Global Warming and Energy

Sandy's winds are up to 85 MPH. But not so fast. Not too long after I posted the previous link, which was about 4pm eastern, another reporter, with access to real data, not media generated data reported that Sandy had declined to a tropical storm.

"As at 2 PM Pacific time, here’s the current position of Sandy and the projected path....
I had said a couple of days ago, when Sandy was a hurricane, that it would not be a hurricane when it hit the coast. How did that go? Well, as of the time that this location and projection of the path was done, the NDBC has shown all the nearest stations. Not one of the actual observations is showing sustained winds over 50 knots, and that’s a long ways from the 72 knots that marks a hurricane. Please note that the big damage from such storms is the flooding, so I am not minimizing the likely extent of the damage.  It will be widespread. However … not a hurricane."

I'm not surprised that others besides me predicted Sandy would not be a hurricane when it hit land. I showed yesterday that scientific predictions said as much, besides which, the media has cried wolf so many times only a fool wouldn't notice. Yet the weather channel claimed winds were 90 MPG just before 6 PM eastern, just minutes before the storm made landfall. This discrepancy must be accounted for. Here's the report from 5PM eastern:

"MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS...90 MPH...150 KM/H"

We saw a similar discrepancy with the last media-hyped storm of the century in the Atlantic.

CNN reports Sandy had declined to a tropical storm before it made landfall.

"Though no longer a hurricane, "post-tropical" superstorm Sandy packed a hurricane-sized punch as it slammed into the Jersey Shore on Monday, killing at least 11 people from West Virginia to North Carolina and Connecticut."

Rational people must resolve these differences in reporting.

Because the US government regulated the power industry, our archaic power transmission system is little changed from the way it was a century ago. Therefore hurricane Sandy will knock out power to millions.

"Thousands are without power already, millions more could go dark. Forecasters predict it could become the worst storm to hit the East Coast in 100 years."

If that's accurate, I wonder how the global warming frauds will rationalize that a worse storm hit over a century ago.

First hand report that Sandy is a relative dud. I saw pictures earlier of a reporter standing in calm weather and in inches of water. I don't doubt this storm is dangerous for some, but it has been grossly over-hyped.

Here's the story that puts Sandy into perspective:

"Will Sandy turn political yard signs into projectiles?"

Apparently Sandy is so not dangerous that this is the pressing question American want to know. I hate to make fun because Sandy is hurting people, and it will likely kill some, but the media hyped this storm the way it would hype a life-killing meteor impact. Hurricanes happen. They've happened for longer than human history. They are not big news.

So far, Sandy has killed at least ten and knocked out power to 5.2 million.

Reuters reports that 5.5 million people have lost power, but hints at the most important point from the media's point of view:

"Sandy, one of the biggest storms to hit the United States, pounded the east coast on Tuesday, flooding large parts of New York City, bringing transport to a halt and interrupting the presidential campaign."

Of course deaths and people without power are secondary concerns to politics from the point of view of a political propagandists.

""We have not seen the kind of flooding problems that certainly could have happened thus far, but we've still got a long ways to go to get through this storm," Washington Mayor Vincent Gray said on local television."

Let's hope they don't happen, but it almost sounds like he's rooting for them.We should create a new term called "storm profiteers". Here's one of the phrases used by storm profiteers, bold mine:

"The storm's wind field stretched from the Canadian border to South Carolina, and from West Virginia to an Atlantic Ocean point about halfway between the United States and Bermuda, easily one of the largest ever seen."

Not the largest. In other words, it's normal in the larger scope of things, but Reuters is capitalizing on the storm by pretending it's something abnormal.

Death count to 16. 6.2 million without power. I don't condone the use of the word dud for a storm that killed people and wiped out power to people. It's one thing to point out this storm has been over-hyped, which I have done for two days. It's another to call it a dud. The families of the people who died disagree.

A reference to another, similar hurricane.

I just coined the term "storm profiteering" and invited Anthony Watts at wattsupwiththat.com to join in using it. My post to him:

"We all know about the term "war profiteering".  It's an accurate term for many deplorable businesses, and it's a powerfully activist term for limiting wars.

We should apply that term to storms: storm profiteering. It's an accurate term for the plethora of media outlets which over-hype storms, and it should be a powerful term for limiting that over-hype.

I'm using it. I hope you will too."

I'm probably not the first to champion this term, but I intend to use it every time these government media propagandists exaggerate storms for their own profit. Then again, maybe I'm the first. I don't see it in a search. Apparently the term hurricane profiteering is already know in political circles as cronyism in the wake of hurricanes.

"Bill White was rewarded for steering a 2 million dollar contact to BTEC, whos majority owners Bill White was paid by, by being invited to make a $1 million private investment into BTEC that the general public could not make.  This investment into BTEC quickly made Bill White a 50 percent profit."

It's good work if you can get it.

Rebels in New York enjoy the freedom.

Here's another vague government update about the storm:

"...SANDY TURNING TOWARD THE NORTH...EXPECTED TO BRING LIFE-THREATENING STORM SURGE...COASTAL HURRICANE WINDS AND HEAVY APPALACHIAN SNOWS..."

What is a life-threatening storm surge in a universe where people can drown in 2 inches of water? Why be so vague?

Hurricanes in the 18th century.