Yes, global warming systemically caused Hurricane Sandy -- and the Midwest droughts and the fires in Colorado and Texas, as well as other extreme weather disasters around the world. Let's say it out loud, it was causation, systemic causation.
Systemic causation is familiar. Smoking is a systemic cause of lung cancer. HIV is a systemic cause of AIDS. Working in coal mines is a systemic cause of black lung disease. Driving while drunk is a systemic cause of auto accidents. Sex without contraception is a systemic cause of unwanted pregnancies. There is a difference between systemic and direct causation. Punching someone in the nose is direct causation. Throwing a rock through a window is direct causation. Picking up a glass of water and taking a drink is direct causation. Slicing bread is direct causation. Stealing your wallet is direct causation. Any application of force to something or someone that always produces an immediate change to that thing or person is direct causation. When causation is direct, the word cause is unproblematic. Systemic causation, because it is less obvious, is more important to understand. A systemic cause may be one of a number of multiple causes. It may require some special conditions. It may be indirect, working through a network of more direct causes. It may be probabilistic, occurring with a significantly high probability. It may require a feedback mechanism. In general, causation in ecosystems, biological systems, economic systems, and social systems tends not to be direct, but is no less causal. And because it is not direct causation, it requires all the greater attention if it is to be understood and its negative effects controlled. Above all, it requires a name: systemic causation. Global warming systemically caused the huge and ferocious Hurricane Sandy. And consequently, it systemically caused all the loss of life, material damage, and economic loss of Hurricane Sandy. Global warming heated the water of the Gulf and Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean, resulting in greatly increased energy and water vapor in the air above the water. When that happens, extremely energetic and wet storms occur more frequently and ferociously. These systemic effects of global warming came together to produce the ferocity and magnitude of Hurricane Sandy. The precise details of Hurricane Sandy cannot be predicted in advance, any more than when, or whether, a smoker develops lung cancer, or sex without contraception yields an unwanted pregnancy, or a drunk driver has an accident. But systemic causation is nonetheless causal. Semantics matters. Because the word cause is commonly taken to mean direct cause, climate scientists, trying to be precise, have too often shied away from attributing causation of a particular hurricane, drought, or fire to global warming. Lacking a concept and language for systemic causation, climate scientists have made the dreadful communicative mistake of retreating to weasel words. Consider this quote from "Perception of climate change," by James Hansen, Makiko Sato, and Reto Ruedy, Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences:...we can state, with a high degree of confidence, that extreme anomalies such as those in Texas and Oklahoma in 2011 and Moscow in 2010 were a consequence of global warming because their likelihood in the absence of global warming was exceedingly small.The crucial words here are high degree of confidence, anomalies, consequence, likelihood, absence, and exceedingly small. Scientific weasel words! The power of the bald truth, namely causation, is lost. This is no small matter because the fate of the earth is at stake. The science is excellent. The scientists' ability to communicate is lacking. Without the words, the idea cannot even be expressed. And without an understanding of systemic causation, we cannot understand what is hitting us. Global warming is real, and it is here. It is causing -- yes, causing -- death, destruction, and vast economic loss. And the causal effects are getting greater with time. We cannot merely adapt to it. The costs are incalculable. What we are facing is huge. Each day, the amount of extra energy accumulating via the heating of the earth is the equivalent of 400,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs. Each day! Because the earth itself is so huge, this energy is distributed over the earth in a way that is not immediately perceptible by our bodies -- only a fraction of a degree each day. But the accumulation of total heat energy over the earth is increasing at an astronomical rate, even though the temperature numbers look small locally -- 0.8 degrees Celsius so far. If we hit 2.0 degrees Celsius, as we may before long, the earth -- and the living things on it -- will not recover. Because of ice melt, the level of the oceans will rise 45 feet, while huge storms, fires, and droughts get worse each year. The international consensus is that by 2.0 degrees Celsius, all civilization would be threatened if not destroyed. What would it take to reach a 2.0 degrees Celsius increase over the whole earth? Much less than you might think. Consider the amount of oil already drilled and stored by Exxon Mobil alone. If that oil were burned, the temperature of the earth would pass 2.0 degree Celsius, and those horrific disasters would come to pass. The value of Exxon Mobil -- its stock price -- resides in its major asset, its stored oil. The weather disasters arising from burning that oil would be so great that we would have to stop burning. That's just Exxon Mobil's oil. The oil stored by all the oil companies everywhere would, if burned, destroy civilization many times over. Another way to comprehend this, as Bill McKibben has observed, is that most of the oil stored all over the earth is worthless. The value of oil company stock, if Wall St. were rational, would drop precipitously. Moreover, there is no point in drilling for more oil. Most of what we have already stored cannot be burned. More drilling is pointless. Are Bill McKibben's and James Hansen's numbers right? We had better have the science community double-check the numbers, and fast. Where do we start? With language. Add systemic causation to your vocabulary. Communicate the concept. Explain to others why global warming systemically caused the enormous energy and size of Hurricane Sandy, as well as the major droughts and fires. Email your media whenever you see reporting on extreme weather that doesn't ask scientists if it was systemically caused by global warming. Next, enact fee and dividend, originally proposed by Peter Barnes at Sky Trust and introduced as Senate legislation as the KLEAR Act by Maria Cantwell and Susan Collins. More recently, legislation called fee and dividend has been proposed by James Hansen and introduced in the House by representatives John B, Larson and Bob Inglis. Next. Do all we can to move to alternative energy worldwide as soon as possible.
Lucy Robinson: New York Pre-Sandy: A Tale of Two Cities
There was not one mention of SST or SSP (Sea Surface Temperature or Sea Surface Pressure for those in the know) the main variables that regulate tropical cyclones. The interconnection between SST and SSP as it relates to the creation of the tropical cyclone (hurricanes as they are called in the Northeast) is still being understood by scientists. Adding the long-term affect of global warming (or increase in ppm of CO2) on ocean circulation patterns, changes in ocean energy etc. adds another level of complexity that is even less understood.
To date, there are no scientific models that can correlate global warming with any specific weather event. Models can give us an idea of what we can expect as we move into a century with a level of CO2 ppm higher than we have ever seen.
What really concerns me about this article is the way that media articulates these nuanced issues and claims certainty in any direction. I feel this issue deserves a much more nuanced perspective of the incredibly complex systems of our natural world.
weather- is a short-term climate event caused
climate- is long-term changes in patterns of weather
this will never change. Weather measures short-term changes and climate long-term. The two are incomparable.
What irks me most about this article... since WHEN did politicians, media outlets and the general public gain the scientific and mathematical background to speak knowledgeably about climate?!
Do you know what variable regulate SST and SSP (if you aren't familiar with these abbreviations, scientists refer to these as Sea Surface Temperature and Sea Surface Pressure) ?!
Do you know which variable SST or SSP is more affected by climate change?! Really, thats funny, because neither do scientists!!!
As someone who spent my entire undergraduate career studying these issues (and still I have so much to learn!) I am flabbergasted by articles like these.
America needs to focus more on educating its public and children in the areas of science and mathematics because hogwash articles like this will NOT lead to solutions for climate change, they just will not.
Thank you Mr. Lakoff for this useful concept/
"Systemic causation" will now be part of my vocabulary.
HELP....
The maker of the Hummer....
That's like fighting the drug war by bailing out El Chapo Guzman.
Good Job Dems! When you get a clue let me know and I will grace a voting booth.
Buh bye!
What is missing there is anything to do with climate science. And he has been supported by the state for 40 years.
I'm not saying the oil side isn't conflicted also, they are. But study the CAA and CWA and see how much progress has been made.
Also, you could turn off every car and factory in the US and you wouldn't change a thing. You see, although there is no doubt man is ruining the earth, AGW is not the culprit. Not at all.
Research deforestation, Chinese power plant untreated NOx and SOx emissions, and overfishing. No hype though because there is no $$$ in it.
Sad state of affairs.
http://www.c3headlines.com/2011/08/hadcrut-global-temperatures-june-2011-15-year-span-of-immaterial-insignificant-non-accelerating-warm.html
Question is, IF CO2 is increasing why is the earth not heating up more?