption climate change will cause in basic ecology. There's a very real possibility of mass extinction including, but not limited to, the human species.
More practically though, scientists were telling governments to focus on prevention because mitigation costs a lot more money. Emergency response is the most expensive of all. The worst thing is though, it's money and effort wasted. You're rebuilding destroyed productivity.
Imagine you have a hog lagoon. A storm comes along and blows away your lagoon and all the hogs. Economically, rebuilding the lagoon is only getting back to where you were. The economy is not actually growing. The effort spent growing the economy is now spent rebuilding a lagoon.
Climate change kills GDP.
7
@Andy - You're right. I've been in Vermont for more than a dozen years and it has been getting warmer every year.
Rising tides are wrongly feared...in fact they are the solution to America's greatest problem: political tribalism.
Political tribalism is killing America, subverting democracy, turning our republic into a plutocracy and feeding internal division. What about the rising tides?
To grab power, a minority of people, Republicans, suppress the enfranchisement of the majority of citizens. But what about those rising tides?
To grab power, the minority sells out to the oligarchs who fund their party..in exchange for Republican servitude to the wealthy. The tides??
Because Obama was intelligent, poised, decent, compassionate and black, Republicans responded by supporting his very opposite:Trump. The tides?
You ask, "How will the rising tides solve America's dilemma?"
Rising tides will bring America together. The coasts are doomed to ocean submersion brought on by Republican hatred of science.
As the coastlines recede blue America will have to relocate further inland. As the tides rise further blue America will eventually end up in fly-over America.
The east coast shoreline, the west bank of the Mississippi, will be populated by relocated blue Americans turning red America a deeply bluish-purple America. We will be physically forced together but we will be dominant majority blue.
Today's red Americans will never accept science but their numbers are dwindling as they age and die off. Eventually red will turn blue as blue Americans introduce them to education.
Go rising tides!
5
@jabarry Shockingly, that is not in any way heartening or comforting.
The greatest risk to modern survival that we face is global warming - yet we have a government that thinks spending a few billion on it is just the pits.
The greatest risk to our modern liberal democracy that we face is the wave of short-sighted authoritarian plutocratic demagogues that will wreak havoc on any modern social progress we've made - yet we have a government that gleefully surfing that wave.
That thinks that any regulation/law that modulates greed, environmental suicide, or that advances equality, security, and opportunity is bad bad bad.
That thinks regression is advancement - especially as it pertains to theology, sex, gender, or color.
That seeks to "Make America Great Again"
By ignoring the scientific method, honesty, facts,
By giving money to the rich, decimating unfortunates, and inciting divisiveness to almost record levels in recent times.
By starting trade wars that - guess what - probably will negatively impact the less fortunate the most.
By instead of formulating/implementing better models to improve our lot overall seeks to destroy any progress we've made (e.g. ACA, SSI, public education, unions).
By making adversaries of friends.
By dishonestly or hyperbolically railing against a free professional press (which is so essential to democracy it was enshrined Constitutionally).
With a government like this we are sunk! - face it!
WAKE UP - UNITE AS RATIONAL GOOD PEOPLE - AND VOTE LIKE OUR EXISTENCE DEPENDS ON IT BECAUSE IT DOES!
7
Don't get you peeve about FEMA chief. So you don't want him to go home at all? Or go home in his private jet every week? Or take flight every week? His car is fitted with comms for daily briefs- so you are suggesting he should rent a car or buy one and keep his official calls off when he visits family. Well if he does all that then you know you will be complaint against all that. Oh I get it! That's the point of the opinion column!
1
@rajn
Or maybe he could just move to where his job is—like most of the rest of us would have to do if we accepted a position in a city 400 miles from our homes. Oh, I get it! He works for Donald Trump, so he gets to do whatever he wants with your money and mine.
9
@rajn Or maybe, just maybe, if he wants to work in Washington DC, he should buy an apartment and live there. Shocking proposition, I know.
If he's not willing to move to the place where his job actually is, he should have a different job. Why should I pay for him to put up his staff in hotels and drive 400 miles a day, because he wants to have his cake and eat it too? Let him commute on his own dime, or let him move to DC, or let him get a different job that doesn't waste thousands of taxpayer dollars on his convenience.
11
The entire Trump administration is one Huge hog “waste” lagoon with no (GOP) oversight, and we’re all living downstream watching the flood waters rise. If we don’t turn off the rain on November 6th, we’ll become the largest Superfund site in history.
4
You shouldn't say "believe" in global warming. Since deniers call those who accept proven science global alarmists, leftists, other tribal terms, the word "believe" fits into their claims that global warming is a religion.
Instead of asking if people believe in global warming, people should be asked if they accept the settled science that proves global warming is largely human-induced. This is a mouthful, but it is less likely to spark ridiculous responses.
Along with that deniers need to be the ones challenged to prove that climate change is not made worse by fossil fuel pollution--show the scientific evidence and do so with as much thorough research as that provided by exhaustive worldwide study. It's not up to scientists to prove it anymore, just as it isn't up to the planet to prove it's happening. Challenge the corruption of deniers at every opportunity.
4
Thank you, Beverly - I've been saying the same thing for years now. Same with evolution.
2
VOTE! Not for a Star. Vote ! For someone who can solve problems.
Vote! For someone who has at least a modicum of experience.
Do not vote for the prettiest , most handsome face, unless they have some type of qualification. Vote - maybe someone who is computer literate. And for my Baby Boomer compadres- Vote for someone probably younger than us. Please - VOTE.
20
I remember when North Carolina legislators made it illegal for the state to recognize sea level rise in their community planning. I also remember when South Carolina citizens voted Republican Bob Inglis from office for his one unforgivable crime: acknowledging that climate change is real. I agree with others that maybe the citizens of this part of the U.S. have made their bed, and ought to sleep in it. Hey, with any luck, it floats.
11
Love Gail's light hearted approach to weather disasters, and the hopeless denial in which our wise leaders spend their days and our dollars.
But what's the plan now? Rebuild everything on stilts? It's obvious that coastal floods are becoming a regular occurrence in the Low Country Carolinas and points South.
Can't wait 'til Mar a Lago goes under.
6
It can't be said enough: "Please get out and vote in November." We need to stop this madness.
6
When creed collides with reality, reality should win. However, that outcome would require free will from those making the decision.
A few years ago, after a similar hurricane denuded coastline in Mississippi, a debate was heard for months about our government enabling those who would build castles on sand. As usual, the castle builders won, and now we will have the same debate about Carolina McMansions insured by you and me.
Elsewhere in the Times online edition today, an ironic tale of the power of never-ending human hubris is told by one of my favorite columnists, Jennifer Finney Boylan. Her account of visiting the Vatican, a site that embodies magnificent hypocrisy, and her assurance that she still believes in the fiction that enables modern Inquisitors echoes the Carolinas debate: Our interface with reality must conform to our brainwashed notions about nature and its purpose.
The GOP approach to fatal collisions with nature exposes its ingrained denial of the relevance of evidence. How can one deal with changing circumstances when change is, to quote the Sicilian, "inconceivable!"? We joke about Nostradamus and the hypnotic power of prediction, but millions of our fellow citizens are spellbound by a many-times rewritten series of stories that somehow have been elevated to direct quotes from a deity.
When the foolish rush to rebuild in the path of the next storm and we insure their efforts, we will demonstrate once again that we prefer blind faith to our lying eyes.
3
Every single day of this disastrous administration that is exponentially sinking us into an oblivion of apathy, ennui and sickening reality, our psyches are wrought with enertia and a bewilderment at our inability to stand up NOW and March, for our lives.
The tRumps, and GOP mini-me Russians think it’s just fine to fill our last bastion of democracy, SCOTUS, with the likes of Kavanaugh, without a FBI investigation (because they know it will fully deem him unfit) is the last step to ending the America we knew and loved. As SCOTUS, THE “law of the land,” now will be just the next to final nail in the coffin of any hope of reclaiming Democracy.
And THE final nail? Hacking of the midterm elections.
Welcome to The United States of Russia (tears, lots and lots of them).
6
“I think it’s incredible, I think it’s incredible,” Trump said. “To see what we’re seeing — this boat, I don’t know what happened, but this boat just came here. And, do you know whose boat that is? They don’t know whose boat that is.”
Only the best words.
27
@RP Smith
Simply beyond belief !! One head-slapping comment after another.
2
My first thought when I heard the president was heading to North Carolina was that I hoped he brought enough paper towels to help clean up. Climate change deniers all seem to have ulterior motives for their 'beliefs', usually money.
4
Evolve? Don't you read conservative denials of Evolution? Didn't Adam and Eve ride to Sunday church on a dinosaur? Focus? Do congress persons focus on anything other than reelection? Science? How can you not know that all change is the will of God and that everything He does is for the good of all? Where have you been for the past several decades?
2
Too many angles to cover. No mention of the coal ash piles and Andrew Wheeler. There has to be something there.
What happens when you mix coal ash and hog wash?
I don't know either.
7
Thank you Ms. Collins for your clear-eyed analysis, leavened with much needed humor.
Let me be forthright as to my circumstance. I recently moved to the State of Florida. I made the decision with my very intelligent wife. We love living in Florida about 8 months a year. Blue sky, sunshine, and lots of wonderful, mostly happy people.
We made the decision fully informed that Florida is essentially a flood plain. I carry all necessary insurance. I bought flood insurance against my wife’s wishes. It was my birthday present to myself, so I could sleep better.
I believe in science. I believe that climate change is an existential threat to the planet. I have written many letters in response to articles in major newspapers, pleading with people to force politicians to take necessary and unpopular steps (mostly because of overwhelming costs) to take hold of our children’s and grandchildren’s future well being.
If Florida and the federal government and the power companies and the manufacturing companies, don’t take action and my wife and I loose our property we won’t be ruined. But we are hopeful that change is coming. That stark science in the news everyday will convince people to demand change, and be willing to pay the costs. Because we owe this debt to humanity.
So please vote!
17
@Bill
Republicans only owe debt to the NRA and Koch Bros.
5
North and South Carolina may be hit by the initial brunt of more hurricanes than all other states combined. There’s significant beach erosion even in non-hurricane conditions.
After, say, a century or so of these conditions, not to mention climate change, you’d think 1) we’d be better prepared, and 2) would more strictly enforce development, evacuation, and emergency management plans.
But no. And lack of national memory. And indifference to the victims. And incompetence at the federal level amongst those responsible for such plan. And money.
17
@SMK NC
You forgot the lobbyists who actually own and run the country!
1
Ms Collins, I love your columns and am always eager to read them. Plus, I need and look forward to a good laugh. God knows, this country needs humor now. But this whole North Carolina disaster? No laughs to be found. My city last year experienced a devastating fire. This year a number of towns in my state endured the same. The fact is we have a problem that will adversely affect our children and our children’s children. Yes, as you wrote, it is global warming. And rather than assuage it, we have so-called leaders who sell their souls for the green-back dollar and sacrifice the living. Their words are lies and spins confusing among the most vulnerable. Let’s be proactive. While aiding these North Carolinians, let us also stay focused on our other responsibility: Send Trump, his Cabinet, his GOP Congress packing.
32
"I flew over one of these suckers, and if you ever want to experience what it feels like to soar above what appears to be a large lake of strange-smelling Pepto-Bismol, this is the ticket."
I think flying over Washington DC would inspire the same feelings (of revulsion).
I also know Gail must be suffering from comedic deficit syndrome when her only sources of inspiration in the Trump era are big hog poop farms and jokes about his golf course empire.
I sympathise with her, in fact I'm pretty sure many if not most of us feel the same way.
Americans have a gift for black humor, but I think even these times are taxing the best comedians. When the only thing going for yuks is the tone deaf "have a good time" the clueless prez carelessly says as he throws flood victims sandwiches, you know you're in trouble.
I just hope Trump's famous lack of humor isn't contagious, rendering America an even more uninhabitable than it is from global warming.
52
According to Wikipedia, the current global mean rise in sea level is 3.2 mm per year. (Wikipedia, searching Sea Level Rise). That is .13 inches per year (yes, the decimal point is to the left of the number). In other words, it will take about 92 years for sea levels to rise one foot. The problems with property damage and loss of life which are being attributed to global warming are much more related to the fact that people love to buy homes and developers love to develop property at the very edge of the water everywhere. Property constructed right at the water's edge will sell for two or three times (or more) what the same property will sell for a mile back from the shoreline, but that's an economic driver, not a scientific controversy. Sensible modification of the applicable building codes will solve this problem way faster than in 92 years, and at a much smaller cost. Does reciting these facts make a person a 'denier'?
4
@Tom Wilbert I hope you understand that global sea level rise is an average world wide and not applicable everywhere evenly. And note the figure from researchers in NC for their state. And using Wikipedia as a source for scientific information is not the best bet.
15
@Tom Wolpert You are assuming that the mean rise won't increase. Moreover, the figure you cite is the mean rise, which doesn't mean (heh) the sea level rises 3.2 mm/year on every spot on every coast. I think you need to read the the report. I admit I haven't read it myself, but I'm pretty sure its authors were aware of the current rise levels and had their reasons for predicting an increase.
13
@Tom Wolpert
Uh-huh. It does.
Read the science, not Wikipedia.
Go to somewhere along the shore, and ask people where the high tide line was a few years ago.
Better yet, go buy one of those waterfront homes, and watch your investment, and how the science palys out, from close range.
3
Not that our country has not been drifting towards that Republican nivana of a dangerous individualism that pays no attention to the common good or common sense. Trump has sent this everyone for themselves logic into overdrive. The building of houses or engaging in certain business practices or even attending a little league game, are filled with examples of a society that has lost the ability to place their decisions into a big picture---whether it be climate control or establishing a code of behavior that our children should emulate. We want, what we want--and if we don't get it we scream or sue or find a loophole. And, just when we need a sheriff in town to regulate this kind of me first attitude, we have a President and a Cabinet that is throwing gasoline on the "I've got mine Jack" mindset. It appears, for now at least, that even Big Picture mother nature can't knock some humility into our citizenry bent on living out personal dreams.
27
@ACJ Two 1000 year storms in a decade should be a wake-up call. The whole Piedmont looks dicey now.
3
@ACJ Thank you for mentioning Mother Nature as she clearly is really angry at us. When trump mentioned methane deregulation coming, seems she decided to show who's boss. And here we are, losers again. p.s. She's not going away, as it's her home base.
3
What part of "coastal plain" are we having trouble with. Oh yeah, students haven't been taught much science in the past few decades and particularly not geology or geography. So, to bring everyone up to speed, here's the short version: the coastal plain was created by erosion and flooding, starting long before people came along to inhabit it.
I like the idea of making it all one big golf course!
8
@LesW The eastern coastal plain has not been flooding like this in my lifetime until now.
2
"North Carolina seemed to be thinking along these lines when it commissioned experts to figure out how much the sea level was likely to rise over the next century. They concluded the water could go up by as much as 39 inches by 2100."
Sure the government could have formulated actions based on the results of this research, but wasn't it more urgent to expend valuable time legislating the public bathroom usage of the trans population?
88
The hog-waste lagoons are a significant environmental problem that is largely ignored. The U. S. Government would not allow a city of 50,000 humans to not have a secondary waste treatment facility. Yet a farm with 50,000 hogs can have a crude lagoon-type waste system, and the federal government approves. Perhaps some day someone on the federal government will notice the problem.
53
Good point.
This gets us into the regulation issue. Oh, for some common sense about necessary regulations and a logical balancing of the unnecessary regs. Of course it is expensive for a hog farm to take care of the waste, but it is expensive for the public to clean up the mess that should be the responsibility of the farm. This conundrum applies to most commercial activities. Who pays?
11
What must people in other developed countries think when they see one of the world's wealthiest nations run by a science-denying government that refuses to take the most common sense measures? Even China and India are taking measures to combat climate change and its impact today.
I appreciate the states and cities that are trying to abide by the Paris Climate Accord measures. But in the end they're doing the work that North Carolina and other southern states should be doing as well. They'll be the first victims when the next hurricane arrives.
67
Scientists seldom argue that temperatures are warming. They argue what needs to be done about it. They complain, not that Trump rejects climate science, but that he disregards the need to address the issue. The scientists are progress minded. They seek out goals and how to pursue them.
For Democrats warming spurs a debate where the goal is to score points.
Michjas....the goal is to slow or stop manmade-fossil-fuel-based climate change and destruction by developing and adopting alternative energy forms.
A habitable Earth for the planet's 8 million species is not scoring points.
Flushing the country down a Gas Oil Profits Trump Toilet is nothing less than nationally-assisted suicide.
122
@Socrates Well said! :-)
@Socrates
Everybody knows the goal. My point is that it is pursued by scientists and exploited by Democrats. If you want progress support the scientists. If you want rhetoric, support Democrats. The future is too important to trust to those dedicated to mocking Trump.
My grandparents, long deceased, eventually bought a home on the cookie cutter shores of Lake Norman.
Lake Norman, created between 1959 and 1964 as part of the construction of the Cowans Ford Dam by Duke Energy, is the largest man-made body of fresh water in North Carolina. (wiki)
Climate change or not, when a frog-strangler of a storm came through that overwhelmed the Cowans Ford Dam, there was only so much water this huge retention pond could handle before it overflowed. At least there is Mother Earth to absorb as much as she can to alleviate the suffering of those affected because of its rural remote location unlike Houston and the cement urban sprawl.
15
@Coffee Bean I appreciate the intent behind your message, however your assessment of the Lake Norman area is wildly out-of-date. It is now considered an highly affluent bedroom community of Charlotte, complete with the development that accompanies such areas.
3
I firmly believe that climate change is happening and that it is currently mostly the result of human activities, but...
When climate research gets to delivering a warning and that warning gets into the press it often seems to get overstated. And I'm afraid it's happened in this article. There is one prediction quoted: 39 inches of sea level rise by 2100. It's wrong!
I have done a very brief "literature search" - by typing "sea level rise" into Google and looking at the graphs that look properly presented you can reproduce the result - and a central figure for the predicted rise is about 3.3mm/year. That gives a rise of about 11 inches. One could maybe quote a range of between 6 and 20 inches depending on methodology, but not 39 inches.
Part of the problem is someone presenting the results to make them look dramatic. They look through the whole report for the absolute worst case scenario, then pick just that figure and ignore everything else.
The problem is that you lay yourself open to the claim of delivering false news. It's not that the there isn't a real issue here, it's that by overstating your case, you actually run the risk of diminishing it.
9
@Londoner That might be true if the process were linear. But, alas, it's not. It has become what is called a runaway. As more and more black water opens in the Arctic, things heat up faster and faster, and sea levels are rising more and more quickly. Then, there the previously unconsidered processes triggered by the increased heating, for instance, the discovery that as the permafrost melts it is releasing acid liquid that in turn erodes CO2 containing rock:
https://www.livescience.com/63612-arctic-acid-permafrost.html?utm_source...
The horse may already have left the barn in terms of what we are able to do to make it better. In the meantime, if you wish to whistle past the graveyard, by all means, by that beach house.
37
Check back in 500 years when the whole southern region of the United States is under water. These changes in sea level take time. They are relentless and inexorable. We need to think beyond our own life spans and think more in terms of our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren!!!
12
@Londoner: the rate of rise is rising:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_rise
It clearly deflected upwards in 2008.
3
Be grateful that Trump kept his visit within the safe parameters of ordinary showboating. The glib remarks to strangers, "We'll fix that," seemed harmless enough when you accept the fact he won't remember saying it.
51
@Doc
Exactly. I was disappointed he wasn't tossing paper towels to the crowd this time.
17
Calling out “Have a good time” seems equally appalling.
3
@Little Doom
Looking at this bloated ignorant self-serving lying offense to the office of president, one wonders how indeed we will recover from the destruction he continues to wreak upon the country and whatever global stability we can possibly protect. The arc of history...
1
"Maybe he’ll evolve." Trump? Not likely.
Perhaps one way to help the hog farms and their pink lakes would be if the Trump organization built golf courses around the pink water hazards.
I'm envisioning the 7th hole in that nice green patch next to the pink hazard.
70
Ultimately, you have to wonder about the people who buy these properties. Don't they realize they are buying in a floodplain and the chances their investment will be wiped out are pretty high?
Wasn't it North Carolina whose government banned climate change assessments for seaside developments?
45
@William Marsden
People buy properities in these high risk areas because they have nothing to lose. The federal government, which by the way, they generally disdain, , subsidises their flood insurance and pays to rebuild the infrastructure when things go wrong. The problem would be solved if there were no federal flood insurance and no federal money to rebuild.
73
@William Marsden
I think it’s fair to assume that these farms were in a family for a couple hundred years, before climate change had ever been an issue. That said, these farms may be now owned by major companies, who are happy with using above ground septic systems for millions of gallons of waste.
24
@William Marsden
People grow up in these areas and vacation there. What make you want to live in Quebec? There are always risks, no matter where you live. When I was in the Midwest it was tornadoes. You can have everyone living in Qubec where it's a winter wonderland with shopping underground.
There's no global climate change --despite the fact that 1) a friend who's owned a house on Fire Island for decades now has to choose between demolishing the house or having it moved back from the ocean; 2) a friend who lived in a North Carolina house that was two blocks from the ocean now has oceanfront property; 3) a friend in California had to vacate his house last year because of the never-ending fires; 4) I never get to wear that 'spring coat' anymore in New York--it goes from frigid winter to blazing summer heat...and 5) even the trees are confused - it's mid August and in upper NY the leaves are turning.
132
@Em I live a mile from Long Island Sound. I expect to have beach front property any year now.
3
I have no problem with anyone building anywhere as long as we honestly price insurance for these properties. A simple rule of thumb would be to charge littoral properties 10% of their construction costs annually indexed for inflation. A $500,000 home would cost you $50,000 for each year. And one other thing...there should be no federal government buyout—no SBA loans, no flood insurance program. Barrier islands should remain just that.
85
@Douglas McNeill what about people with lower incomes that buy houses built in low lying areas? It is not a coincidence that these homes are built in areas susceptible to flooding
Gail's take on matters is always a break in the monotony of this administration's venal incompetence. But what really comes home is that the denial of science insures the inevitability of disaster.
The hurricane's the thing now, but there is the power grid, financial regs designed to prevent another 2008, profit centered health care, ignoring infrastructure maintenance, the privatization of potable water, no long term plan to relocate all homes in probable flood areas before disasters and not to allow rebuilding there - the list is lengthily.
The time to solve these problems shorter than most realize. When sea level rise creates million of refugees, it will be too late. Vote in November; corrupt politics has never worked.
85
Let's insert a couple of facts.
NOAA cannot scientifically certify that tropical cyclones (hurricanes, typhoons) are increasing in intensity or number due to global warming. This information is on their website. It has only been since the 1950's that we have collected enough data regarding tropical storms to make a comparison.
NOAA also theorizes that tropical cyclones will increase by 300% beginning in the latter half of this century based on global warming models NOAA supports.
It is really a bad idea to do a lot of developing on flood plains and in hurricane prone areas. Eventually our high human IQ's will figure that out.
19
@goofnoff: "Eventually our high human IQ's will figure that out".
It amazes me how so very intelligent our species is - getting to the moon, to the outer universe, vaccines, modern medicine, driverless cars as examples - and then, at the same time, be so incredibly stupid and contributing to our own demise when we know better.
The time has come for all American voters to do the right thing and vote these self-concerned political animals who deny science and what is happening to us in real time in regards to climate change OUT of office! Time for US to use our smarts and not let these fossil fuel flim flammers kill us all.
If not....Water World, here we come. Better buy a boat to get around those flooded hog lagoons.
4
Maybe the environmental disaster brought about by climate change will finally some day be the reality that breaks the tribal divide in this country. Mother nature does not ask about political affiliation or income. Of course the wealthier will be more likely to flee. Nonetheless...
29
@Horsepower
Well, the disaster might unite the country, but by then by then it will likely be too late.
2
@Horsepower As I like to say, the laws of physics weren't written by congress.
2
I don't think the GOP is denying climate change so much as saying the costs are unfeasible. American voters don't want to pay more for energy. They can't afford it right now. Every poll backs this up. Our country isn't moving in this direction anyway. The point of cap and trade was always to increase the price of 85 percent of the energy we use in America. That is the goal. For it to “work,” cap and trade needs to increase the price of oil, coal, and natural gas to force consumers to use more expensive forms of energy. President Obama’s former OMB director, Peter Orszag, told Congress that “price increases would be essential to the success of a cap and trade program. The majority of U.S. voters will never go for this. The overall reality in that climate change legislation is hard to pass even in good times. It's really a killer in an economic downturn where citizens & business fear higher costs, even slightly higher costs, & may see no concrete benefits. The US is extracting carbon & flowing it into the global energy system faster than ever before. We're trying simultaneously to reduce demand for fossil fuels while doing everything possible to increase the supply. Here are the key questions. Can we bring ourselves to prioritize renewables over cheap fuels? Are we willing to vote against our own self interests & approve higher taxes on fossil fuels? Can we muster the restraint needed to leave assets worth trillions in the ground? Absolutely not. It's never going to happen.
12
@Bill Brown I believe you are underestimating the potential of meeting our current, and even greater, energy needs through renewable resources. Solar is already cheaper than burning fossil fuels. It simply requires a significant up-front investment. The government should do that as part of the mythological infrastructure plan that the Republicans keep promising but somehow never makes it onto the congress' agenda.
23
@Bill Brown Wind has fallen 23% since 2010, solar has fallen 73%. Meanwhile, fracking has never been a profitable enterprise, hemorrhaging $36 billion a year of Wallstreet lending for the last 5 years. Its expected that by 2020, renewables will be cheaper than fossil fuels, and that's not including the large and growing climate cost of the fossil alternative. https://www.forbes.com/sites/dominicdudley/2018/01/13/renewable-energy-c...
18
@Bill Brown: " It's really a killer in an economic downturn where citizens & business fear higher costs, even slightly higher costs, & may see no concrete benefits."
When we go to war economic concerns evaporate. We're all in (to the tune of $5 trillion for Afghanistan and Iraq). We go to war to protect our national interests. Only if we do not believe global warming is a threat to our national interests can we "justify" the economy as the first priority.
And we "may see no concrete benefits"? Let's talk economy again. Global warming/climate change poses as great a threat to our (and the world's) economy as the potential of nuclear armageddon at the height of the cold war. Avoiding, or at least mitigating, this is not a concrete benefit? Please!
33
The unspoken problem is that in the Carolinas, it is all flood plain for miles and miles inland, and that is where people settled for hundreds of years rather than up in the hill country far behind. It is a geography problem, of living in the Carolinas.
24
@Mark Thomason -- I don't mean to imply the problem is impossible, or to give up.
The solutions are not to avoid building. The solutions involve the barrier islands, salt marshes to absorb flooding, flood controls along rivers, and building with potential for flooding in mind. There are things to be done, but avoiding flat lands in an entirely flat land is not one of them.
8
@Mark Thomason
Tell that to Florida, too, please.
Yes, by all means let’s consider how Trump and his administration have fouled-up the Carolinas in the wake of Florence … because he invented global warming, of course, and he’s been in office for the DECADES since we’ve been “ignoring” climate change – despite the massive body of costly regulation that we’ve tolerated over that time to lessen our emissions while Mexico, Russia, India, China and so many others dump all KINDS of crud into our atmosphere.
As a matter of fact, let’s flay Trump alive just as soon as we’ve finished flaying Kavanaugh.
Climate change is real – and so are killer hurricanes for centuries that all of a sudden appear to be improving their aim when in earlier years a higher percentage may have missed more heavily-populated land hits. The better aim is undoubtedly Trump’s and FEMA’s fault, as well.
And those hog-farms and their lagoons of porcine excrementa actually are important. Where else can Democrats go to find further pretexts for delaying Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation vote?
2
@Richard Luettgen What you apparently do not get is that Trump withdrew from the Paris Climate Accord. Where rightfully the U.S. was seen as a leader in addressing climate change this President chose to put the U.S. in the back of a very long bus because every other country on the planet remains in the agreement. American industry and cities took the lead and produced dramatic results in reducing GHG emissions. Why this president chose to put the American people at the bus where they had earned the position of global leadership is beyond comprehension.
U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement dramatically weakened U.S. soft leadership affecting the potential of the U.S. to influence world affairs on many levels in many arenas. Destroying the good name of the U.S. as the rest of world seeks to rise to the challenge is beyond shortsighted.
More damaging to U.S. soft power was withdrawal from the JCPOA coupled with the imposition of new sanctions including secondary sanctions that impose major losses on EU member states,countries around the world. No one, not the Security Council not the U.S. Congress nor U.S. allies nor China, Korea, Japan, or Russia agreed to Trump's sanctions. It is universally agreed outside of Netanyahu's inner circle and the Trump WH that Iran was in compliance with JCPOA as affirmed by the IAEA in its August 30 report. The JCPOA was the culmination of a decade of work by the Security Council. It was not an agreement between the U.S. and Iran.
198
@Vid Beldavs
It's becoming increasingly frequent for me to get pedantic lectures as responses from denizens of Baltic states on the responsibilities incumbent on the United States. While I welcome the engagement, I can't say that they're better in quality than those from the more usual suspects.
Note that Trump exited the Paris Climate Accord while inviting the world to come together with us more effectively to address global climate change -- in ways that proportionally are fairer to ALL parties. They haven't even tried … yet. However, we and major developed economies of Western Europe can't solve the problem ourselves that complicates a GLOBAL biosphere. Until we can define a more balanced framework, at least the U.S. isn't going to even try beyond the already VERY substantial and costly means we undertake to reduce our emissions. I support Trump's actions on this matter.
As to Iran, the "deal" entered into by Obama and Kerry, with our allies basically strong-armed to align themselves with us, was merely a can-kicking exercise that did little to address the strategic problem of an Iran deploying nuclear weapons and delivery vehicles -- much like Obama's can-kicking exercises with North Korea. Trump is addressing both matters strategically, and we should all (certainly including Latvia) wish his efforts the greatest success.
@Vid Beldavs
While the U.S. may have been a leader in addressing climate change science, not since Bush 1 has it been a leader in addressing the problem of how to stop climate change. While presidents such as Clinton and Obama were good at delivering supportive speeches, their diplomats worked hard behind the scenes to assure that no truly meaningful global agreement was ever signed, primarily because they knew the American Congress (and Americans) would never support it.
I think it is fair to say that if the United States, as leader of the free world, had truly wanted a tough climate change agreement, the world would have had one. Countries such as China and India would have been forced to comply with it or suffer sanctions. But sadly the U.S.A. was not interested in that vital leadership job.
2
"How the hell do you get these people to focus on the environment, even if it’s just for flood-prevention purposes? "
You can go the traditional route and buy their vote, but the fossil fuel industry has deep pockets and even if you win that bidding war, you end up with a Party that believes that the only thing better than having a sexual predator on the Supreme Court that has lied under oath, is to have two sexual predators on the Supreme Court who have lied under oath. But I digress.
Better to walk, drive, or wade to a polling place and vote for politicians who believe in science, facts, and the future. They are not hard to find. Look for the (D).
308
@LT
As much as I loathe everything Trump, et al, stand for, I really cannot call one incident at a drunken teenage party a case of sexual predation. Unless other come forward to demonstrate a pattern persisiting into adulthood, I am non-plussed by Ms. Ford.
1
#LT Best final paragraph ever! I'll be the one holding the door for you election day.
1
"Coastal flooding is getting way, way worse because of global warming. So obviously we’ve got to join other nations in combating this universally recognized threat.
Hahahahaha." Sigh. Yes indeed. You'd think this would be a priority for our leaders. They're worse than worthless, they're harmful.
"How the hell do you get these people to focus on the environment, even if it's just for flood-prevention purposes?"
Thank you for asking this important question! Please keep asking! Hog lagoons are bad enough. Even worse are all the potentially catastrophic nuke plants so inconveniently, foolishly, stupidly located along our disappearing coasts....
58
The Republicans don't believe in the government intervening into people's lives, like telling them not to live in a flood plane, or at least, not to have hog farms and nuclear power plants located in them. And, we-the-people certainly must not invest in infrastructure or technology to prepare for these types of pending crises.
This disaster is just more proof that the Republican ideology of low taxes and small government is a danger to all living beings.
96
@Ronny
-Sure hope you don't live near a fire prone area....oh wait, that's your entire state.
"...Senator James Inhofe, the biggest global warming denier in the history of the U.S. Congress." That same man, absurdly, chairs the Senate environmental committee. Putting the Senate under a Democratic majority, thus gaining control of that committee (and others), is a step towards bringing science and responsibility back into the picture. Vote for our one planet.
500
Reminds me of another cabinet member under Reagan, James Watt, Secretary of the Interior Department. Rip apart earth if there’s money to be made.
1
I think this is a horrible catastrophe for North Carolinians. I feel for these people, the lives, homes, and livelihoods lost, and I hope all the best for them. But if I may I am going add a personal note concerning this disaster. No, it is not about FEMA, local leaders, or the fine citizens of that state. But yes, you guessed correctly..it is about Trump.
I can not help but think back at a time just last year, in a place that is an American territory, Puerto Rico. Now let us juxtapose Mr. Trump's flip and obviously uncaring attitude toward those Spanish speaking people with those individuals who are part of our southern states...and who voted for the above. As he helped hand out free meals to those in need with failed attempts at words of empathy, do you remember his throwing rolls of paper towels to the victims in Puerto Rico? Or to this day, his downplaying the immensity of that disaster, and FEMA's ineptitude? Or his total disregard for a recovery still going on?
We all are ready to help those folks in NC. But we are remiss and irresponsible if we do not also insist that our own territory receive the much needed aid and assistance it too deserves.
74
@Kathy Lollock
It’s fine and good to help them now. But these people keep voting for the GOP. Will they ever learn to vote for the party that respects them and the environment ?
6
It’s comforting to see that even in the wake of tragedy we’re finding ways to benefit Big Pig and other corporate interests.
Like Trump’s NC golf course, which by his alluding to, he has forced every journalist covering his statements to give clarifying free publicity. Say what you will about his quips in the face of true suffering, or his ironic hot dog cookouts during a pork disaster, but he certainly knows how to get free publicity.
36
@Joanna Maybe we can have new hats for this particular occasion. Go Big Pig! In that special pink. With a depiction of Big Pig in Chief on the front.
1
And don't forget, Gail, the coal-ash ponds with their deadly concentrations of heavy metals.
Basically, North Carolina stores horrific amounts of waste - mammalian and otherwise - that are always just a big flood away from disgorging their doomsday contents.
77
The President got an update on the damage. Now all he has to do is figure out how many rolls of paper towels to order.
107
Heavy duty water-absorbing towels, mind you!
1
@RNS
I’m surprised Ivanka hasn’t started a company — Trump Towels — to capitalize on this opportunity. They be the best of towels, of course.
5
@RNS The paper towels are only for those strange brown folks. Real Americans get hot dogs.
2
These people have voted Republican since about 1964, they own their climate change flooded lands. Hard to feel any empathy for them. They asked for it.
163
@ShadyRest. I’m right there with you. Not only did they ask for it, we get to subsidize it.
2
@ShadyRest@
Not all these people voted Republican. We have voted for democratic governors often and we voted for Obama in 2008. Our current governor (statewide election) as well as our Attorney General are Democrats. Our state is horribly gerrymandered. Thus we have a Republican legislature that is ignorant and horrific. Their gerrymandering has been found unconstitutional. So please spare me your comment that we all vote Republican. Don’t fall back on we asked for it and write us off in a somewhat snarky way. Lend support to our fight to end gerrymandering. Offer help to our devastated communities. Then you will be making a difference. Your comments do the opposite. Peace to you. Mary
264
@ShadyRest
And if the vote Democratic the Hurricane will end and we will no longer eat bacon? This is a natural disaster that we have no control over. If you stopped global warming today, you still would have hurricanes and pigs. The world's worse hurricane was in Galveston TX in 1900. That's when they started recording not when the start happening.
1
Perhaps the death and suffering in North Carolina are a bit too fresh to be the basis for a funny column. Trump and his henchmen may seem farcical on the surface, but the underlying tragedy is just too painful for satire.
8
Respecting Gail and the Environmental Defense Fund, I'll have to accept that Hog Sewage Buyouts are a reasonable way to rid ourselves of these environmental time bombs - at least until I can get evidence otherwise.
But the entire concept makes me sick, even more than the sewage itself. Instead of laws and regulations to prevent this wanton destruction of the public air, land, and water, our society incentivizes the corporate owners (even a private farm is effectively a subsidiary of corporate) to build, and then once built, pays for the finish product, only to shut it down.
I can't breathe the air or go near the water, but at least before I die, I might be able to get a job shoveling all the you-know-what.
45
Election have consequences and NC is enjoying the consequences of continuing to vote for conservatives.
My sympathy tank emptied on or about November 4, 2016.
253
@Paul
Enjoy the sandstorms
@Paul
Completely agree.
And for the single issue religious voters out there, maybe they'll understand it if stated like this:
"Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."
It's in the bible, you can look it up.
2
@TLibby
Enjoy the blizzards.
The president flew over the massive and nasty smelling lake Trump. When he landed to make a speech he did not even toll rolls of paper towels to the crowd.
It is time that the GOP changes its label from the elephant to the hog. The hog versus the donkey. that reflects reality better because the elephnant is a noble beast who never forgets. The donkey is a beast of burden, reflective of the ordinary worker. As for the hog we should celebrate election day with lots of crisp fried bacon.
Oh yes. NC's willful ignorance should not be paid for with tax payer money from the blue states who understand that taxes are the price of civilization.
223
@Sheldon Bunin
Replacing the elephant with the hog as the symbol of the republicans does injustice to the hog. The domestic hog is a truly intelligent animal, ranking above our beloved canine and feline companions, and capable of bonding with others, including humans. Their main problem is that they get so darned huge. If given the opportunity, they prefer to be clean; it is their keepers' faults that they must wallow and stand all day in crowded, manure and urine filled enclosures.
The wild pig/boar might be more appropriate. Feral since their escape from early discoverer's ships and colonists, they have evolved over the centuries into quite different creatures. Though they are cunning, they trash the environment and are ill-tempered, dangerous adversaries to other creatures or human who are in their path.
6
Reagan once said something along the lines of what was terrifying was “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”
Trump has put true horror into that statement.
Vote them out and lock them up.
123
Anyone have any data on when Mar al Lago will have the ocean lapping into its lobby?
99
@KV
Sometime after both Trump and I, we're both the same age, are dead. Don't overlook the fact that the larger per centage of the Trump support are Boomers who in the main aren't looking way down the road. If young people continue to be too cool, or too disinterested nothing will happen on the global warming front.
24
@goofnoff
That makes three of us the same age. We are moving down the hill from the Sierra, where 127 million trees are dead or dying. It seems that the general civic reaction to pending disaster is to not do anything until the disaster happens.
@goofnoff
That seems one of the major road blocks. Deep down, the thinking goes: 'Why should I care about future generations? What have they ever done for me?'
I'm starting to think we might actually not survive this mess we have made of our environment. The willful ignorance of our elected officials is breathtaking.
147
@AMM
Reality wins in the end. You can deny it all you want, but it won't effect the outcome one bit.
4
@AMM Humans increasingly reveal that as a species, our actions fit the exact same definition of a virus. And one characteristic of viruses is that in the end, they multiply and eventually kill their host. And themselves.
2
Gail Collins, you are a treasure. Thanks for all the smiles among the tears of watching democracy shredded.
64
The government is responsible for flood damage because it subsidizes flood insurance. No one in his right mind would build in a flood plain or on a hurricane coast if he had to bear the risk himself.
98
Right on. And I, for one, don’t want to underwrite flood insurance for homes and businesses in flood plains with my tax dollars.
31
@Jonathan Katz Indeed. In the 80s and 90s I worked for the insurance industry, which is very, very good at calculating and managing risk, and profiting from it. Senior executives very matter-of-factly stated that there was no way to profit from insuring flood zones, or even to break even, and advised the government to forego federal flood insurance in favor of land use regulation.
You are correct. If flood insurance were priced at its actual cost (with premiums ten or twenty times their current level) or simply discontinued, coastal building would stop.
31
@Jonathan Katz
How about a small sympathetic tear for those of us who find their houses now surrounded by the redefined flood plain?
Our house, which my wife has owned for forty years, was built in 1918 after a city wide fire, a couple of hundred feet from the harbor seawall. Never been flooded. The maps now show the 100yr flood plain on our seaward property line, but I'm not sure Mother Nature checks the FEMA maps before her weather events. And anyway, what's 100 yrs to her? The water is getting closer to our basement windows every year.
I'm in a race between my life expectancy and the high water mark.
2
It wasn't so long ago that North Carolina voted for Barack Obama and almost voted for him a second time. I suppose the citizens of that state became sick and tired of being regarded as the most enlightened voters in the South. Now it's Hail Trump and Hand Me a Wet Suit.
112
@stu freeman
We didn’t all vote for trump.Many of us are as sick about our political predicament as you are.
9
@stu freeman, the governor Roy Cooper is a decent man, a democrat. He is doing the best he can, for his state, for the people.
2
@stu freeman
Wow. You're a treasure, you are.
Gail - great summary but you forgot about the coal ash ponds that will also be adding heavy metals to the drinking water - something else that the EPA under Trump has loosened restrictions on.
353
It's a mystery of science. How can it be that Gail's jokes can be such fun and yet also reveal with crystal clarity (and far more effectively than a straight delivery of fact) just how truly awful things are! Thank you again, Gail!
341
Religious conservatives who anticipate the Second Coming of Christ and the ills preceding it are not only convinced that a variety of apocalyptic disasters are predicted, but actually needed in order for the Second Coming to occur. So they regard emergency management agencies like FEMA and its state and local counterparts as being opposed to the requirements for the Second Coming they believe in. They don't want emergencies managed---they want them turned into national or global disasters. Secular conservatives aren't crazy like this, they just don't want to have to pay taxes for someone else's environmental mistakes.
197
@Garlic Toast: Is that why so many religious conservatives voted for Trump and are still supporting him? Who else could possibly be counted on to bring about the end of days in our own lifetimes?
134
@Garlic Toast
There is no doubt that the horrible hurricanes are God's punishment of the people who don't believe in man's role in the climate changes.
So everybody in the affected parts of the world should mend their ways.
-
Just kidding.
4
@Garlic Toast Can these Rapture Raptors please choose a date, and if the Rapture hasn't happened by then, we can get on with reason-based policymaking?
1
It's nice and convenient that the repubs give everybody else cover on environmental issues. True, they are doing everything they can to ignore/reverse the tiny amount of progress we've made on GW and other issues. It's also true, that as 5% of the worlds population (and going up 2-3 million/year) we are using 25% of the worlds resources and our population increases have basically cancelled out the small gains we've made over the last 40 years in co2 per capita production. In the mean time open space continues to disappear, commute times increase, the ocean continues to fill with plastic and on and on. Sure, lets blame the republicans and their evil wizard but our entire lifestyle, indeed the worlds, is based on ever increasing consumerism and consumers. Nat geo said the Paris accords wouldn't have limited GW to 2 degrees increase even if they had worked and most experts didn't think they would. Photo ops are nice and they allow us to be self righteously indignant about the repubs, but no one has suggested much less committed to anything like what will be needed to make real progress and that's assuming we're not already past the point of no return, which many scientists think we are.
55
@Al And some of us remember what happened to Jimmy Carter when he suggested not going whole-hog for unlimited growth at the expense of the earth, and faced "morning in America" from the opposition. Electoral College 49-489. This consumer attitude led to the globalization of manufacturing too, at the expense of American manufacturing jobs, for the sake of the middle class' ability to buy more and more stuff, which ironically led to fewer middle-class manufacturing jobs. Is it not also connected to the ability of someone like Donald Trump to sell himself like a can of pork and beans (which you have to buy based on the commercial without having tasted it first)? Recently, we heard Michael Avenatti implying that the most important quality in a presidential candidate countering Pres. Trump is the ability to be a TV personality. Calvin Coolidge, Dwight Eisenhower and Jimmy Carter need not apply. Is this the way to create the best society we can?
43
@Al
As plain as the nose on your face.
I think that this homily was meant to explain the phenomenon of people's ability to ignore, overlook, or not recognize the obvious. With all of the published and media reported information about the state of the worlds environment today, how can it be possible that so few understand what the costs of their lifestyle is doing to their future. How is it possible not to notice that half of all the known species of life that existed 100 years ago are now extinct today, and that this trend will affect us in ways we cannot imagine? Life on this planet has always evolved toward greater diversity, for in diversity lies resistance to extinction from changes in the environment. Human history has been the story of the devolution of diversity, homogenizing the environment for the self deluded benefit of humans. Who do you think was correct, the evolutionary life force or man? Which one has benefited the life on this planet the most?
12
You left out today's SC press conference in which every single official there to give status reports prefaced, ended or interjected their remarks with praise for the "great leader" standing in their midst. Unprecedented support. Unbelievable empathy. Just the best ever, in every way. He glowed and grinned, oblivious to everything but being complimented. Is this level obsequiousness now a requisite for every professional? Do they honestly believe normal people don't see it?
772
@Parker
Maybe they were afraid they would be treated like Puerto Rico if they didn't grovel.
6
@Parker
IMO they do not believe that normal people don't see it. They want normal people to see it. And to emulate it. Disgusting, disgraceful, shameless.
1
@Parker: I heard Trump Toady Novarro on NPR for the first time two days ago, and it was horrifying. Steve Inskeep ought to be given a bonus for maintaining his composure and politeness while interviewing that buffoon. Novarro sounded like a computer, voice-programmed to praise Trump at every turn, to deny reality, and to act as if nothing could be better than a massive trade war. He actually ended the interview saying, "... God bless Donald J. Trump." I nearly vomited all over the car, but it was a rental, so fortunately, I managed to contain my revulsion.
Is it possible that Trump is actually having cabinet members and advisors manufactured by a second-rate robot manufacturer somewhere in Asia, to ensure that they will never have an idea of their own, or ever deviate from the script that Trump wants to hear repeatedly?
3
I get the feeling that the political climate is about to change. People are starting to realize that the only way to keep our heads above water—literally—is to flush our government back into the swamp from whence it came, and elect people who can keep us afloat.
The president is clearly nuts. His ineloquence is a symptom of a disordered mind. He’s a hulk made of greed, dishonesty and sniveling ineptitude. He tried to tell us just how incapable he was throughout the run-up to the election, but many of us were apparently smitten by the snorting, charmed by the lies and awed by his garbled flaunting of a slow third-grader’s intellect.
All of this would be endearing if it weren’t for the fact that the West coast nearly burned down while the East coast literally drowned. And no one in his administration is competent enough or smart enough or honorable enough to recognize the cause because they’re too busy counting their money.
But to be fair, people were clearly tired of competent, compassionate and eloquent leadership. Once Mr. Obama’s term was over, many said, Never Again. We’ve had enough of that. We need a change. Let’s put a narcissistic nut case in the big chair and get this country moving again.
Well, the country is moving. It’s sliding down every scale on which great nations are measured. Hog lagoons look around and say, wow, this country stinks.
We’re slowly dying. November looms. Let’s send a message.
1169
@gemli: What'dya mean "ineloquent"? Didn't he just acknowledge that this was the wettest storm yet, from the standpoint of water? Could YOU have made that point any more precisely and expressively? Seriously, it's no surprise that a great many white Americans were mightily annoyed by President Obama's facility with the English language. After all, how dare a black man take it upon himself to speak our native language better than most of the rest of us do? Isn't it enough that they're so much better than we are at basketball? How dare they rub it in?
456
@gemli thank you for your as-always eloquent take on the realities facing us. I do hope we send a message in November. Whether or not it is too late remains to be seen.
25
i couldn’t have said it better myself.
3
The upper limit of less than 2m sea level rise quoted by the North Carolina government is low. Several scientists see multimeter sea level rise by 2100, because they assume possible major feedback loops. When life on the coast is at stake, we should not be avoiding the worse case scenario.
North Carolina and other states are less concerned with alienating the fossil fuel industry as they are with possibly harshing the mellow of coastal developers, frackers, hog farmers, and many others.
Bob Dylan once said "Don't follow leaders, watch your parking meters". I'd rather have a parking meter in charge of our government than one of those right wing Republicans.
215
Subterranean Homesick Blues
By BOB DYLAN
Johnny’s in the basement
Mixing up the medicine
I’m on the pavement
Thinking about the government
The man in the trench coat
Badge out, laid off
Says he’s got a bad cough
Wants to get it paid off
Look out kid
It’s somethin’ you did
God knows when
But you’re doin’ it again
You better duck down the alley way
Lookin’ for a new friend
The man in the coon-skin cap
By the big pen
Wants eleven dollar bills
You only got ten
Maggie comes fleet foot
Face full of black soot
Talkin’ that the heat put
Plants in the bed but
The phone’s tapped anyway
Maggie says that many say
They must bust in early May
Orders from the D.A.
Look out kid
Don’t matter what you did
Walk on your tiptoes
Don’t try “No-Doz”
Better stay away from those
That carry around a fire hose
Keep a clean nose
Watch the plain clothes
You don’t need a weatherman
To know which way the wind blows
Get sick, get well
Hang around a ink well
Ring bell, hard to tell
If anything is goin’ to sell
Try hard, get barred
Get back, write braille
Get jailed, jump bail
Join the army, if you fail
Look out kid
You’re gonna get hit
But users, cheaters
Six-time losers
Hang around the theaters
Girl by the whirlpool
Lookin’ for a new fool
Don’t follow leaders
Watch the parkin’ meters
Ah get born, keep warm
Short pants, romance, learn to dance
Get dressed, get blessed
Try to be a success
Please her, please him, buy gifts
..........
127
@Mike Roddy
We need to worry about more than severe weather, floods, and even species extinction on land. We also need to consider ocean warming and acidification, which will wreak havoc with marine ecosystems, including fish, shellfish, coral reefs, and the phytoplankton that generate most of the oxygen in our atmosphere. The scientific community really has no idea what the rapid lowering of pH levels in our seas will ultimately do to Earth's human population. Billions of people rely on the oceans for food. If we cause mass extinction events there, we will have a whole new world of trouble.
12
@Mike Roddy
Yes. Jonny's in the basement, mixin' up the medicine,
I'm on the pavement, thinkin' 'bout the gov'ment.
2
"But what are the chances we’ll see the Environmental Protection Agency spring into action?"
The EPA did spring into action, well, after several four year long term studies of US rivers and streams, showing rapid degradation due to agricultural, industrial and residential runoff, especially in the Central and Eastern regions.
A new EPA rule, The Waters of The US, was carefully crafted based on the extensive data gathered, costs and benefits and implemented during the Obama Administration, only to be rapidly eliminated by Pruitt and Trump with no scientific justification.
So we will continue to see all kinds of toxic runoff events, thanks to Trump, who worries only about his golf courses.
And we will see a lot of legal challenges to the reckless environmental actions of the Trump Administration, that are likely to reverse the Trump "legacy".
355
If only there was some way to channel those pink lagoons into the water hazards on Trump golf courses...
2
@Look Ahead
Maybe we should tell Trump that his golf courses and investments are going to suffer if we don't deal quickly to address these increasingly horrific "weather events."
We mustn't use the term "climate-change" of course. Trump would smell a rat and automatically say "NO" (all caps) to dealing with the environment in a constructive way (rather than in his preferred intentionally willful ignorant and destructive way--genius that he is
2
@Look Ahead I keep thinking of the Darwin awards. Maybe the worst people-killing stuff will happen in the areas that vote for, you know, people-killing stuff.
2
Going after hogs is a tough one. Americans love their pork. It's ingrained in our national psyche: pork barrel. Ham. Ham and eggs. Bacon. Bacon cheeseburgers. You get the idea. And Iowa is still the king of hog farming, so do we go after them next? Americans certainly need to cut down on meat consumption, to mitigate climate change and for our own health, but it will be a long haul. It makes more sense to focus on green energy in the interests of making realistic and sustainable near-term progress.
45
It helps to get over the pork addiction if you keep a kosher home!
5
@David G.
If I kept up a kosher home, I would have to give up lobster, crab, oysters, clams, shrimp no (mjo de ajo), eel, catfish, and could not have a glass of milk with my steak, oh would have to drink kosher wine, awful stuff, among other good tasty foods. I never checked, is sushi kosher, how about sashimi?
Gail, I used to love your column and I eagerly looked forward to it. But there is no humor in what's going on now. It is too serious to be joked about. I'll start reading you again when Trump is out of office.
26
Relax, Sasha -Ms Collins is making a number of serious points here, if you take the time to think beyond the (oh-how-welcome) laughter.
And remember, the surest way of getting under your Dear Leader's thin skin is people laughing at him.
p.
8
Down in South Carolina, North Carolina is known as "the valley of humility between two mountains of conceit" (the other mountain being Virginia). Hurricane Florence brought some massive humility, shared somewhat by its neighbors. But will the politicians (Republican mostly) learn anything from the experience? Or will the glittering coastal real estate dreams continue to lure them away from scientific evidence?
Meanwhile I'm counting the metaphors implicit in "hog lagoons." They make the "swamp" seem appealing.
100
@carrobin There's a song in there somewhere, something about just lolling around by the hog lagoon. Hope somebody writes it.
4
@carrobin
"Meanwhile I'm counting the metaphors implicit in 'hog lagoons.' They make the "swamp" seem appealing."
That would be the one positive development to come out of all of this, if "swamp" could be replaced by "hog lagoon" in our discourse on D.C. and state capitals. We insult swamps in comparing them to our political life.
1
The Donald's presidency is reminiscent of a hurricane in its destruction of the norms of presidential behavior and responsibility. The Donald's bluster is akin to the winds that a hurricane produces.
Once this presidency is over the recovery period will be like that needed after the devastation from a hurricane.
159
...... and the Donald’s bladder-fluid is akin to the toxic floodwaters soaking the masses, Marla.
60
@Marla
Yes, may I suggest: "Once this presidency is over the recovery period will be like that needed after the devastation from a hurricane." To the power of 10?
...thank you.
18
@Socrates,
Good point and well said.
2
Before Trump visited North Carolina today, he released a video God-blessing the hurricane response teams and the flood victims; he also said:
"This is a tough hurricane, one of the wettest we’ve ever seen from the standpoint of water.”
And a tough Presidency as well; one of the dumbest we've ever seen from the standpoint of raw stupidity.
So proud of our Disaster-In-Chief.
1125
@Socrates, Thanks for posting the quote; I'd not read it. I keep trying to make it make sense, but I can't get past the "from the standpoint of water."
117
@Socrates - quietly sitting on our back porch (it's about 10:30pm in Indianapolis,) when I read the quote you included in your comment from President Trump.
The poor dog must have thought I was choking and jumped off me like I had a seizure. I was laughing so hard my wife actually noticed I was in the room. I read it to her and she started laughing so hard I expected to get a call from the neighbors.
Thanks for ending our day on a high note!
Kim
38
@Socrates,
But he called himself:
A very stable genius
Went to the best schools (Fordham, then transfer to Penn)
Have the best vocabulary
Very very smart
Everything he does is A+(notwithstanding 3000 death in PR)
His first 100-day in office: the most successful in US history
Greatest president ever(take that Abe Lincoln)
The real tragedy is: there are tens of millions among us who firmly believe and cherish his distasteful self-praise.
17
Wait till this Hurricane ends,
The message that the White House sends
Will extol the great Master
That managed Disaster
And brilliantly off danger fends.
Of Manafort not yet a word,
Once loyal now clearly absurd,
Recommended by Putin
Did a job rootin’ tootin’
Will he reveal the deals that occurred?
269
'' Whoops. State lawmakers basically ordered the government to ignore the study. '' - And there you have it.
If any government ( federal, state, local) asks for a scientific study about climate change and the effects thereof (putting aside if they even BELIEVE in it, or the results, at all) then there has to be mechanisms in place that prohibit building, or acting in away that goes directly against said study.
There are to be no bailouts or buyouts.
There are to be no free rides from taxpayers or especially FEMA if there is need to save people from themselves.
There has to be a cost for willful ignorance.
565
@FunkyIrishman: As a resident of North Carolina, I could not believe it when our corrupt, veto-proof Republican legislature banned the use of scientific data to prevent local governments from passing laws that would restrict development in disaster-prone areas.
I think an appropriate new slogan for our license plates would be "Where Ignorance is Enshrined in Law."
64
@FunkyIrishman
Unfortunately, North Carolina is owned by the developers, just as West Virginia is owned by the coal companies. And we've had eight years of Republican control of our state legislature.
23
@FunkyIrishman Same problem in Houston with Texas lawmakers and developers. They ignored the realities of Houston's topography. Willful ignorance is right.
4