Will Historic South Carolina Floods Wash Away State Leaders' Climate Denial?

[hatrack]

Ed. - I'd say, "no".

EDIT

But even while South Carolina is already suffering the dire consequences of human-caused climate change, its leaders have proven reluctant to acknowledge the science behind what's happening. According to a ThinkProgress report released earlier this year detailing governors' positions on climate change, Haley has never stated whether she believes climate change is real. But she's spoken out against federal efforts to curb greenhouse gas pollution, saying at one point that Washington needs to "stay out of the way."

Fossil fuel concerns including electric utilities and oil and gas interests have been major contributors to the governor's campaign, according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics. Haley has also been deeply involved in the effort to open the Atlantic to offshore oil and gas drilling.

At the same time, Haley's administration has tried to squelch discussion of climate change. Back in 2013, The State newspaper of Columbia obtained a copy of a report on global warming that the S.C. Department of Natural Resources under Haley had kept secret for more than a year due to political pressure. Agency officials said the report was not released because their "priorities" changed.

The disconnect between Haley's acknowledgement of the recent rains as extremely unusual and her administration's efforts to bury the truth about climate change impacts on her state did not go unnoticed on social media, where the governor was skewered for her position.

EDIT

http://www.southernstudies.org/2015/10/will-historic-sc-floods-wash-away-state-leaders-cl.html

[Bigmack]

1. No nt

[phantom power]

2. do we even have to ask?

[OnlinePoker]

3. USGS says it's not

Is this flood due to climate change?

USGS research has shown no linkage between flooding (either increases or decreases) and the increase in greenhouse gases. Essentially, from USGS long-term streamgage data for sites across the country with no regulation or other changes to the watershed that could influence the streamflow, the data shows no systematic increases in flooding through time.

A much bigger impact on flooding, though, is land use change. Without proper mitigation, urbanization of watersheds increases flooding. Moreover, encroachment into the floodplain by homes and businesses leads to greater economic losses and potential loss of life, with more encroachment leading to greater losses.

http://water.usgs.gov/floods/events/2015/Joaquin/HolmesQA.html

[NickB79]

4. It appears the USGS is behind on the latest research

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/apr/27/extreme-weather-already-on-increase-due-to-climate-change-study-finds

Extreme heatwaves and heavy rain storms are already happening with increasing regularity worldwide because of manmade climate change, according to new research.

Global warming over the last century means heat extremes that previously only occurred once every 1,000 days are happening four to five times more often, the study published in Nature Climate Change said.

It found that one in five extreme rain events experienced globally are a result of the 0.85C global rise in temperatre since the Industrial Revolution, as power plants, factories and cars continue to pump out greenhouse gas emissions.

“A lot of us and our colleagues were surprised by how high these numbers are already now in the present day climate,” said Dr Erich Markus Fischer from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.