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US Disaster Costs Shatter Records In 2017, the Third-Warmest Year On Record (cnbc.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Major hurricanes and wildfires fueled a record year for costs related to natural disasters in the United States, according to a new report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That report also said 2017 was the third-warmest year in 123 years of record keeping, behind only 2014 and 2012. Natural disasters in the United States cost more than $300 million last year, far surpassing the previous record of $214.8 billion set in 2005, NOAA said Monday. NOAA counted 1 drought event, 2 flooding events, 1 freeze event, 8 severe storm events, 3 tropical cyclone events, and 1 wildfire event during the year that bore losses exceeding $1 billion each. There were also 362 deaths. That would tie with 2011 for the largest number of such billion-dollar disasters, the agency said.

10 of 222 comments (clear)

  1. How to cause panic with statistics by SuperKendall · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why would anyone expect the cost of natural disasters to do anything but go up? The price of everything is going up, from real estate to building materials to labor. Every time there is damage the cost of repair will be greater, sometimes much greater. Every year is probably going to be the most expensive. To claim (or imply) we had larger disasters than ever before is simply false, we've had bigger hurricanes, and worse wildfires. Especially speaking of wildfires, THAT is due to Californias stupid policy on never doing controlled burns and the sky-high price of real estate there. Wildfires there are nothing but a man-made disaster, probably caused by "Raw Water" freaks smoking pot as they collect.

    I also like how they casually imply the year being warm has strong ties to all the disasters - which include things like a freeze.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:How to cause panic with statistics by JOstrow · · Score: 5, Funny

      If you're going to cause panic with statistics, at least get your millions/billions straight:

      "Natural disasters in the United States cost more than $300 million last year, far surpassing the previous record of $214.8 billion set in 2005, NOAA said Monday."

    2. Re:How to cause panic with statistics by iggymanz · · Score: 3, Insightful

      no, reputable scientists aren't and don't point to a weather event and say it was due to climate change. there was stupid article recently about one contrarian with paper that said that could be done, but reputable scientists don't.

        your brain is scrambled with confusion over unrelated issues. Climate change, the weather events listed in the summary and increasing expense of disasters are three different things.

    3. Re:How to cause panic with statistics by religionofpeas · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's hard to point to a single weather event and attribute it to climate change, but it should be obvious that a changing climate also changes the weather.

  2. Not sure about that by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Why would anyone expect the cost of natural disasters to do anything but go up? The price of everything is going up, from real estate to building materials to labor. Every time there is damage the cost of repair will be greater, sometimes much greater. Every year is probably going to be the most expensive. To claim (or imply) we had larger disasters than ever before is simply false, we've had bigger hurricanes, and worse wildfires. Especially speaking of wildfires, THAT is due to Californias stupid policy on never doing controlled burns and the sky-high price of real estate there. Wildfires there are nothing but a man-made disaster, probably caused by "Raw Water" freaks smoking pot as they collect.

    I also like how they casually imply the year being warm has strong ties to all the disasters - which include things like a freeze.

    I'm not quite sure of your premise, one thing about natural disasters is that we get to learn from them.

    For example, the Loma Prieta earthquake (California 6.9, 1989), worth $5.6 in damages, caused changes in building codes to make the buildings more tolerant of earthquakes. There have been further earthquakes of roughly the same magnitude, with much less damage. It's not completely comperable, the 1994 Northridge earthquake caused more damage, because earthquakes happen at different places and magnitudes.

    The New Orleans Levee breaches that caused all the flooding: OK, we should have seen that coming, but have we fixed the problems there? Would another hurricane cause as much damage?

    And there are near disasters that cause us to harden our defenses. The recent Oroville Dam crisis in California is getting fixed to better withstand seasonally unusual conditions, and no one wants to build nuclear reactors after Fukishima.

    Historically speaking, I'm not entirely sure that the costs of disasters should keep going up.

    Disasters tend to have happened before, and people tend to make plans.

    1. Re:Not sure about that by Mashiki · · Score: 4, Interesting

      But why don't they do burn offs? It's one of the regular maintenance things done round me.

      NIMBYism and environmental nuts. Same reasons why we don't have controlled burns of trees infested with pinewood beetles. Fire is about the only thing that will kill them, and it kills them very well and at their most damaging phase. Some trees that survive the burnoffs will even rebound when the beetles stop doing damage.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
  3. Re:Uh huh by baker_tony · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Holy fucken shit, no climate scientists ever in the history of the world has ever thought of "solar cycles" impacting climate change!
    Motherfucker, you're the smartest person on the planet!

    Oh wait, no, a few seconds in Google proves you're a moron, here's the first link I clicked on:
    https://www.giss.nasa.gov/rese...
    and here's the second link:
    https://www.scientificamerican...
    you may continue to keep clicking on the list, just Google "do solar cycles cause climate change".

  4. Re:Bull. Shit. by baker_tony · · Score: 4, Informative

    Talk to an Australian. They hit just over 40 degrees last weekend... That's 40+ degrees Celsius BTW.
    I know, I know, you have no idea what that means, your backyard is cold, therefore it's cold everywhere in the world.

  5. Re:cnbc is so biased by deviated_prevert · · Score: 3, Insightful

    1 single volcano puts off more carbon monoxide that all the cars ever built. Yet we are still alive.

    Grow up people, global warming is a giant lie.

    Hey you dumb fuck carbon monoxide is not the gas at issue with the known and recorded atmospheric gas imbalance. The higher levels of CO2 created by recent human activity are causing a rapid average global atmospheric warming. To deny the science and the evidence that every reputable scientist in the field is reporting is also becoming a rather stupid platform. Anyone who claims that carbon monoxide is the problem here is a complete absolute ignorant idiot. The same as the idiots who claim that atmospheric warming does not cause weather anomalies, or about as logical as the tired old saw used by some shills posting here that "AGW does not equal weather".

    More extreme weather events on average created by AGW is a sound hypothesis. And indeed we are seeing the increase in global atmospheric CO2 cause increased average temperatures and changes to the jet stream that cause more extreme anomalous weather events. Areas are becoming dryer and hotter and soon some areas adjacent to deserts that are currently inhabited may become uninhabitable. Areas of India and Southern Europe are starting to see more extreme heat events that kill. All of these things have been predicted and are being proved true.

    In Canada we have seen a direct correlation between the pine beetle forest die off in British Columbia and the statistically recorded increases in average winter and summer temperatures in the pine beetles range. To deny the evidence of the destruction being caused by human caused climate change is idiotic and at worst a deliberate attempt by morons in the petro chemical industry and their shills in Washington to deflect the blame away from the causes!

    --
    This message was not sent from an iPhone because Peter Sellers really was a deviated prevert without a dime for the call
  6. And disasters worldwide were down by wakeboarder · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The only reason why 2017 was notable is that hurricanes decided that the best places to mow down were wealthy US cities. Worldwide costs were up, disasters and deaths were down.

    http://www.iflscience.com/envi...