With great sympathy for all our European friends. It’s like European history doesn’t exist.
In 1717 on Christmas Eve a flood started that killed 14,000 people and spread across the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany. It was followed by savage frosts, and more floods in February of 1718.
So much for the theory that solar panels, windmills, or global cooling will save us from floods.
In the Little Ice Age, the floods were vast, common, and very, very cold.
How one of the most devastating storms in European history killed 13,700 people in 1717
Daily Mail, Dec 2017
On a chilly Christmas Eve three centuries ago, one of the most devastating storms in the history of Europe smashed into the coastlines around the North Sea, killing over 13,000 people, annihilating thousands of houses and wrecking countless farms.
The apocalyptic weather caused enormous floods to submerge coastal areas in the Netherlands, Northern Germany and Denmark by Christmas Day.
As the surviving population struggled with the wind and the waves, Arctic gales spread across the continent and caused a crippling frost to descend on the suffering victims.
1717 Christmas Flood, Germany, Netherlands.
These floods sparked a great dyke building project. The severity of the storms and floods were matched in 1953, when “only” 2,551 people died then.
… the crushing disaster of 1717 is now seen in the context of Dutch decline.
The country had experienced its golden age in the 17th century but, with this storm combining with other setbacks (including pressure from the growing British Empire), its time as a dominant European power was brought to an end.
1717 Christmas Flood, Germany, Netherlands.
The two worst floods of Passau, Bavaria, as far as we know, were in 1501 and 1595.
This is the future we expect if we spend trillions to reduce CO2 to “safe levels”? If we all drive electric vehicles will we be able to create a world as safe as 1501?
Wiki-world has a category called Floods in Germany that includes so many previous floods, they are grouped according to decade:
And again in 1784 when the Ice Floods hit Europe
The bridges of Bamberg were destroyed by ice floods and logs in 1784, but also even earlier in 1342.
Destruction of the lake bridge in Bamberg during ice floods in 1784 / Kolping family Bamberg
… the immense floods of 1784 which followed the unusually harsh winter of 1783/84 throughout Germany when sudden warm weather and torrents of rain filled the still ice-packed rivers.
The winter of 1783/84 is known to have been severe and long-lasting in a number of European countries. Two very cold spells occurred: at the end of December 1783 and in January 1784. Furthermore, it snowed heavily in the months of December 1783, January and February 1784. On 21 February 1784, a warm southerly wind led to a thaw which resulted in fast breaking-up of the ice on the frozen rivers and to catastrophic floods. This large-scale and long-lasting event took place in the present-day Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxemburg, northern France, Germany, Austria, and the Czech and Slovak Republics.
1784 in Wurzburg
High water in Würzburg in 1784
And again in 1882
And again in 1888
Darchau Hochwasser 1888.jpg
And in 1908
Any midwitted journalist should be able to search for historic floods in Germany and Holland.
Sympathies again for all the suffering and loss in the current floods.
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Thank you Jo: history = perspective.
Heard the translated words of Herr A Merkel today on the radio (whilst driving my diesel truck) and apparently the German floods are our fault and we need to move faster to stop them.
Fifteen years ago (when I first became interweb savvy) I came upon a timeline by a retired UK ship captain who meticulously listed North Sea storms, and their resultant calamities, going back 2,000 years. Oh, the horror!
As the late, great John Clarke, aka Fred Dagg, used to sing: We Don’t Know How Lucky We Are!
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYvMeT2GC14
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Yes, this is an outstanding post. Alarmists are liars, no doubt but the effort still has to be made to show they are liars. The historical approach which disproves their mantra of worst ever is one of the best approaches; and this is a good example.
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There are no more “Journalists”.
There are “Propagandists” — aka MSM (=MarxistStreamMedia).
There are “Truth Seekers” — aka People seeking and exposing the Truth — aka JoNova, WUWT, MichaelSmith, FrontlineDoctors, etc, although these people are variously branded as “Deniers”, “Right Wingers”, “Conspiracy Theorists” and even “Naz#’s” by the Propagandists.
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Yes, but with perhaps only a slight alteration.
MSM = Marxism Spewing Media, because they are beyond streaming now.
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These clown journalists, if it didn’t happen in their lifetime, it didn’t happen.
They need to grow up and do some research, it isn’t hard.
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For some unfathomable reason, our governments, politicians and media still have us in an age before computers where they pretty much were our sole source of information.
As you see by the crashing of television news viewership, the majority of Americans have as the rest of the world is slower to break this propaganda machine.
It really is a wonderful time of information a first hand source that our politicians now want to again control the narrative of their indoctrination propaganda.
I really quite enjoy to be able to see many of our different cultures. We really have a beautiful planet to live on.
Since the US Election, we have the Obama administration attacking their own cultures by their skin colour through the media which is quite disgusting.
What we have never had?
An actual stop, let’s review and look at what we are doing and the path we want to achieve.
This for profit avenue has exposed many mistakes and failures that should be addressed and corrected but is not.
Our governments implementation of this get off Fossil Fuel at all costs also fail to include the vehicles they want us to change to is even more environmentally damaging as all these electrical stations are deployed.
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Jo,
Many people right now want to know what we can expect in the future as this Pandemic has made it quite uncertain and unclear.
The Prime Minister of Canada is about to show us…
https://blazingcatfur.ca/2021/07/19/if-you-thought-this-crisis-was-finally-over-think-again/
The seasonal flu will now need permanent boosters.
The Pandemic is here to stay with the help of our politicians.
Being lied to about going back to normal…
Ain’t gonna happen.
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Also, the biggest problem is that what the “experts” are doing is turning a bad situation into what will become a disaster. “a global catastrophe without equal”
Looks like this isn’t going to end well. What should we do? Don’t panic. Stay calm and rational. Prepare as best we can. In the room where there are no other adults, we’ll need to be the adults.
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Its got to the stage when I just say.. “ho-hum, just another alarmist wolf-call”
“Unprecedented“, almost invariable means “has happened before“..
.. the exact opposite of what its meant to mean.
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While I hear ya, I know enough about the biology that their talking about to see where this is headed. How bad it turns out will be determined by whether the “experts” see their mistake and change course, or continue to double down on doing it as wrong as possible. Given it would take an honest and humble person to admit how wrong the Fauci’s of the world have been to date, what do you see as the likelihood that they’all make the needed course corrections?
But what does that have to do with the thread we’re commenting to? Well, the pandemic is only one special case of many where incompetent and/or self serving scientists, media and civil servants deceit is causing ever increasing harm. It’s all a part of the same arrogant mind set where they expect reality to be subservient to their whims. No good has ever come of that, and none ever will.
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Not quite sure I follow your wording but, your point about politicians and traditional media thinking we’re all still living in 1985 is interesting. The way politicians remain terrified of bad coverage on TV or in newspapers baffles me too.
In Australia, a “block-buster smash hit show” might get 1.8 million viewers. That’s still just 7.2% of the population and it won’t be a show about politics that’s for sure! The rest of the ‘top’ shows TV shows are lucky to get more than 350,000 sets of eyes and that’s only 1.4% of Australia.
Old habits I guess.
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A Canadian doctor has found that this vaccination has caused permanent heart damage to 62% of his 700 patients that he gave this shot out to.
https://www.algora.com/Algora_blog/2021/07/14/canadian-doctor-62-of-patients-vaccinated-for-covid-have-permanent-heart-damage
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It was reported that in 2002 some 110 people died and the Germans set in place a very up to date system which issued very accurate and timely alerts, unlike Climate predictions. And largely they were completely ignored last week by the population. The usual suspects are saying the system failed. It didn’t. And it wasn’t Climate Change.
The explanation of Global Warming/aka Climate Change is absurd and everyone knows it. It was only 19 years ago and these are the same areas, so they remember it. This is the weather, not even some super rare 1 in 100 year event, as Climate Change people say of any cold snap. Everything is now ‘Climate Change’. Nothing is natural. Nothing.
It’s like the old joke that the storm was so bad a tree was blown over which has never been blown over before. Every extreme weather event is an unprecedented disaster caused by a very slow 1.5C of warming over 150 years. Believe it or not!
This gets worse. In Australia the myth of man made CO2 has killed operating funding for coal mines and soon gas and then agriculture and our custody of the Barrier Reef. Profitable and essential business will close because bureaucrats and bankers are going bonkers. And the UN will have to intervene with Chinese troops to save the reef.
Consider today the ‘WA government’ is demanding to know what Chevron is going to do about their shortfall at the $3.1Bn Gorgon project in sequestering only 5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. Bureaucrats totally out of control. This is an absolutely useless massive expense which is passed on to everyone else in energy prices as if humans are in control of carbon dioxide levels.
When will a real scientist get up and say this is absolute nonsense. CO2 is in rapid exchange and continual equilibrium with the oceans where 98% of CO2 is dissolved. We do not and cannot control CO2 levels. With a half life of 5 years for highly soluble CO2 to be absorbed in the giant oceans, 20 years sees only 4% left. There is nothing left of the CO2 from the 1980s. And that is demonstrable fact. Everything else is fantasy.
Whether CO2 affects our weather at all has not been proven and it is extremely unlikely but what is certain science is that we cannot affect CO2 levels. Someone needs to explain that to the WA Government. And to Chevron. For the money Chevron and ultimately we are spending on this should be spent on proving it is not necessary. Another $3.1Bn down the loo for a fantasy.
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There is also an obvious point that floods like this relate to drainage, bottlenecks, people building in the wrong place and become disasters when people ignore history and warnings both long term and immediate. We in Australia know all about it. Areas are notorious and these floods occurred in precisely the same places as before and as accurately predicted again.
That does not require monsoonal rain, just a refusal to leave a flood prone area when warned. Climate Change did not cause these terrible deaths and this destruction, the floods did in the same flood prone areas as ever. If people had evacuated when told, many would be alive today.
This is very much like the regular Australian bushfire disasters which are caused obviously by excessive fuel in forests surrounding extremely flammable, even explosive gum trees or pine trees and mountains of forest litter, not by very slow global warming of 1.5C. Of course fires rage on the hottest days just like floods happen when the heavens open. But deaths happen when people refuse to leave or take shelter or ignore even recent history. And they are more likely when people insist on building and living in known dangerous areas, ignoring all warnings. Yes, you get a better view from the top of the hill but your house atomises in 900C as the fire races up the hill. You cannot save it.
To repeatedly seize on such tragedies as both proof and a consequence of tiny warming over 150 years instead of regular events exacerbated by human folly is utterly perverse. These provacateurs are the four horsemen of the Ecopalypse, the climatebaggers who will beat their drums and seek to profit directly from any catastrophe.
It seems there are no natural floods or bushfires or storms any more. Everything is man made Climate Change. So we need to pay more and more to reduce CO2, something no one knows how to do. Or has achieved anywhere in 33 years of this nonsense. The real tipping point in this story will come when people refuse to pay any more.
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And all this is based on one idea only, that with CO2 correlation is causation. So CO2 is heating the air very slightly.
Why doesn’t anyone draw the other and far more logical and simpler conclusion that warming oceans surfaces increases aerial CO2? We are now faced with the incredibly popular unchallenged idea that CO2 heats the oceans without heating the air, when no one ever predicted that, not even the IPCC. The more obvious conclusion is simple known kindergarten science but it makes no one rich.
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Even as a firm believer in the reality of AGW, I can cringe sometimes when people leap to global warming arguments really quickly. I would prefer to see the data delivered in a “straight” way first, and the analysis a bit later.
But still, Cologne had 150 mm of rain in a few hours, with the previous recorded high being 75 mm … that is a serious increase in intensity.
And it is intensity that causes destructive flash floods – but I take the point that people build in flood-prone areas, and in many cases deliberate block or impede the natural flow of water. And they refuse to leave – or are too slow to leave – even when they’re provided with sophisticated early warning.
While the rate of global warming is contentious, it’s difficult to explain away the heat extremes in the US West and the Pacific Northwest – and indeed the melting of permafrost right around high northern latitudes. These are real, they are rapid, and not down to “weather”.
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TdeF: “When will a real scientist get up and say this is absolute nonsense.”.
The answer is that many have, but they are simply ignored.
https://www.europereloaded.com/500-climate-scientists-write-to-un-there-is-no-climate-emergency/
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I don’t as that was the end of the Little-Ice-age which according to maximum glacier growth extent, peaked around 1815, then very rapidly declined in extent, and they did so long before CO2 rise became an industrial factor in about 1950. So CO2 was definitely not responsible for the warming planet of the planet, which is on-going to this day, just to get us back closer to a Holocene ‘normal’ temp range.
https://grandsolarminimum.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Figure-3.4.-Glacier-Ice-Melt-Accumulation.gif
Which peak in glacier was 35 to 40 years before met records began to be systematically recorded in a few places within Australia. So, of COURSE it’s going to warm a bit for a few centuries out of an f’ing little-ice-age … like, duh! And like, sea level will rise too … you know … like, duh!
Wonder how these glaciers melted so fast, if the world did not warm faster than BOM (now) claims? You know, like our original temperature logs showed it did?
Oh that’s right, BOM buried the evidence of how quickly earth warmed up as BOM removed all the max Temp variability from the ‘records’, so the very reason why you’d want an objective weather ‘record’, was eliminated from existence by the dishonest clowns at BOM who are blowing around like a flag in the winds of the latest Malthusian fad/fraud political theater.
Clearly BOM can NOT be trusted to keep basic national weather records. And isn’t that why we taxpayers fund a National Archive? So political and ideological clowns can’t willfully burn the books, and destroy the records, and rewrite history just to suit their propaganda?
The weather is variable, and it’s much more variable than the corrupt weather agencies, and the drivel-laden click-bait media want us to know about anymore.
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Whats worse is the dataset that the BOM supply to the likes of IPCC. So, in reality climate trends and forecasts for virtually the whole Southern Hemisphere is based on those adjusted datasets from Australia. There are very few other countries in the SH with datasets that come even close.
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IPCC backwards is CCPI
Coincidence??
00
“And largely they were completely ignored last week by the population.” – TdeF
My understanding is that the authorities were the ones who dropped the ball on this. They, not the population, were, for example, supposed to drain the dams ahead of the storm to collect rainwater, and so prevent or reduce flooding. They, not the population, were responsible to ensure the evacuations that didn’t occur.
I don’t see how you can blame the citizens for government abdication of it’s responsibilities.
See more at NTZ.
https://notrickszone.com/2021/07/18/germanys-katrina-officials-left-dams-full-for-weeks-even-with-heavy-rains-in-the-forecast/
Not an indifferent populace; but gross malfeasance by those responsible for citizen safety.
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Largest/biggest in living history is how the MSM are framing the floods. I suppose it gives them plausible deniability from accusations of outright fraud.
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IN LIVING HISTORY, so anything happening before 1900 is ignored as it doesn’t count.
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They meant in “in living memory”. ‘Historic’ technically means there was a contemporary account made of it. Therefor ‘in living history’ kind of doesn’t mean anything and, so makes perfect sense for the MSM to say that. Because they’re stupid and don’t know words.
30
The extraordinary
“Flood level sign at tower of Town hall of Passau”
shows that the floods have either been less potent or that some measures were being put in place to reduce the impact and divert the water.
The flood levels indicated have been obviously lower as time went on.
The 1501 mark shows that European history is very old compared to Australia and the following record of floods shows the people to be resilient and positive in being prepared to face nature.
Here in NovoCastria we have a primary flood history at Maitland that goes back to 1956.
The good news here is that levees were built to diverting and delay the floods and generally make things much safer.
Back in the old days community memory of floods might have faded with time, and that’s understandable.
This recent flood has occurred during the apex of information availability and two things stand out;
1. The failure to use past accumulated knowledge to be aware of the potential for serious damage and then take action to evacuate the population.
2. The obvious failure to do the Maitland thing and put in place measures to retain excessive flood water and or divert it to bypass the areas at risk.
Perhaps government has been too busy worrying about other things when it should have addressed real known issues like floodwater management.
Maybe all governments should learn from this.
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Indeed, just watching Satellite TV ( ARD -Tagesschau) this now – Passau as you say: and the Inn & Danube levels haven’t reached near level heights and are already FALLING.
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Interesting to see the historic flood levels officially recorded on their town hall.
In Maitland “1955 Flood Level” signs were nailed to power poles in the mid-80s in flood-prone areas to inform new residents of the flood history of their streets.
The signs lasted only a couple of years before outraged real estate agents and new residents ganged up to demand that they be torn down because the signs were depressing house prices and scaring off potential buyers — as you could imagine they would when some signs were accurately placed 12 feet above road level in a classy up-market suburb.
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People like living next to rivers on their flood plains. This means er…that the water can’t flood onto it and get stored.
It is amazing how many people live in new estates amongst slightly higher houses on such obvious warning signals as ‘flood lane’ ‘waters reach’ “Watersplash road’ yet don’t make the connection until they are flooded.
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As the saying goes, the truth hurts.
21
Old records tell a story.
World has more people, more people will be effected regardless what disaster.
News spreads faster due to better connectivity and more journalists.
People read more and fail to connect the dots. Bopping from one headline to the next. From all over the world at once via www (world wild weather).
1974 flood in Brisbane. All houses were allowed to be rebuilt and suffered the same fate in 2010-2011 flood. Houses flooded during 2010-2011 in Brisbane were rebuilt again. As population grows future will have the same headlines. No crystal ball required.
Message to the world:
Slow down, clock ticks the same speed for all.
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You are not woke enough. Let’s simply ban old records.
That approach is called THE TRUTH by American teacher’s unions.
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Quoting a message from my German friend
But the tragedy is human made because the government did’t invest for a long time in the protection flooding water. And it it has nothing to do with climate change etc. It has to do with misusing the taxes for other things. But what do we know? Sad part is that those that have died and those still missing and those that lost their home and possessions paid those taxes.
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You mean to say Germany has experienced many major flood events in the past? Well that should convince the Marxist eco-loons that Capitalism is good, right Fitzty?
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Yes, …I wrote @Talbloke’s :Well, to get away from Breakfast-time UK Covid nonsense, I tuned in to 3Sat – Austrian News and they were giving it Hammer & tongs Climate change about all the flooding In Europe.
From all one reads on-line about Pre / Post-War Europe originating from down there, you would think that by now, they, the people, would see through and have enough of all this “propaganda” talk. But yet, the Green Blob seem to gain strength. And when the wind don’t blow ,OR, the Powerlines are disrupted, no Battery is going to be re-charged.
It was noted that the Good Old Diesels and Maskless People& MASKLESS Politicians were to be seen . …. amazing – the flood removed all necessity to shield from a deadly virus.
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As the saying goes, never attribute to a conspiracy what could just be incompetency.
Similar to Hanlon’s Razor
or other versions
But it’s sooooo stupid.
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With all respect, the 1717 floods were storm surges on the North Sea, not flooding caused by heavy rain. And for those you don’t need to go that far back either. Hamburg 1962, hundreds of death.
The flooding last week was a lot of rain dumped on a small area, the Taunus, Eifel and Ardennes low mountains were the water can only go through narrow valleys. The total quantity of wster was actually not that large either because in the end it will end up in the big rivers Rhine and Meuse. Only the Meuse gave some problems in built up areas on the floodplains near the city of Roermond.
Incidently, how do people think valleys in mountains are formed? By events like last weeks’ repeated thousands of times over millions of years.
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You are so right! Annoyingly right, even! Yet even when Truth stares people in the face, they don’t WANT to accept it. as John R Smith , below says, too.We re often overwhelmed, not so much with ‘fakenews’ but with wrong ‘news facts’ …. Often ( asI am currently watching Sat TV on theZDF, ) what I THINK the reporters say, doesn’t always match up with what I SEE in their reports.
So is it better to WATCH tv news or LISTEN to radio news ?
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The surface we live on is an erosion feature. At some point that surface will change. Studying migrating paths of rivers with time within air photos, tneds to suggest natural floods can occur that are an order of magnitude larger than anything we have ever seen in human history. This was what people learned in first year geology, it was taught to scientists everywhere. Even “Physical Geography” taught these things in detail within “The Humanities” departments within all our Universities but that was pre about 1992.
Now the physical basic known facts are heresy and can end your career and get you excommunicated – Vatican style.
How supposedly can educated clowns believe CO2 is responsible for this flood, or any other? it defies all basic observation, it ignores all of what science knows, and what the libraries are full of! What’s next, burn the libraries because they’re stuffed full of climate heresies? Ban air-photography and satellite imagery? Destroy all books about hydrology, erosion processes and sedimentation?
There’s an ideological determination to be stupid, first, always and at any cost, then proclaim, “I believe the science!” .
Wolves in sheep’s clothing.
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I’m sure that is flooding was now to occur due to storm surges, it would be claimed that the surges were caused by a combination of rising sea levels and increased extreme weather events, both of these, of course, caused by increased atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.
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Information like this is important.
However, we may be operating in a theater of science and history while the real battle is raging somewhere else.
Many us are children of the Space Age and we were led to believe that superstition was a relic of history.
We were misled.
One problem is we lie poorly.
Because we know that science and history will expose the lie.
This formerly powerful weapon has become anachronistic.
We may akin to Samurai refusing to accept the reality of gunpowder.
I don’t have a good solution.
I often think, if I were the lone rational judge at the Salem witch trials, how could I turn this around and survive?
This is where we are.
I for one, was not prescient enough to see that the Space Age would be followed by an age of hysteria.
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YOu raise some valid points: esp as a Lone Rational Judge. …..
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Detached rational observation could be the fatal flaw of rationality.
It may not be purely rational to declare oneself rational.
It’s perfectly rational if the shark wants to eat me.
It’s the non judgmental, rational way to see the interaction.
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Good history lessons. Just wished they taught such facts on the the History Channel and the like instead of BSing us ad nauseam with so much other useless topics.
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Well said! couldn’t agree more!
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Propaganda is less about what we’re told, but what we’re not allowed to see or hear.
The labeling of ‘misinformation’ is disinformation.
Psaki and Biden would be pathetic except for the terrifying part.
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Very good article.
As someone who writes frequently on the historical context of climate, unfortunately these sort of records are dismissed as ‘anecdotal.’ You can have written records, engravings, illustrations and paintings, but unless it was recorded on a computer then it doesn’t exist or is very suspect in many peoples minds.
the young in particular seem to have no interest whatsoever in history-be it slavery or climate-preferring to believe the propaganda they are fed and reinforced by their tiny social media bubbles, comprising of people who think exactly like them.
those who have visited Europe will have seen the marks put onto historic buildings such as churches and Abbeys recording historic flood levels but the young and the gullible don’t want to construct a narrative that conflicts with their own beliefs. The number of floods in the cooler early and late part of the 16th century is quite noticeable. The middle part was often extremely warm
Flooding incidents are likely to get worse as many more people are around to witness, record and promote them. Events of the past were often not winessed due to the much smaller population or they often just accepted flooding as an act of god.
The number of historic incidents therefore will have been much greater than those we are aware of today as many will not have been seen, let alone written down, let alone kept in a safe place for hundreds of years, then retrieved.
If it doesn’t exist in a digital form many researchers don’t look for primary sources in non digitised records.
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Jo, woulda been nice if you’d put the %age of the populations in so we could compare apples 🍎 to apples 🍏
12
Apples with apples? Let’s see the differences. 1700’s vs now Pre-dyke, crappy over-crowded houses built on flood plains and low lying ground, no emergency services or medical aid, no transport, no warnings, no drains, no insert another dozen items of infrastructure that make a difference to rate of death.
11
Less people though ga.
00
In the path of the flood? I doubt it. Many more vulnerable people is the reason. Simple.
00
Law of unintended consequences:
Kinda like building a dam upstream and then blaming climate change when it fails
Pre-dam crappy over-crowded high rises built on overdeveloped land serviced by old unupgraded drainage systems. What could possibly go wrong? Hmmm .. Climate change!
Climate change is such a great way to make excuses for poor planning
30
“The ‘climate change’ floods in Europe before climate change”
https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2021/07/the-climate-change-floods-in-europe-before-climate-change.html
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People like living next to rivers on their flood plains. This means er…that the water can’t flood onto it and get stored.
It is amazing how many people live in new estates amongst slightly higher houses on such obvious warning signals as ‘flood lane’ ‘waters reach’ “Watersplash road’ yet don’t make the connection until they are flooded.
41
I have looked into my own records covering England, collected everywhere from the Met Office archives to Cathedrals together with reports made by many contemporaries of those living through the times. Floods. Droughts. Winds. Extreme heat and extreme cold. This is just a 2 decade snippet to illustrate that lots of weather happened and sufficient have survived for us to form a god idea of the climate of the time.
1231 March to October hardly any rain anywhere in England-great drought
1233 wet summer from 23 March with great inundations of rain through the whole summer destroying warrens and washed away the ponds and mills throughout almost all England. Water formed into lakes in middle of the crops where the fishes of the rivers were seen to great astonishment and mills were standing in various places they had never before been seen.
1233-1234 severe frost from Christmas 1233 to Feb 2 1234 destroying roots of trees to four foot down then rest of year very unseasonable
1234 third unseasonable year
Wet weather in autumn choked the seed and loosened it.
1236 great floods in Jan, Feb and part of March that no one had seen the like before. Bridges submerged, fords impassable, mills and ponds overwhelmed and sown land meadows and marshes covered. Thames flooded palace of Westminster so small boat could be navigated in the midst of the forecourt. And folk went to their bed chambers on horseback
Followed by dry summer with intolerable heat that all lasted four months. Deep pools and ponds were dried up and water mils useless.
1237 great rains in February, fords and roads impassable for 8 successive days
Turbulent year stormy and unsettled
1238 great floods in many parts probably December
Cloudy and rainy in beginning until spring had passed then the drought and heat were beyond measure and custom in two or more of the summer months. Great deluge of rain in the autumn that straw and grain became rotten and an unnatural autumn which is held to be a cold and dry season gave rise to various fatal diseases.
1239 very wet weather continually from Jan to March, it has continued for four months without intermission.
1240 dry Jan to March, wet from April to December but fruitful and abundant but wet and rainy autumn greatly choked the abundant crops.
1241 drought from March 25 to Oct 28 drought and intolerable heat. Pastures withered, herds pined away from hunger and thirst
December very cold and bitter weather the like of which no one had seen before, binding the rivers killing large numbers of birds
1242 dry and hot
1243 floods
1244 dry autumn wholly without rain
1245 unseasonable summer
1246 rainy year
1247 very unseasonable weather in late winter especially cold and rainy and windy
1249 very mild winter so that neither snow nor frost covered the face of the earth nor bound it in their customary weather, trees were seen to be sprouting in February. Winter was turned into summer but intense cold came at end of March and lasted until middle of May that made people shiver that casting off linen they were compelled to resume double clothing.
1252 very hot and dry summer, very wet autumn heat of the sun so great that all the earth became dry no fruit grew on trees. At end of harvest there was great flooding breaking bridges mills and houses adjoin the rivers
Matthew Paris notes in most of march and the whole of the months of april and may the ground was burnt up by the sun the wind continuing from south west north or east. The sun rose up to its solstitial culmination and its immoderate and intolerable heat so burned up the earths surface and multiplied its warmth that the herbage withered away. Moreover the heat continued into the night and generated flies flea and other injurious pests.
He also writes in april may june and july heat and drought prevailed intolerably without beneficial sprinkling of rain or dew. Meadows were stripped of their grass, plant foliage withered. According to john de taxter ‘this year many died from the excessive heat of the summer. There was much thunderstorms. Robert of Gloucester noted in 1270 ‘in the year of grace 1252 the summer was so dry and hot that even until this day there has been none hotter .’short cold spell around oct 13 which was very wet.
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In the 13th century these events were blamed on insufficient belief in God.
Today such events are blamed on insufficient belief in AGW.
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… in CO2.
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An amazing collection of detail.
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Yes – interesting detail. Little did they know that the Mediaeval Warm Period was about to morph into the Little Ice Age – and that the plague was also coming just a century later, poor buggers!
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The LIA began in the 13th century and you will note the extremes in weather caused by a meandering jet stream.
‘in the year of grace 1252 the summer was so dry and hot that even until this day there has been none hotter .’
From memory, a volcanic eruption shrouded the earth in fine dust, but already large icebergs were floating in the North Sea.
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‘In 1257, a catastrophic eruption occurred at the Samalas volcano on the Indonesian island of Lombok. The event had a probable Volcanic Explosivity Index of 7, making it one of the largest volcanic eruptions during the current Holocene epoch.’ (wiki)
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Interesting details that can be added to the following climate history.
http://www.breadandbutterscience.com/climatehistory.pdf
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Thanks Peter …. I’ll follow it up.
‘Because of an earthquake (?), the Thames at London was waterless and it was crossed dry-shod. Some sources give the year as 1157.’
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Apparently, similar situation to Wivenhoe at the Brisbane flood.
They held the dam levels at full even when the forecast was for heavy rain. !
https://notrickszone.com/2021/07/18/germanys-katrina-officials-left-dams-full-for-weeks-even-with-heavy-rains-in-the-forecast/
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They believed they’d never see full dams again.
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Those highly educated engineers aren’t even smart enough to look out the window.
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Another building showing past flood levels
https://i.postimg.cc/BvBRMGJ5/german-floods.jpg
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Thanks for that image Clarry, I was looking for it and couldn’t find it, cracking proof that bigger floods have happened before.
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Back in 1717, this new ‘science’ fad was just taking off. I bet the scientists of the day didn’t immediately jump to the conclusion that some activity by man had caused this.
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Yes, but the smart ones don’t want to search for it or they’d have to start writing articles that could get them cancelled.
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Germany’s floods are proof of the irrelevance of climate change to European flooding.
Here’s the relevant information in graph form:
https://twitter.com/BjornLomborg/status/1416077779536318464/photo/1
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Actually, this is better for this purpose.
Proximate Source, Bjorn Lomborg’s Twitter feed, original source in link.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E6bcrU3WUAEqae_?format=png&name=900×900
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Fewer deaths doesn’t determine whether climate change is irrelevant to flooding.
That’s a bit like someone saying there are fewer deaths from ocean liners hitting icebergs over the last 100 years, so that’s proof climate change has melted all the ice.
Or the cost of flood damage has increased so therefore flooding is worse (even though cost increase is probably just inflation over 100 years).
There could be less deaths from flooding because people stop living where flooding has killed people. Or they built mitigation controls such as dams, channels, walls, retarding basins. Or rescue and medical services are better.
I’m not saying climate change is or isn’t relevant to flooding. Just that the only indicator on whether any change has occurred is the rainfall data for both intensity and quantity. And then we don’t even really know what causes that.
But it’s great that the world appears to be much safer these days.
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I don’t see how a decline in the number of deaths by flooding (in Germany or elsewhere) is connected to the reality of climate change.
A wide range of factors will affect flood deaths … even Bangladesh with great poverty and a huge population has been able to put in systems (monitoring, early warning, evacuation plans, etc) that have dramatically cut deaths since the 1970s.
A warming atmosphere will hold more moisture and cause more rain, and potentially, more intense rain, and often in summer. That is what appears to have happened.
It’s quite different to a major winter storm barrelling in from the Atlantic Ocean or North Sea, which is what the 1717 event was.
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We also hear that the warming atmosphere will hold more moisture, retain it, and cause more drought. Both explanations are nothing more than “just so” stories. Real world weather is more complicated.
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Meteorology 101. Antarctica is the driest continent because the polar atmosphere is cold. Rainforests occur near the Equator where the atmosphere is warm and humidity is high.
And of course there are areas where a hotter climate will contribute to drought conditions … the US West for example. The drought might or might not be long-term cyclical, but the change in Californian climate are a function of global warming,. not just a wandering jetstream.
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I appreciate the Antarctica dry and atmosphere is cold – tropic wet and atmosphere is warm thingy. But why then, where I am (75km east of Melbourne) do I get double the rain through winter (when the atmosphere is cold) than I do through summer (when the atmosphere is warm)?
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‘A warming atmosphere will hold more moisture and cause more rain …’
A meandering jet stream, caused by a quiet sun, will create more low cloud.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marienberg_Fortress
This link shows a different perspective for the landscape shown in this post’s “High water in Würzburg in 1784”.
“The mighty Fortress Marienberg is a symbol of Würzburg and served as a home of the local prince-bishops for nearly five centuries. ”
Can we assume the prince-bishops built on the hill to avoid floods?
Well, it does make it easier to keep the riffraff out, as well as flood water.
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Thank you Jo, for this perspective of history. Having served in a war, I do not make this historic prospective lightly. The Vietnam war took approximately 57,000 US life’s in ten years. The British lost 60,000 men in one day at the first battle of the Somme. Perspective is something modern man seems to be very much lacking. Not that long ago, blood poisoning was a death sentence, today it’s a minor inconvenience. We have it so good now we embellish minor issues to have dragons to slay.
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[…] This article originally appeared at JoNova […]
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Jo got a shout-out from CFact. And links to the present story.
“Australia’s intrepid Joanne Nova did her usual no-nonsense job of showing that Europe’s floods, devastating though they may be, are historically normal. In fact, in 1714 Europe flooded on Christmas Eve killing 14,000! “It’s as if European history doesn’t exist,” she writes (posted at CFACT.org).”
https://www.cfact.org/2021/07/19/calling-europes-floods-climate-is-unscientific-propaganda
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If carbon (sic) causes both drought one year, and floods the next, how do you know when it’s fixed?
28 April, 2020: Germany hopes for rain to avoid 3rd straight summer drought
“Ahead of a virtual climate meeting Tuesday for officials from 30 countries, German Environment Minister Svenja Schulze said the previous two years of dry weather, combined with overall higher temperatures, show the need for action.”
https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/germany-hopes-rain-avoid-3rd-straight-summer-drought-70380884
And not one climate expert predicted the floods, despite the best forward predicting climate science (sarc/off), though some knew …
Officials left dams full to the brim at least 3 weeks long during a rainy period and then failed to undertake a controlled release even when 150 mm of rain were forecast 4 days before the floods.
https://notrickszone.com/2021/07/18/germanys-katrina-officials-left-dams-full-for-weeks-even-with-heavy-rains-in-the-forecast/
Queensland, 2011 again?
Australian floods of 2010 and 2011 caused global sea level to drop
Puzzled oceanographers who wondered where the sea level rise went for 18 months now have their answer – it went to Australia
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/aug/23/australian-floods-global-sea-level
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When there are no more very hot, cold, wet, dry, windy days anywhere in the world. Apparently this is what life was like before the industrial revolution.🙄
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Harves, that whole comment should be on every blackboard in Australian schools, and every child should be made to repeat it each morning (straight after their times tables).Then their teachers might show them some past examples of weather events such as the flood levels on German buildings. ‘Yes, kiddies, check your history book. Oh, sorry, it’s been rubbed out.’
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If there are no windy days, what’s the loony of windmills?
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Floods one year and drought the next, if average rainfall, so it’s fixed when the rainfall is average. However, the problem is that the climate is floods one year and drought the next, so, in the real world, average rainfall would be climate change.
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All before “Global Warming” was in the lexicon! In fact, for some, the world was still flat!
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For those who refuse to learn from history, the world is indeed flat, and always will be, as Sabine Hossenfelder amusingly illustrates using flat earth beliefs.
http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2020/08/flat-earth-science-wrong-but-not-stupid.html?m=1
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I see I have one down vote. Any more flat-earthers out there? 😎
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Interesting to see that the numbers of floods in each decade decrease as you go back decade by decade, particularly notable are the numbers in the last 5 decades.
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“the numbers of floods in each decade decrease as you go back decade by decade”
Interesting observation.
Where did the water go? Antarctica?
“The 2021 minimum extent, on or near February 21, 2021, was 1.01 million square miles, below the 1981–2010 climatological average but well above the record low recorded in 2017.”
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/understanding-climate-antarctic-sea-ice-extent
Is the total amount of water on Earth always constant?
“The answer is that roughly, yes, there is about the same amount of water on Earth now as there was in the Mesozoic period.
All water that is breathed, drunk, and urinated by living things remains as part of the planet’s total water content.
The total amount is not exactly constant, as there are two fluxes of water between Earth and the rest of the solar system.
There is a steady rain of water-bearing meteoroids hitting the planet, which slowly increases the amount of water.
At the same time, molecules of water often dissociate in the upper atmosphere into hydrogen and oxygen due to ultraviolet light from the sun.
Some of the hydrogen atoms have enough energy to escape from Earth’s gravitational field, and so are lost.
This slowly decreases the amount of water.”
https://www.quora.com/Is-the-total-amount-of-water-on-Earth-always-constant?share=1
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Peter,
You can not take any notice of the records of the BOM on anything, even floods. A good example is their severe storm archives. I entered the period 1st of Jan.1970 to 31st Dec.1985 for the Northern Territory and the only entry is one line from the Alice Springs newspaper about some small hail and local flooding. For 16 years all through those monsoon summers they have no record of any severe storms and in other states when I checked for days when I know there were very severe storms there was no record.They are hopeless.
Like the many distortions others have mentioned here about wrong temperature recordings. Last Saturday in Qld and many other parts, strong westerly winds were the feature of the weather yet their Nambour station had the wind at 7 to 9 klms per hour from the ESE at 10.40 in the morning whilst 13 klms to the east at Sunshine Coast airport the wind was 20 k.p.h. from the west.The Nambour wind could not have been correct yet goes into there statistics and averages.
You cannot believe much of their data in real time let alone over decades so your comment about floods is not based on anything
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no cyclones even? Something wrong with your data entry I think. Can you detail where you did this and what your inputs were?
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bom.gov.au/australia/stormarchive/
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I got 256 events for 1970-1980
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256 raised my suspicions (for obvious reasons).
I retract that account. The system was reverting to 2010-2021 after I chose those dates. I forced it to accept your time period and got the same result as you.
You might want to query BOM about this.
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Tracy?
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Yes last Saturday the wind at Brisbane airport was 69kmh, report was not from Bom though.
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We need to go back even further to recognise that CO2 is not involved.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_floods_in_Europe
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Historically, only the really big floods would have been noticed.
Nowadays, a minor trickle down the roadway can be counted as a flood !
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Rather like heat waves.
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Yep, in Brisbane anytime it rains heavily enough for water to flow across a road, it is reported as “potentially life-threatening storms”.
TV news these days is nothing but global weather alarmism and a covid alarmism, both aimed at getting the snowflakes back under their beds.
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Must apologize to you Fitzroy, I down-voted you before I read what you wrote. Fortunately that reflex turned out to be correct, but I’ll try harder not to prejudge you in future.
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PF you are partly correct and today deaths from extreme weather events are SFA and yet 100 years ago were much higher.
Then under 2 bn humans ( 1920) and today 7.8 bn and deaths before 1920 were also much higher.
Please wake up to yourself and start to think before you yap. Just use the data and forget about the BS and L W extremism.
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The North Sea Floods of recent times are interesting, 1953 and 1962 are indicative of what to expect as we enter global cooling.
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Hi Peter. What data are you referring to?
Floods where? Germany? The whole world?
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AGAIN, very good work Jo. And Willis also found that deaths from ALL EXTREME WEATHER EVENTS have fallen off a cliff since 1920.
And Goklany, Shellenberger, Lomborg , Koonin etc also found the same result. Just look up the DATA.
OH and in 1920 the human population was UNDER 2 billion and today is 7.8 billion. LOOK at Willis’s GRAPH at the link.
When will these delusional donkeys WAKE UP and stop wasting trillions $ on a NON-PROBLEM and BUILD more reliable BASE-LOAD ENERGY AGAIN???
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/04/25/wheres-the-emergency/
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You know that death rate correlates with a lot more things than storm severity?
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True.
A great many very tragic events in our past show a strong correlation between the event and the rising of the Sun and the setting of the moon.
In fact a spokesperson from the UNIPCCC said that the correlation of 99.69 was uncanny.
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Good video here about the LIA and people’s fear and ignorance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAy4sOcS5M
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
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To put some of this in context all the wi-fi networks went down at the time of the floods even then why wasn’t the local community given sufficient time to take appropriate emergency measures? I found this very peculiar. This is an another example of lots of things going wrong.
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“Swiss CO2 law defeated at the ballot box”
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/switzerland-votes-on-controversial-co2-law-/46695016
Via SDA
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This is what I find so frustrating about Australian meteorological history. In comparison to Europe, we are lucky to have 100 years of good data for a lot of the country. Have had human occupation for 60k years but nothing to show for it. Where we do have high quality data showing eg 1890’s heatwaves and droughts being worse than any experienced in 20th and 21st centuries, the BOM decide to ignore them. Hence, every time there is a weather event all the journalists and media meteorologists suddenly get collective amnesia. Same in the US at the moment where some states are experiencing heat and wildfires. All previous meticulous data collected by the US Forestry service show the wildfires and burned areas in the 1930’s were vastly greater than anything since. But you still have the climate alarmist dweebs claiming we’re all heading towards the apocalypse.
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I used to live in the area in the area in the Netherlands that has floods now. It was a small town called Nieuw-Bergen. This town is on the outside of the river dike. Neighboring towns like Well and Bergen are between the dike and the river. These get flooded. I remember one summer in the early ’80s when the river water came up to almost the top of the dike.
This town Well has recorded flood from the past. There are some interesting pictures dating back to 1955
https://www.archiefwell.nl/toponiemen/de-maas/overstromingen
It also says (translated from Dutch). The record of Well dates back to Januari 3, 1926: 16.18m. Many people had to live on the second floor or the attic for 2 weeks.
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Climate change or bad planning?
https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1417502226218553351?s=21
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… or bad luck? China is a big place
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Warning about unsafe dam
https://twitter.com/man_integrated/status/1417586795039047683?s=21
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More dam news
https://insiderpaper.com/chinese-army-yihetan-dam-dam-china-could-collapse-at-any-time/
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One in a 100 year floods? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm………….
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[…] Jo Nova has a post as well, about flood histories in the lower Rhineland, and elsewhere in the German-speaking world. https://joannenova.com.au/2021/07/a-world-protected-by-windmills-in-1717-christmas-floods-in-germany… […]
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[…] This article originally appeared at JoNova […]
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