Cyclones, droughts, famines etc. have been recorded since man learned to write, long before the Industrial age. Now due to 24/7 coverage climate change fanatics think every event is due to climate change. I
I remember as a kid, folks freaking out about the spray cans depleting the ozone layer, oh and acid rain. They had us kids thinking rain would melt our skin. That was 30 years ago. I'm a climate change skeptic.
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@Ed Spray cans and other factors did in fact deplete the ozone layer, although that is being reversed thanks to regulations. Acid rain may not have dissolved your skin, but it definitely destroyed or damaged vast tracts of forest and killed fish in thousands of lakes. Science does not care what you believe.
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It’s incredibly sad 1.5 million people were affected by this cyclone. The US should push more to deliver aid to all these people in need.
The fact that these people were vulnerable to begin with makes this disaster especially tragic. These countries lacked the infrastructure to deal with such a catastrophe and now there are people with literally none of their needs met & no avenues to fulfill them.
Now is the time for the U.S. respond with humanitarian aid. With the largest, most resourced military in the world, we can fly in the help and save lives. This is the rightful use of defense dollars--to help those in need.
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@Ann-Another good reason to send military in to provide humanitarian aid -- is that the DoD has known for over a decade, that climate change is one of the biggest national security threats. The DoD has been planning for this -- and can provide a large enough scale search, recovery, and aid effort. It can also provide this aid domestically in places like the Midwest especially in Nebraska devastated by floods and suffering from Trump's tariffs which cost the state's economy $1billion in losses.
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The UN and countries in the region can take care of the situation.
South Africa is just next door. It’s the closest and most well equipped to provide aid to Mozambique. Tanzania to the north also has a significant military. Remember they ousted Idi Amin from Uganda.
The US should avoid any military involvement. People always complain the US gets too involved in the internal affairs of other countries. Anyway, anything from the US would take weeks to arrive by ship. Flying large amounts of aid to Africa is not feasible.
The US military also isn’t a disaster relief operation. Even in the US, FEMA turns to them only temporarily when things become overwhelming - think NOLA after Katrina. We need to preserve that option for the flood, tornado, and hurricane seasons here. Our resources aren’t unlimited.
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@Ann The navy should have been on its way from the beginning.
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Mozambiquans and other Southern African countries affected by cyclone Adal need global humanitarian assistance with the urgency of now.
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I grew up on the East Coast of India and for many years we would see many cyclones come through causing huge destruction and loss of life. Subsequently the government decided that no new dwellings could be built near the coast line (200 yards). Many storm shelters were built across the coast line. A few years ago a Category 3 storm hit a city of 4.3 million - the government evacuated nearly 800,000 people in preparation with resulting minimal loss of life. The brunt of the forces were taken by trees which were planted in the previous decades. When you see the photos of this storm you could see that there is much work to be done - move away from the coast line and storm shelters for starters.
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I hope that government in the US will soon take seriously the very real threat of climate change. We are seeing the evidence of doing nothing play out all over the world. The hardest hit areas are, of course, poor countries. I'd be interested to see how quickly things would change if Mar-A-Lago were suddenly devastated in a natural disaster. I think we all know the answer...
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Lots of coverage about the impacts of this awful cyclone on people, and I understand this. But isn’t this an area rich with wildlife? How is wildlife faring?
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@Sally Marquis Gorongosa Park is the most wildlife-rich area in the affected zone - not too much yet on their website, but I'm sure they will be releasing info as they get it.
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@Sally Marquis yes, thank you - not one word on animals. It may seem callous, the impact on the human world is horrendous,but we live in a complete 3-D world, and everything here with us is part of us. I do not understand why these reports never detail the impact on
our friends and fellow earth-dwellers. Particularly since we are causing this devastation, the animals are just victims of our greed.
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We will see this cycle more and more. Global warming is driven by massive over population. Global warming produces massive storms. Over population and hyper-population of urban centers means it is more likely people will be in the way of these massive storms.
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Human beings evolved in this part of the world 300,000+ years ago.
Genetic testing places my African roots Southeastern Africa and in West Africa and the Congo basin. All the way back to genetic Eve.
I feel and see my people.
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We all started out there. I feel for these people affected by these terrible weather events. One thing I know for sure, they will persist and thrive.
Man made climate change is a fact says scientists. Most will also say that a particular weather event isn’t evidence of climate change. You will find some however that will say that these weather events are caused by man. They have no science behind them in these accusations. But with the media they get the microphone. This is when science gets warped by politics and is no longer science.
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How about links to aid agencies to which donations can be made?
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@Gretchen
i googled the Malawi red cross, and asked via email how to donate, but never heard back.
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@Gretchen If you have Facebook, the 'Friends of Mozambique' page has some good vetted places to send donations.
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For all the people standing in water today in Mozambique, or those that lost family members due to the flooding, they should realize that the President of the U.S.A., Mr. Trump does not believe in global climate change nor the effects of climate change on weather. Mr. Trump has formed his opinion of climate change by watching FOX news and ignoring the scientific literature on the matter. Maybe the people in Mozambique should watch FOX news to distract themselves from the reality of objective data and the water in which they are standing.
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The time to take action to combat climate change was yesterday - but there’s also today.
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Your mean that two decades ago, with no global warming or climate change, there was actually worse flooding in Mozambique?
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@Saul RP
The impacts of global warming have been gradually increasing for over a century. Even before its effects started to become apparent there were disastrous storms and other natural events. The problem is that they are getting more frequent --much more frequent, and larger.
The fact that there was a storm 20 years ago isn't evidence that storms today aren't made worse and more frequent by the warming of the planet.
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@TMah.....prove it, don't just say it.....who was recording ferocity of storms in North America 500-600 years ago? or Africa? or Asia?
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@Saul RPwhy don't you believe science
Amazing to look at the pictures. Where did all of this water come from? Truly, as far as the eye can see.
"the worst natural disaster in southern Africa in two decades."
My nature is to be relentlessly curious. So what was the disaster two decades ago that was worse than this one?
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The last major natural disaster of a similar nature occurred in Maputo and when the USA eventually flew in some support from halfway across the world the locals instead of being thankful asked "What took you so long?"
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@ndbza what did take us so long?
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Global solidarity for those in Mozambique and Nebraska. Both are suffering extreme flooding, worlds apart but unified by a common cause - climate change. It is only March, before the hurricane season and I am already dreading what we will witness this year.
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@macman2.......stop dreading.....many more lives lost through guns and traffic accidents....75,000 a year in USA alone.
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China emits more carbon dioxide than the United States and the EU combined. And India’s contribution is also rapidly rising. Even if the United States stopped contributing to climate change, other countries won’t.
Developing nations are actually the countries whose use of fossil fuels is accelerating the most. Western countries including the United States are where electric cars and renewable energy projects are the highest.
If people are going to cite climate change, at least have the facts right.
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Everyone knows this. But the US needs to be a leader, and so far we are not, so the developing world continues on its trend. Some wealthy people with electric cars is not leadership.
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@H We have seen the enemy, and it is us: per capita, the US is by far the largest contributor to carbon dioxide emissions. So the cause is you and me, my friend. The good news is we can do something about it: turn stuff off, turn the heat down, wear longjohns, drive less, drive a more fuel efficient car, hang your clothes to dry like they do in Europe. We can no longer afford to point the finger at others.
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@H
On the other hand, solar power is taking off in India, with the price dropping 50% in 2017. See the most recent issue of the New York Review of Books for what seems to be some rare good news on our ability to fight climate change. In any case, since Americans' carbon footprints are far higher than those of the Indians and the Chinese, it makes sense for us to act first and for us to try to help them to act also.
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When are we going to weigh the effects of global warming against the damage the cost of stopping it NOW or even just in time.
While we listen to our president’s ignorant opinion on climate change weather is assuring us that ignoring the obvious will cost a great deal more. Property damage must have by now exceeded billions of dollars just in our country in the last 5 years. Perhaps, I am unfair but what about the damage caused by several drilling accidents along our coast line just because we think we need more cheap fuel. Who paid for the damage to homes, roads, multiple facilities from heavy rains and high winds? The crop losses in California, possible quake damage as we drill deeper to support the burgeoning agricultural losses. Pollution from many sources have damaged our fisheries. Our cattle growers have on several occasions polluted our agricultural crops because of loss of “normal” water supplies. As the salinity our drinking water goes up the old lead pipes corrode faster and have poisoned children and adults. First, we have insufficient winter snow fall and then major flooding as the snow melts very rapidly which limits agricultural production. These events are only the beginning. Take a careful look at western Africa where thousands may well have died from Hurricane Idai. Even if we carry enough flood insurance it still is a loss that can not be replaced. Think about IDAI hitting our southwest state say this summer.
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Affecting 1.5 million people?! Why isn't this being covered in the news more? How can people help?
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@B Moon
There’s so much noise nowadays, so many scandals, so much political nonsense, that something serious that affects one and a half million people can fly under the radar.
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@B Moon
Because African tragedies never get get the coverage that the American or European ones receive. Even the terrorist attacks in Africa received less reportage than similar events in France. Apparently, to the western press, Black lives have less value.
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Every negative weather event is now due to climate change, we’ll according to liberals. When the weather is normal and it’s pointed out, liberals say it’s just weather not the climate.
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@Ed It's not a liberal thing, it's a science thing. The point of the argument is that climate change (global warming) is related to the increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, not that they never occured before.
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@Ed I wish global warming was only a 'Liberal' thing.
Then our lives and the lives of our grandchildren would not be in the hands of Luddites who don't believe in science.
Surely you can find 'scientists' who scoff at Climate Change but for every scoffer, there are over 500 who acknowledge it is real and if we don't act now, there is no second act! The number of believers are climbing!
Along with 10 and 12-year-old children who recognize they may not live their full allotment of years and have to be talked down to by politicians who have had the power to do something; but get too much in donations from the fossil fuel industry.
During the Arms Race, many of us had our desks to hide under when being bombed or the bomb shelter in the back yard. As we aged we realized the foolhardiness and inadequacies of this 'plan'.
At the most, it kept children from stressing out over what they heard from their parents.
What do the children have now to help their very real fears?
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@Ed
Global warming is real and serious; you don’t have to be an intersectionalist progressive to believe that.
The only dispute should be the solution. I believe in zero taxes for any energy or automotive business on all carbon free products they produce, along with a real push for modern nuclear power. Meaning, I believe in using the profit motive as a massive enticement.
This is where I disagree with AOC and the intersectionalists, who seem to want to use a green new deal as a vehicle for also tackling capitalism and wealth inequality.
I say, let’s separate those issues.
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This breaketh the heart—
And as global warming is worsening these tropical cyclones and hurricanes, causing staggering human misery and suffering—
And as the United States is a leading cause climate change and global warming—
And as one Donald John Trump is thumbing his nose at any global accord to address global warming—
The WORLD should demand the removal of said Trump.
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Wow! What a dramatic picture of a roadway washed away. And, by the looks of the base rock, which is about a foot thick, it was a well-built road!
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The world’s poorest always pay the highest price for the way the richest devastate the planet through endless consumption and need for profit. Even when we experience some of its effects, we can recover better than they can, with far greater resources. And thus the scope of the problem remains ever distant, and deniable to certain Americans who already have the tendency to see nothing but their own backyard.
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Cyclones are normal in the Indian Ocean. Look at the wind speeds, and this wasn’t even a Super-cyclone.
The problem is many buildings in Mozambique aren’t built to withstand hurricane force winds. And the population is growing fast, from 18 million in 2000 to over 29 million now. Women have on average over 5 children. So fatalities are bound to be higher than with past storms.
Mozambique is rich in arable land and mineral resources. There was a civil war 25 years ago, but its poverty is now due to bad governance and endemic corruption. Whining about wealthier Western nations doesn’t change that one iota.
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@H
The problem is not that Mozambique's buildings are weak - there is deep flooding over a very large area. Also, this weather event is one of the worst Zimbabwe has experienced in a long time. It is a land-locked country that is very rarely affected by cyclones. The infrastructure there is good, with, as Mr. Nasty, curmudgeon pointed out, well built roads. Although poverty there has exacerbated the damage, it is not the cause. Climate change is.
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@H And four feet of rain in Houston was just another day in the park. The storms are carrying more water and lingering longer. The melting of our glaciers has consequences, party on.
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This is the result of climate change. We are part of the problem. Personally, I don’t know where to start, what to do.
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@Sarah Conner you should start reading about climate change first.
@Sarah Conner
Vote!
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@Sarah Conner: Turn stuff off, turn the heat down, wear longjohns, avoid air-conditioning, drive less, drive a more fuel efficient car, hang your clothes to dry like they do in Europe, use manual lawn and garden tools, get rid of your lawn, fly less, shop locally, buy less stuff, especially imported. At least you'll feel better. I know I do.
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