Now Climate Change Means Floods

I do not argue against the point being made that the planet is gaining in heat content, nor that it is in part being caused by human activity. I am, however, getting tired of the hyperbolic predictions as to what that means for the future; predictions which are almost certainly wrong and are made primarily for political reasons.

I remember not too many years ago when it was predicted that when the population of Earth reached seven billion there would be mass starvation and world wars over the availability of food and water resources. That population level has been met and exceeded and, while the US is fomenting considerable violence in the Middle East, the world is seeing less war than has been the case in several centuries, and where starvation exists it does so for localized economic and war-related reasons.

For almost twenty years we have been being told that the deepening drought in California was almost certainly permanent as a result of global warming, and now we are being told that the current year's pattern of frequent and heavy rain may become the norm in California, rather than drought, due to "atmospheric rivers" which are caused by global warming.

Again, I do not doubt that the planet is warming and that it is a problem, but I have some sympathy for "climate deniers" given that the predictions for the effects of the issue tend to be hyperbolic and contradictory.