10-01-2022, 05:35 AM
Hurricanes happen with or without global warming, but nine in the month of September is unusually high. As one of the most effective ways of the earth's atmosphere to disperse excessive heat in the tropics, most of whose surface is water, some of it among the most consistently-warm-to-hot places on Earth, hurricanes seem likely to be more frequent and severe in the wake of AGW.
Although it is impossible to ascribe natural disasters from plagues (like COVID-19) earthquakes to cyclonic storms, forest fires, droughts, floods, heat waves, and cold waves to political leaders, responses to them reflect the character and competence of political leaders. This applies from Theodore Roosevelt (1906 San Francisco Earthquake) to Donald Trump... and now Joe Biden. Bungled responses to such natural disasters can topple regimes unable and unwilling to deal with them, such as the Somoza regime of Nicaragua.
An incompetent, offensive response to a natural disaster (as by Donald Trump) might have political effects. Good leaders can prepare at the least for hurricanes by arranging evacuations and relief 'in the event of', as Obama did for hurricanes in Florida while President. Theodore Roosevelt could do nothing but give the only American institution (the Armed Forces) a free hand in the aftermath of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, for which San Francisco has monuments to General Funston). Military-style regimentation has its merits in the wake of disasters.
Response to Hurricane Ian may be the acid test of the Biden administration. Aside from stewardship of economics and foreign policy and in rare cases major wars, little can better demonstrate the competence and moral values of a President of the United States (or analogous leaders elsewhere). Natural disasters are the wrong time for partisan bickering; human lives are at stake.
Although it is impossible to ascribe natural disasters from plagues (like COVID-19) earthquakes to cyclonic storms, forest fires, droughts, floods, heat waves, and cold waves to political leaders, responses to them reflect the character and competence of political leaders. This applies from Theodore Roosevelt (1906 San Francisco Earthquake) to Donald Trump... and now Joe Biden. Bungled responses to such natural disasters can topple regimes unable and unwilling to deal with them, such as the Somoza regime of Nicaragua.
An incompetent, offensive response to a natural disaster (as by Donald Trump) might have political effects. Good leaders can prepare at the least for hurricanes by arranging evacuations and relief 'in the event of', as Obama did for hurricanes in Florida while President. Theodore Roosevelt could do nothing but give the only American institution (the Armed Forces) a free hand in the aftermath of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, for which San Francisco has monuments to General Funston). Military-style regimentation has its merits in the wake of disasters.
Response to Hurricane Ian may be the acid test of the Biden administration. Aside from stewardship of economics and foreign policy and in rare cases major wars, little can better demonstrate the competence and moral values of a President of the United States (or analogous leaders elsewhere). Natural disasters are the wrong time for partisan bickering; human lives are at stake.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.