If you’re concerned about hurricanes and global warming and you’ve been reading the newspapers and magazines, you are probably confused.
Perhaps in an effort to be “balanced,” most stories in the media these days present a muddled picture. Cornelia Dean’s piece in the New York Times is a good case in point: a scientific paper is cited claiming a connection; another is cited claiming the opposite. The implication is that the science is inconclusive.
Lisa Moore is a scientist in the Climate and Air Program in Environmental Defense’s New York office. Along with principal author Jennifer Kefer, colleague Tim Searchinger and the National Wildlife Federation’s David Conrad, she is a co-author of the new report “America’s Flood Risk is Heating Up.”
This weekend’s monster nor’easter prompted flood warnings and evacuations from the Carolinas to Maine. And what ironic timing: last week, as the storm wreaked havoc in the South, Environmental Defense and the National Wildlife Federation released a report detailing how the Army Corps of Engineers’ flood-control program needs to be completely re-vamped [PDF], especially in light of climate change.
While helping draft the report, I was struck by two things in particular.
Warming of planet
Shifts global winds and rain clouds.
Land parched, people starve.
Dry river bed in Eritrea – northern East Africa. Photo courtesy WFP/Brenda Barton.
