marklynas.orgHigh Tide 'gave me nightmares' 05 January 05
So says columnist Johann Hari, who writes for the Independent newspaper in Britain. Hari’s article, reprinted in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, is a thought-provoking piece about how the Asian tsunami disaster could be the shape of things to come as global warming boosts sea levels and triggers what Hari calls ‘Weather of Mass Destruction’. “Anybody who wants to understand the threat we face has to read” High Tide, he advises. “It’s the only piece of non-fiction that has ever given me nightmares.”
Comments
Christopher Shaw
January 6th, 2005 at 03:07 PM
Hari is a supporter of the invasion of Iraq. Quite how he squares his desire to send armies half way round the world to kill the innocent citizens of a third world country with the wish to cut co2 emissions is beyond me.
Lynn Vincentnathan
January 6th, 2005 at 05:36 PM
that there are people out there addressing the issue of GW (which has been giving me nightmares for 15+ years). So I was able at last to get a good night’s sleep, realizing some other Atlas is there to help hold up the world, and this blog page gives me greater solace. High Tide & this blog page have also inspired me to work harder to solve the problem.
As for the Tsunami-GW link, again I would like to mention the idea that small changes (e.g., a slight rise in sea level) can contribute to disproportionate damage when other factors are present, such as a Tsunami earthquake (which most likely was not caused or amplified by any aspect of GW). Certainly a tiny to small portion of the recent Tsunami deaths and destruction can therefore be attributed to GW. If we could subtract the number of deaths and amount of destruction that would have occurred had there not been any GW from what actually occurred, we could arrive at the figures.
As for the Bangladeshi cyclone in 1991 that killed 130,000, I figured then (before GW had reached 95% certainty) that a portion of the deaths and destruction was attributable to GW, by GW amplifying the severity of the storm and to a small extent by raising the sea. As I remember no one mentioned anything about GW contributing to that, but I’m sure it did to some extent.
I sense that years from now we may be going back and racheting up the death and destruction figures from GW harms happening now.