December 27, 2007
The Best of Liberal Minds
Dave Lindorff has a nearly perfect pedigree as a liberal journalist.
He's a 1975 graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, a two-time Fulbright Scholar, and a contributor to the New York Times, The Nation, Salon.com, and the co-author of The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office.
He's also the author of a Dec. 22 op-ed in the Baltimore Chronicle & Sentinel entitled, "Global Warming Will Save America from the Right...Eventually."
This gem of a post was dug up by Allahpundit at Hot Air, and is a masterstroke of what someone might call liberal fascism... if such a thing ever existed.
Say what you will about the looming catastrophe facing the world as the pace of global heating and polar melting accelerates. There is a silver lining.
I'm all for good news... aren't you?
Look at a map of the US.
Here you go (will open new window).
Centered on Great Britain, you can drag it over to the U.S., and then use the drop-down in the top left to see what would be submerged under X meters of sea level rise. I'm using 14+ meters, as it is the greatest rise the program is set to calculate, and it has the added bonus of giving Mom and Dad near-riverfront property. Put the rise at 14+ meters, and then read the following, which has been helpfully annotated with links to this map not found in the original post, which will show the flooding for each area mentioned.
The area that will by completely inundated by the rising ocean—and not in a century but in the lifetime of my two cats—are the American southeast, including the most populated area of Texas, almost all of Florida, most of Louisiana, and half of Alabama and Mississippi, as well as goodly portions of eastern Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. While the northeast will also see some coastal flooding, its geography is such that that aside from a few projecting sandbars like Long Island and Cape Cod, the land rises fairly quickly to well above sea level. Sure, Boston, New York and Philadelphia will be threatened, but these are geographically confined areas that could lend themselves to protection by Dutch-style dikes. The West Coast too tends to rise rapidly to well above sea level in most places. Only down in Southern California towards the San Diego area is the ground closer to sea level.
Please, take your time and follow the links. Worthy of the kind of writing we associate with the New York Times, The Nation, and Salon.com, Lindorff gets almost everything wrong.
Contrary to his statements, the area traditionally considered the southeast takes relative few hits to population centers. Take in the order they were presented, Texas loses Brownsville, Corpus Christi, Galveston and Port Author, but the rise in sea level would leave Houston a beachfront resort, and Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, and indeed, probably 95% of the state untouched. Florida would take big hits as almost every major coastal city slips under the waves, but Orlando and Mickey are safe, as it the majority of the center of the state from Arcadia, north. Louisiana loses about a third to half (not most) of its territory, and despite his bold pronouncements of "half" of Alabama and Mississippi being under water, the 14 meter sea level rise would hardly make a dent outside of coastal areas, except for a finger darting up from a recently-expanded Mobile Bay to just south of Jackson, Alabama.
As for the Carolinas and Georgia, we'd lose Savannah and Charleston and Wilmington, but other than that, we’d lose mostly rural areas already predisposed towards being swamps.
In short, everything he said about the inundation of those hated "red states" he so reviles ranges from horribly inaccurate to outright wrong.
But perhaps more interesting is that his beloved bi-coastal libospheres fare just as poorly.
Lindorff is perhaps correct that Boston, New York and Philadelphia may well be saved by costly "Dutch-style dikes", but I'll keep in mind that they are far more likely to go under themselves... both literally and financially. You must remember that these are the same folks that brought us the "Big Dig" which, by the way, will also flood.
But what about the areas Lindorff didn't mention?
He forgets to mention the huge inland lake that will turn Sacramento into California's Dead Sea. He also forgets to mention what happens to those along the Chesapeake peninsula, or all the coastal cities in Delaware (buh-bye, Wilmington) and the Jersey shore, and... oh well, Newark isn't that great of a loss, is it? At least no greater of a loss than the southern third of Long Island, Bridgeport and New Haven, Connecticut, and all those other annoying little picturesque villages from there up through Maine.
In plain English, we'd all take significant hits, and despite his poorly-researched conclusions, damage to "red" states in his dark fantasy are greatly inflated, and damage to low-lying areas of "blue" states would also be severe.
In true Columbia Journalism School-educated fashion, however, Lindorff is only beginning to show his stupidity.
He continues:
So what we see is that huge swaths of conservative America are set to face a biblical deluge in a few more presidential cycles.Then there's the matter of the Midwest, which climate experts say is likely to face a permanent condition of unprecedented drought, making the place largely unlivable, and certainly unfarmable. The agribusinesses and conservative farmers that have been growing corn and wheat may be able to stretch out this doomsday scenario by deep well drilling, but west of the Mississippi, the vast Ogallala Aquifer that has allowed for such irrigation is already being tapped out. It will not be replaced.
So again, we will see the decline and depopulation of the nation's vast midsection—noted for its consistent conservatism. Only in the northernmost area, around the Great Lakes (which will be not so great anymore), and along the Canadian border, will there still be enough rain for farming and continued large population concentrations, but those regions, like Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois, are also more liberal in their politics.
Finally, in the Southwest, already parched and stiflingly hot, the rise in energy costs and the soaring temperatures will put an end to right-wing retirement communities like Phoenix, Tucson and Palm Springs. Already the Salton Sea is fading away and putting Palm Springs on notice that the good times are coming to an end. Another right-wing haven soon to be gone.
So the future political map of America is likely to look as different as the much shrunken geographical map, with much of the so-called "red" state region either gone or depopulated.
Oh, he can dream, can't he?
All those annoying "red" states unlivable, unfarmable, and depopulated, with America's breadbasket a vast desert. He seems absolutely giddy at the thought of liberal elitists being left alone and presumably in charge of what remains. Let's let him cherish his malformed conclusions as he savors the vengeance of the earth mother on those nasty rubes who have caused him so much electoral heartache.
There is a poetic justice to this of course. It is conservatives who are giving us the candidates who steadfastly refuse to have the nation take steps that could slow the pace of climate change, so it is appropriate that they should bear the brunt of its impact.The important thing is that we, on the higher ground both actually and figuratively, need to remember that, when they begin their historic migration from their doomed regions, we not give them the keys to the city. They certainly should be offered assistance in their time of need, but we need to keep a firm grip on our political systems, making sure that these guilty throngs who allowed the world to go to hell are gerrymandered into political impotence in their new homes.
There will be much work to be done to help the earth and its residents—human and non-human—survive this man-made catastrophe, and we can't have these future refugee troglodytes, should their personal disasters still fail to make them recognize reality, mucking things up again.
It should be considered acceptable, in this stifling new world, to say, "Shut up. We told you this would happen."
Why, you almost need a Sawzall to cut through moral superiority this thick.
Unfortunately, reality will intrude on poor Mr. Lindorff's eliminationist fantasy yet again.
He seems to forget that farming in arid regions is indeed quite possible if the need arises, and so those nasty Midwesterners that keep ruining national elections for him will not, in fact, die of starvation.
Nor are they likely to come crawling eastward to become the neo-slave-class he envisions.
Nor does Lindorff seem to be able to grasp the even more obvious fact that if times do become hard, those farmers and ranchers in the Midwest and Southeast that he so clearly reviles are going to feed themselves and those around them first. Those in the overpopulated elite bastions of liberal metropolitan thought, hidden behind leaky dikes with little farmland of their own, will be those least likely to be fed.
Perhaps as starving natives of south Philadelphia begin stoking a caldron to a boil in hopes of rendering his frail body into a passable gruel, one of them will remember his article, and snarl at him, "Shut up. We told you this would happen."
A waste of a very good mind. Dave was a Merit Scholarship finalist in high school. He is simply continuing his high school pattern: I'm cool and I'm bright,and you are not, and I know a lot more than you will ever know.
Like some people say, life is but a continuation of high school
I am so unbelievably UPSET. Just think, my home (currently @ around 5500 ft above sea level) might actually be approximately 42+ feet closer to sea level. My GOD! The horror! Here I was hoping I might actually have a chance at 'beach-front property'.
/sarc off
For those commenters here...I'm in Wyoming, right next to the Rockies. CY's statement about those mid-west farmers feeding their own first is extremely correct, as well as the Western ranchers. I've always been amazed by the urban crowd's capacity to think wheat, corn, vegetables, and MEAT - come from a supermarket...all nicely packaged with plastic wrap and labeled for them. Not only that...but where does most of the POWER (electrical, oil, Nat. Gas, etc) come from that allows them to heat/cool their homes, cook their food, etc.
I have a sneaking suspicion that at least one of Mr. Lindorff's conclusions is a bit dyslexic. The move won't be to the cities...it will be away from them.
I'm even more depressed that I couldn't find a comment link for the editorial...and even more depressing - where's the irony that "Flushing" won't be completely flooded with a 14m sea level rise?
Posted by: Mark at December 27, 2007 05:21 PMBad science. Bad, bad case of BDS. Which has resulted in really horrible analysis. The peace loving, liberal mind at its best. Scary isn't it?
Posted by: CoRev at December 27, 2007 05:34 PMLike the old ad said, "A mind is a terrible thing to waste." That is, assuming he ever had one. The rising sea level (TM) may not get this clown, but he may drown in a pool of his own sanctimony.
Maybe he decided not to save this drivel for 2008 so that he could garner some support for 2007's ignorant rant of the year.
Posted by: Chris at December 27, 2007 05:37 PMMark's totally correct... in southwest Iowa, a 45-foot rise in sea levels won't do much for us. Should we run into food shortages, you can be assured our families will be fed first. Actually, in our case, we'll also enjoy the wine and hard cider from the grapes and apples we produce on our farm.
As a professional risk manager, I'm intrigued that anyone could be as educated yet so seriously lacking in any pragmatic perspective or life experience. Clearly advanced journalism or social science degrees have no utility as it led to the conclusion that a city is a safe shelter while those closest to food production and natural resources would be in jeopardy. How we as a society failed to educate Mr. Lindorff in such basics, while worse yet, leading him to believe he was obtaining advanced education in essentially useless, phony fields, should signal alarm. Even more detrimental is the false confidence these unprepared, economically useless individuals have. Should we have real hardship (e.g. a real depression they appear to seek from their nihlistic views), do they think they'd last a month? These "contemplators of grand thoughts" and "men of letters" would be the first to go in any hardship where utility and productivity was the measure.
Strictly from a risk perspective, cities are not natural environments and subsequently have serious distortions that cause bad things to suddenly become very bad (e.g. auto-collinearity). Tell me how you'll be taunting us hicks when your water supply fails, or when your week food supply disappears. Cities magnify food and resource risk where rural living tends to diversify it. On our farm, we've even kept one well totally pre-electric so we could have a reliable water supply in the event of a long-term outage. Ask yourself how many Bostonians can fend without city or bottled water for three days, let alone months? Seriously... where would YOU go for water if there was none in the pipes or the stores? Would you, like nearly every city dweller, be completely at the mercy of the government? I'd suggest Lindorff and most others on the left may need to re-read the story of the grasshopper and the ants.
Increasingly, liberalism has become associated with disfunctional, borderline clinical personality disorders. It's not only a disfunctional, non-working model, but it's increasingly associated with deranged followers who find attraction to its irrationality. Lindorff's writings are more a commentary on how society is failing to help treat those in significant need of assistance, and the perpetration of a liberal ideology unfortunately allows these illnesses to be masked in a great many people.
with little farmland of their own
Now c'mon, everyone knows that every good lib has an organic cherry tomato plant on his or her patio.
Posted by: Sara at December 27, 2007 06:07 PMredherkey:
I've got beef...you've got wine. Wanna set up a barter or just a BBQ? :)
Sara: and they will enjoy their just desserts...or is that deserts...I forget...
PS: and for those who might think the "city-folk" will just take the food they want from us, remember, we still have our guns and we know how to use them. Now, if they want to set up 'equitable trades', I'm all for it :)
Posted by: Mark at December 27, 2007 06:39 PMI'd love if Raleigh was about an hour or more closer to the ocean.
We could dike off those liberal mecca's then cut the bridges.
Seriously, is there anything out there that liberals aren't hysterical over nowadays?
Posted by: William Teach at December 27, 2007 06:46 PMLet's see: He wants to wipe out most of coastal America, see tens of millions of people dispossessed, maybe hundreds of thousands dead (between direct and indirect-starvation and disease-causes), watch an ecological disaster of unbelievable proportions unfold as salt water overruns millions of acres of biosystem (not to mention the human-related causes as thousannds of chemical plants and oil handling, refining, and storage facilities go under corrosive saltwater), have America's economy totally destroyed for maybe fifty years- which will totally destroy the rest of the world's economy too, and spark a civil war on top of it all...
... and he feels there to be a silver lining,
making everything okay, because it means that his ideological bent will emerge triumphant in national politics without the trouble of having to convince people to vote his way.
Have I got it right? I'd hate to think I've missed something.
Posted by: DaveP. at December 27, 2007 07:21 PMMark: sounds like we could have a heck of a BBQ. We sure love smoking ribs and chicken too (as well as the obligatory veggies you gotta throw in). Try a Strongbow or a K brand hard cider some time - that's mostly what we're growing apples to produce a comparable domestic version of.
Sara: The only potted plants I know my lib city slicker friends grow don't make veggies (but they allegedly have medicinal value from what I've been told).
Seriously tho, I've been getting involved in mentoring at our school more and am doing a lot with my son's scout troop on American business and such. We've got to reach out and give these kids a chance to understand objectivity before these alternate mental state leftists get their hands on them.
I'd encourage readers here to consider the thought. If more of us help kids become more aware of how the world really is, and be less fearful of taking on real academic challenges instead of the soft and mostly useless poly-sci/history/english/journalism degrees, our country will be a better place.
Posted by: redherkey at December 27, 2007 07:32 PMOnly a lefty could consider the deaths of millions of people to be a good thing. No wonder they deify Stalin and Lenin.
Posted by: C-C-G at December 27, 2007 07:41 PMwait! Wait! WAIT!
You're looking at the wrong map of the USofA!
Get a copy of the famous "Red-Blue Map" from the election a few years back that shows those U.S. counties which voted predominantly Democrat in Blue and mostly Republican in Red. Notice that the closer you get to the water, the "bluer" the county becomes, and the more you move away from the water, the "redder" the vote!
Liberals/Democrats are along the waterfront, the Atlantic/Pacific Coasts, the Mississippi River, the Great Lakes, etc. The "conservative" reds are farther inland, on higher ground!
He may be correct in identifying the geographic consequences of Global Warming, but he is completely wrong in identifying the demographic consequences.
It's almost enough to make me want to believe. ;-) ;-) :-)
Posted by: JCPennylegion at December 27, 2007 08:14 PMThis idiot is a poster child for the fact that streetsmarts are always greater then booksmarts. If something bad happens to this country idiots like Dave Lindorff will be totally lost. The only thing he knows how to do is BS his fellow liberals.
I remember a passage in Stephen King's book "The Stand" where one of the people was dying from appendicitis. One of the characters asked them all what their college majors are/would have been. Then she pointed out that all they learned is how to BS each other and none of them actually KNEW how to do anything and were afraid to try. The only one who actually knew how to do things and was willing to try was Stu Redman, who before the superflu they would have all looked down on a a stupid, ignorant redneck. She then stated that she would trade the lot of them for a couple more people like Stu.
What's with everyone here buying into Lindorff's wildly delusional exaggeration of the sea level rising 14 meters (45.9 feet) in two cat generations? Those who take interest in predicted sea levels can Google up a bunch of numbers from various sources and find that by the year 2100, the oh so wise scientists have furrowed their brows and come forth with these ranges of rise from the present:
Science Daily (2002): 0.4 to 1.4 ft.
Real Climate (2006): 13.1 to 19.7 ft.
Mission 2010 (no date): avg. 3.1 ft.
NASA, IPCC (2007): 0.9 to 2.6 ft.
And of course that assumes that global warming is a sure thing, because lotsa scientists voted (well, stampeded) and democracy always rules in science 'cause that's how they get their grants.
At any rate, Mr. Lindorff must have a secret counsellor who is so wise that he keeps him locked away from all these other eager predictors, thus allowing him to predict more than double the rise of the wild bunch that call themselves Real Climate.
And two cat generations would only take us to about 2040, so Lindorff must be absolutely the wisest predictor of all, because at his rate of rise the ocean in 2100 (say 5.5 cat generations from now) will stand 126 feet higher than its present level. Man, he really showed them half-baked scientists! I bet he's buying Pike's Peak real estate while the rest of us waste time.
Posted by: Hank at December 27, 2007 09:21 PMHell, it's not even two cat generations, Hank. He specifically says in the lifetime of his two cats. Assuming one of those cats hasn't gone off the teat yet, you get one cat generation.
This guy is giving cat owners a bad name. Bet he's got those smush-faced longhairs that piss all over his laundry and in his granola, explaining his pissy tantrums.
Posted by: Uncle Pinky at December 27, 2007 10:32 PMWhile everyone is focusing on the latest Red/Blue nasty argument, the Census Bureau state figures came out today. Hey Blue Staters: Scoreboard!
Take special note of the fact that of the 20 states registering growth above national levels, 17 are deep red:)
Posted by: Brad S at December 27, 2007 10:37 PMSimple bait and switch
Say something totally off the wacko scale and then any modestly crazy stuff sounds sane by comparison.
Posted by: Observer at December 27, 2007 10:42 PMOk, I'll leave off the slamming of another completely well-educated idiot (damn, there I go again).
Seriously, IF global warming is such a 'bad thing', why is the geologic record chalk full of information showing life - in general - prospers MORE when the planet heats up?
Next, on to physics and geophysics. As ice melts away from land, the presure of that ice due to its gravitatational force is reduced. When that happens, land rebounds (gets 'higher'). The arctic icecap does not rest on land (exposed mantle). Ice is more dense than liquid water, that's why it floats. Since the Arctic ice cap is technically floating and that ice is less dense, if it melts completely, sea levels should drop. The southern icecap is on land and the last evidence I saw shows it is growing in mass. Not area but volume. That means the Antarctic continent is getting more presure and depressing. That should raise sea levels.
Now on to climatology and the 'water cycle'. If there is more area covered by water, that means more water will be evaporated. More precipitation will be generated - snow, rain, etc. Water vapor is a much greater 'greenhouse gas' than CO2 due to its structure as a 'bent molecule'. Assuming (and this is a big assumption) atmospheric water vapor increases say...20% in the next 20 years at a nice even pace of 1%/year. More heat from the sun will be trapped in the atmosphere, more water vapor will be created, planetary real (not relative) humidity will increase at all levels of the atmosphere. Sea levels will FALL making less area available for evaporation and the planet will cool as water vapor is precipitated out.
There is NO geologic record of such a fast increase in atmospheric water vapor. Comparisons to Venus' atmosphere are nonsensical since Venus recieves approximately 2-4 times more solar energy than Terra.
This is basic logic coupled with a little science ...I know I rambled a bit...sorry. Logic tells me Anthropogenic Global Warming is bunk. My prediction if global temps rise 2 deg C in the next 20 years - sea levels will fall.
Posted by: Mark at December 28, 2007 12:13 AMHey Hank,
Maybe Lindorff saw the Science Daily worst case prediction of 1.4 feet and and somehow misunderstood it as 14 meters!
Posted by: Brad at December 28, 2007 03:23 AMHey, I'm loving this. I live very close to the Jersey Shore, and those 14m will put me about a 15 minute stroll to the beach. House value ZOOMS!
Posted by: Mr. Bingley at December 28, 2007 09:32 AMBrad-
That sounds about right. Was Lindorff one of the pioneers of the No Child Left Behind Act? Feeters, meters, schmeeters, what's important is getting a Big Number to throw around.
Mark-
"Ice is more dense than liquid water, that's why it floats." You may join Mr. Lindorff in the corner.
Posted by: Hank at December 28, 2007 10:27 AMHank:
Whoops...that's what I get for not proof-reading enough...the "more" should have been "less"
(turns chair to corner and grumbles about fingers not doing what brain tells them too...I'll leave the corner when Hank tells me I can :)
Posted by: Mark at December 28, 2007 10:56 AMMark-
Come out! Come out! We need more wisecracks and prognostications.
Posted by: Hank at December 28, 2007 11:55 AMLindorff is a Columbia educated journalist, so we should assume that a rational thought has never crossed his mind.
To bound future change, we should look back in time and realize that weather is a highly complex, stocastic system.
18,000 years ago we were in an ice age. Glaciers covered over half of the land in the Northern Hemisphere. That is a lot of ice. Sea level was 125 meters below current levels. Average temperature was 10°C.
6,000 years ago, temperatures were 3° C above present and mean sea level was only 5 meters lower than today. Glaciers had thinned and receded. Since then, they have continued to melt. Sea level has been rising steadily at an annual rate of 0.83 mm.
The thickness of a 0.9mm Pentel pencil lead is 10% more than the current average annual increase in MSL. His cats must live a long time!
Posted by: arch at December 28, 2007 01:21 PMHank:
My thanks for recalling me from Coventry :)
The whole prolem with "melting icecaps" due to Global Warming (hmmm, I suppose I should start matching High Priest Algore's 'climate change') is that the entire system is too complex to model. The map Mr. Lindorff uses controls only one variable - sea levels. I don't know for certain if the melting arctic is being balanced by the freezing antarctic, though that does have some rather appealing asthetic yin/yang balance in my mind.
I offer the following in vein: His premise of melting = rising "will eventually be good for blue-staters" is interesting. Seems to me the Global Warming (aka: climate change) crowd claims humans are the cause of the current cycle. So, a simple syllogism seems to follow:
1) Humans cause global warming. (assume true)
2) More humans would then increase the rate of GW. (follows as true from 1)
3) Get rid of some humans to 'slow' or much more to'stop' GW.
What better way than to flood heavily populated coastlines around the world? Why not advocate for faster GW, more melting, and higher sea levels in order to drown, cause famine, and - in effect - reduce the total number of humans on the planet? After all, those nasty humans are the cause of it all...shouldn't they suffer the results?
But, then again, I think I've now beaten the dead horse a bit too much...
Arch, the sources I've checked indicate a sea level increase rate of about 3mm per year, not 0.83. Check out Wikipedia's article on the subject.
But even at that rate, Lindorff's prediction of large areas under water "in the lifetime of my two cats" is delusional. If his cats live another 20 years, that will mean a total rise of 6cm -- less than two and a half inches. No one will even notice that (except for scientists, who will need instruments to detect it).
Posted by: Pat Berry at December 28, 2007 03:52 PMI'm afraid Lindorff gets just about everything about Southern California wrong too. While Santa Monica and the far left west side of L.A. might be threatened, most of the land, even around San Diego, slopes up fairly quickly from the Pacific. I'm about 15 air miles inland and over 200 ft above sea level. The Salton Sea will disappear whether or not the climate changes. It is a creation of Colorado River floods that cannot occur again unless the string of dams that now control them are destroyed. And it never was very near Palm Springs anyway.He might as well cite the hundreds of other dry lakes in the desert including Lake Manley which covered Death Valley in 650 ft of water.
Posted by: Ken Hahn at December 28, 2007 05:07 PMThere's another point to consider... how many of these estimates assume that the rate of change will always be constant? That in itself is a logical error of the first magnitude, because in nature the rate of change itself changes all the time. Imagine if young humans grew at the same rate for their entire lives, for instance. The idea itself is ludicrous.
The same can be said for weather phenomena... does the temperature always increase at the same rate during the day? Of course not.
I haven't looked closely at those studies, so I cannot say whether or not any of them commit that logical error, but I think it's worth asking the question.
Posted by: C-C-G at December 28, 2007 09:13 PMThis guy is a tool.
Elsewhere on his blog he claimed the Miami Herald was in Robert Wexler's district (which only extends down to mid-Broward, not into Dade where the Herald is located).
Posted by: Purple Avenger at December 29, 2007 07:15 PMAmong all the scientific investigations and explanations I think we've missed stating the obvious: People will move.
Posted by: DoorHold at December 30, 2007 02:06 PMDoorHold, for a New York lefty to move into "flyover country" is surely a fate worse than death... for both the lefty and the red state whom the lefty invades.
Posted by: C-C-G at December 30, 2007 03:13 PMGood grief! What will happen to those conservative strongholds of Seattle and the Bay Area????? I sure hope the Great Lakes don't rise, too, or else the conserative strongholds of Chicago and Detroit could also flood!!!!
Posted by: doc75 at December 30, 2007 08:09 PMHmmmmm.
Ok. Let me get this straight. The worst case scenario, actual reality vs BDS, that the UN proposes that'll happen over the next 100 years is a 3cm rise in sea level. So for this liberal disaster nonsense we'll have to wait ... how long?
