Things are getting better, or at least not changing, part 1 10

[rb1957]

LPS for the nice cat pictures.

"Hoffen wir mal, dass alles gut geht !"
General Paulus, Nov 1942, outside Stalingrad after the launch of Operation Uranus.

 

[dik]

I never thought of you as a cat person (PC term).

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[GregLocock]

Eastern Canadian wildfires reducing in frequency and area burned

According to Canada’s Department of Natural Resources, fires have been occurring for thousands of years in the boreal forests of eastern Canada - not exactly unprecedented. In addition, they call fire a primary change agent that is as crucial to forest renewal as the sun and rain -perhaps not a calamity either.
It appears that 2023 is on pace to be a year with unusually high numbers of fires. Yet the previous year was one of historically low numbers. The Canadian National Fire Database (2023) provides facts to dispute the idea of climate change-driven increases in fires in Canadian fires. According the CNFD, there has been a significant and continuing decline in the number of fires and no discernible trend in the area burned.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[GregLocock]

People are getting richer. Divide the cost of catastrophes by the number of people killed.

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376

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[dik]

Some people are getting richer.

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[GregLocock]

Yup, on average people are getting richer and/or fewer poor people are dying from natural disasters. Which one is bad, dik? Please do let us know. There's a reason why the the dooms dayers are called people haters. Hoping for the worst for other people.




Cheers

Greg Locock


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[dik]

I'm not so sure about people getting richer, I know that some people are. As far as people living longer it's generally the case... the US life expectancy took a recent dip due to fentanyl related deaths... I understand.

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[GregLocock]

Irrelevant. You presented data, I interpreted it. Answer the question with facts not red herrings.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[GregLocock]

Declining damage due to tornadoes

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[GregLocock]

Now, is that because the frequency/intensity of tornadoes has diminished in general? Or people have stopped building shacks in silly places? Or they are building better shacks? Probably all 3 but whatever the mix, the result is positive. Adaptation.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[TugboatEng]

Jupiter has a permanent hurricane. It also has no CO2.

 

[SnTMan]

No mobile homes either, I'd wager

The problem with sloppy work is that the supply FAR EXCEEDS the demand

 

[TugboatEng]

We had a lot of temporary workers some years back and my manager had the funniest comment. He said, if we get one more trailer here we're going to have a tornado.

 

[dik]

Use fake ones for bait and redirect the tornadoes, where they are needed?

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[SnTMan]

Usually a lot of repos available in a given locale

The problem with sloppy work is that the supply FAR EXCEEDS the demand

 

[JoshPlumSE]

I saw a guy talking about the "benefits of fossil fuels" recently. He actually made some good points.

He perceives the "Green New Deal" type folks very negatively. The problem with their predictions is that they never account for the benefits of fossil fuels. What he means by that is that you can see over the last 100 or 150 years that the climate related deaths (per capita) have gone way, way down during the time that we raised the temperature by about 1 degree Celsius. Why? Because of the BENEFITS that we've gained from abundant, cheap energy. We have AC in the Summer, wee burn gas or such in the winter. Essentially, our energy usage has allowed us to conquer climate related catastrophe unlike any other time in history.

His conclusion is one of hopefulness. Essentially saying that there we have "greened" the world over the last 50 years. Meaning plant life from space is flourishing. Obviously, in places where people live, this is due to agriculture and gardening and water storage and such. But, this also occurs in other areas where human have very little impact. That might mean we've got increased moisture in these regions, it might be related to higher CO2 levels (because CO2 helps plants grow). And, that we (as a species) will continue to flourish even with rising CO2 levels and rising temperatures.

 

[hokie66]

Hopefulness is good. Despair at things which may never happen is bad.

 

[SnTMan]

How to explain? Oh, yeah:

Abundant, reliable, cheap energy, good. Scarce, intermittant, expensive energy, bad.

The problem with sloppy work is that the supply FAR EXCEEDS the demand

 

[GregLocock]

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17477891.2023.2239807?journalCode=tenh20

Gives data sources, here's the anbstract

Is the number of global natural disasters increasing?
Gianluca Alimonti &Luigi Mariani

ABSTRACT
We analyze temporal trends in the number of natural disasters reported since 1900 in the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) from the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED). Visual inspection suggests three distinct phases: first, a linear upward trend to around mid-century followed by rapid growth to the turn of the new century, and thereafter a decreasing trend to 2022. These observations are supported by piecewise regression analyses that identify three breakpoints (1922, 1975, 2002), with the most recent subperiod 2002–2022 characterized by a significant decline in number of events. A similar pattern over time is exhibited by contemporaneous number of geophysical disasters – volcanoes, earthquakes, dry landslides – which, by their nature, are not significantly influenced by climate or anthropogenic factors. We conclude that the patterns observed are largely attributable to progressively better reporting of natural disaster events, with the EM-DAT dataset now regarded as relatively complete since ∼2000. The above result sits in marked contradiction to earlier analyses by two UN bodies (FAO and UNDRR), which predicts an increasing number of natural disasters and impacts in concert with global warming. Our analyses strongly refute this assertion as well as extrapolations published by UNDRR based on this claim.

Previous versions of this analysis got cancelled by the usual suspects.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[Brian Malone]

I recognize I am skirting being pedantic: shouldn't 'natural diasters' truly be called 'human diasters' or maybe 'extreme natuaral events'? After all, most if not all of the effects are only diasterous in the context of humans. Nature continues its course regardless of any perceived effect to humans or our existence.