Here is the Story of a Hurricane
Planet Earth is under attack by the very entities charged with its protection. Human beings are systematically destroying the planet and are deaf to its, so far, relatively subtle warnings. When temperatures rise by just a fraction of a degree, or yearly precipitation amounts increase by just an inch or two, these changes can be imperceptible. However, when these small changes accumulate after a period of years they can result in natural disasters that are uncommon to certain geographic areas. Ocean temperatures have steadily been on the rise for years. These changing temperatures have the potential to irrevocably change weather patterns for the entire world. In August of 2011, Hurricane Irene gave much of the east coast of the United States a taste of what changes in global weather patterns can do. The hurricane showed many communities how vastly underprepared, and unequipped they are to deal with such a storm, and it served as a wake up call to the human race, to take better care of the planet. A case study of these realizations can be viewed through the prism of severe weather related events at the Humane Society of Ocean City.
The Humane Society of Ocean City, is a small animal shelter that takes in homeless cats and dogs, and adopts them to new permanent homes. The shelter also acts as a sanctuary for a resident population of fifty-eight cats with various disabilities or chronic illnesses. The main shelter building sits along the bay that separates Ocean City from the main land. Ocean City, New Jersey is located on a barrier island off the coast of Cape May County, New Jersey. The city has always been famous for its city wide restriction on the sale of alcohol, and its family-friendly atmo...
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...her patterns change across the world, it will be much more than just Ocean City, and one animal shelter that shoulders the effects. The warning calls of the planet must be heard or all of humanity could see similar disruptions. Crops will either die or need to be moved to new locations, wild animal populations will perish, buildings will crumble, and natural resources will become unavailable. Maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, or all at once, but future generations of humans will be left to deal with the problem’s their ancestors were too lazy and stubborn to fix. Rather than ignore the cries of the planet, the world population needs to work together to make sure every possible step is taken to reverse the tide it has created. Choosing to ignore this crisis any longer could cause the entire world to be washed away in a figurative, and literal, tidal wave.
There needs to be a reduction in emissions, yet we cannot focus on this aspect of global warming alone. There are many indicators that climatic change is influencing the frequency and intensity of natural catastrophes. If scientific global climate models are accurate, the present problems will be magnified in the near future. Already scientists have observed that more than 75% of the recent economic losses are caused by natural hazards, which can be attributed to wind storms, floods, droughts and other climate-related hazards. In the year 2008, the U.S. state of Iowa was on the front pages of newspapers all around the world.
The city of Miami Beach has already tried once to solve the flooding issue. The mayor, Philip Levine took action by “installing enormous pumps underground that will suck water off the streets and dump it into Biscayne Bay.” Levine has already installed six of the fifty-four that he has planned to install around Miami Beach. These pumps are a complete waste of money because regardless of how many will be installed, the sea level rising will just cause the pumps to be ineffective. On her trip, Kolbert meets with scientist Hal Wanless. Wanless shares his opinion with Kolbert about the millions of dollars that Miami Beach has already spent on trying to stop the reoccurring flooding. Wanless states, “So much money down the drain. Sooner or later-and probably sooner-the city will have too much water to deal with.” The state officials must find a different way to solve the flooding if they want to save their state. But the officials have already made up their minds to not invest any further money because of the failure and money lost from the
In 2008 Hurricane Ike made land fall to the east coast line in Galveston Texas. The storm surge water that Ike produced flooded the east coast region of Houston and Galveston. It has been estimated over billions of dollars in damage to home owners, business owners, and cause numerus of deaths. The mass destruction that Ike caused had people coming up ways to prevent or lessen the effects if a storm like this would ever occur in the future. A storm surge project was drafted and submitted to politicians is being delayed due to funding issues. Money should not be the major delay when it comes to saving homeowners, business owners, and a life of a person.
By using the information found in this book, I will be able to write about the severity of the ongoing issue of climate change. With all the dangerous effects of climate change Kahrl and Roland-Holst point out on just a single state, it becomes clear that other places around the world are experiencing the same. In fact, since Cali...
After hurricane Ike, which hit Texas in 2008, Texas didn’t ask for a coastal protection program, and instead did what they believed to be most economically necessary. Scranton includes this information to emphasize how we don’t seem to learn from our lack of preparation for disastrous storms in the past, and why that’s such an issue. However, today researchers are working towards solutions to the damage of future hurricanes. Although acting out these plans has proven to be a struggle, according to all the information Scranton has provided us throughout the article it should be one of the most serious issues on our minds. The lack of immediate call to action on the issue of climate change means that “today it might be too late,” states Scranton. He then wraps up his ideas by claiming to understand why the population has difficulty fully grasping the urgency to prevent climate change, if still possible. Readers are emotionally provoked when Scranton lists concepts that relate to climate change, such as leukemia, shampoo, specific places, paper, etc. because people can often relate to some of these things in their everyday life. Scranton seems to understand that many people are just afraid of
In James S. Hirsch’s book about Rubin "Hurricane" Cater, Hurricane, the author describes how Carter was wrongfully imprisoned and how he managed to become free. Hirsch tells about the nearly impossible battle for Carter and his friend John Artis for freedom and justice. Both, Carter and Artis, were convicted of a triple homicide, and both were innocent.
Hurricane Katrina, a category 5 hurricane at its highest, made impact between August 23-30th 2005, and has since gone down as the most devastating and costliest natural disaster in the history of the United States. In preparation for the impact of the storm, on August 27th 2005, two days before the hurricane made landfall, President George W. Bush declared a state of emergency in the states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. The Waterford nuclear plant was shut down for precautionary reasons in the wake of the oncoming storm and mandatory evacuations were issued for large parts of the southeast. Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans stated that about 80% of the 480,000 people asked to evacuate heeded warnings. Evacuation orders were also made for areas along the Mississippi coast, low-lying coastal areas in Alabama, as well as the barrier islands in western Florida Panhandle.
How would you like to live in a home that is beginning to fall apart, but only to go on about your day and continue to neglect it until it all comes crashing down? Humans and animals share this beautiful planet that we call home. But this beautiful home of ours is being regularly and increasingly torn apart by our own ignorant actions. These actions of ours have begun to unravel the very world in which we live, causing a self-inflicted crisis known as Global Climate Change. Global Climate Change is a severe dilemma, and it is continuously becoming more evident to the world’s population that climate change is being caused by changes in the reflectivity of earth’s atmosphere and surface, the ever changing variations of energy from the sun reaching the earth, and the daunting increase in greenhouse gasses.
Hurricane Maria was destructive and caused a large amount of damage to the entire island of Puerto Rico. Maria hit on September 20 and was a category four hurricane, nearly a category five. Hurricane Maria has had a tremendous impact on the lives of Puerto Ricans and even the world.
Imagine the horrors that accompany a great hurricane. Visualize the wind, rain, and waves. Hear the piercing screams through crashing waves, crushing buildings, and trees falling. Picture the great devastation. The Galveston Hurricane of 1900 was caused by abdominal weather conditions, and led to great destruction. Many lives were lost, and colossal rebuilding of the city had to take place. New city laws and plans were adopted from the hurricane.
Have you ever thought about what it would be like to have a hurricane hit you, or your hometown, and I mean really thought about what it would be like, not just say “oh, it would be horrible”. Imagine the winds outside were ripping trees out of the ground, and things blowing around, making it dangerous to go outside, imagine not knowing what was going on outside your home(other than that there was a hurricane) and being stuck in that for days. You might lose your home, or car, or both. Hurricanes are extremely dangerous and devastating.
Studies have shown that since global warming is increasing the temperature of the oceans, hurricanes are getting more and more intense, posing a greater threat for irreparable damage (Hurricane Genesis,
The first part of this essay discusses what the human species has done to deal with the problem of climate change. While some improvements have been made, the problem has not been addressed aggressively enough to stop the damage. What is amazing about this is the denial of so many people that problems exist. If they do realize the risks, they are simply not taking actions to contain the damage.
In a world divided by war, it is easy to overlook problems that affect all of mankind. The dramatic rise in ocean levels worldwide constitutes just that sort of problem. Although the fundamental problem of global warming has been given airtime and plenty of written-media coverage, the problem of rising sea levels seems to have met a certain amount of apathy. A likely explanation is that the rising sea levels mainly threatens impoverished peoples that may have no choice but to doubt the threat, since there is no way for them to relocate. Concurrently, Americans, seemingly beset by some false sense of well-being, really have no fear of the possible annihilation of our coastal cities. Granted, the worst case scenario (the total loss of all glacial ice) would take several hundred years to become a reality, but the possibilities are frightening.
The Earth is currently locked in perpetuating spiral of climate change. While the global climate has unarguably been changing since the dawn of it's manifestation, the once steadied ebb and flow of climate change has become increasingly more unpredictable.The risk of rising sea levels, and drought plaguing the fresh water supply, during the time that flooding and sporadic storm conditions turn once fully inhabited regions into uninhabitable death traps. Climate change catalyzed by human's increased production of carbon dioxide, is more noticeable than ever in our recorded history (United States, 2014 National Climate Assessment). Thankfully however, with the changing weather conditions due to carbon related emissions, the change in public opinion about their personalized influence on climate change is also increasing. Kevin Liptak Jethro Mullen, and Tom Cohen note that In reaction to the most recent governmental report on climate change, even the U.S. government believes that a stronger approach needs to be taken to correct our self-generated cataclysm.