I remember when a bad hurricane season was a year in which one hurricane hit the United States. In 2003 two hurricanes and 4 large tropical storms hit the US. In 2004, four hurricanes and three large tropical storms hit the US. In 2005, six hurricanes and two large tropical storms hit the United States, the most memorable of which was Katrina. Of course this ignores all the storms and hurricanes which hit other parts of the Caribbean and Mexico but did not make landfall on the US mainland.
After two relatively quiet hurricane seasons (for the US anyway) things seem to have taken a turn for the worse again. So far this year, two large hurricanes have hit the Gulf coast, and one large tropical storm (Hannah) hit the eastern seaboard. The property damage from Hurricane Ike is likely to be the costliest in our history. We still don’t know the full impact to the oil refineries and other infrastructure which is vital to the production of gasoline and fuel oil, but the economic impact from the damage done, and the delay in restoring production will no doubt be tremendous.
I know these are the rawest of raw data points, but doesn’t this tell us something (along with all the other information about retreating glaciers, melting arctic ice, high temperatures, warmer winters, etc.) about the inherent insanity of continuing to pump large amounts of carbon emissions into the Earth’s atmosphere due to our near total reliance on the burning of fossil fuels for energy and transportation? And yet, what is our energy plan? More drilling for oil off the coast by the major oil companies.
To paraphrase Shakespeare: What fools we mortals be when we continually practice to deceive ourselves.
