General Chat (Non-Music-Related)

Flooding in Texas is getting to be a serious problem, Houston, Austin and other places already have big problems, I think it was Houston that has had several 100 year record floods already, Brazos River just hit the highest level in a century if I remember correctly, already 3 dead in the Houston area. Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm running on memory, didn't bother to look up a link.

Today I came home to a story about 3 dead and 6 missing from Fort Hood, light tactical vehicle turned over at a low water crossing. 3 bodies already found downstream, search crews looking for the missing.

I've seen some of the video on news segments, it's getting bad and around 10 inches still expected in southeast Texas this week.

I live 100 yards from a very large lake, Sam Rayburn, but fortunately we're far enough above lake level it would have to get higher than it ever has since it was filled over 50 years ago to flood even the houses right on the bank in my neighborhood. Water level would have to rise about 20 to 25 feet above normal for us to have a problem. At 6 feet above normal it's still at least 50 yards from the nearest house to the bank. So I'm not expecting any trouble.

Did have a big tree fall across the road in front of the house last Friday, got it partially cut up before chainsaw had trouble and had to shut it off. Got part of it moved into the yard to split for firewood, still have a ton of branches and a lot of the main trunk to deal with.

Around 5 1/2 inches of rain last week, didn't look today but we got a couple of inches I'm sure, I was in town looking for a new phone. Long story, but they seem to be dropping 2G service now, my existing 10 year old Nokia refuses to accept more minutes (Net 10 prepaid, I love it) so I spent all day trying to find one that doesn't require internet access and a more expensive refill card. No luck, ended up ordering one online...

Garden still hasn't suffered, nothing starting to look dead yet, I guess loads of mulch is paying off. Tons of peppers on the Tabasco plants, asparagus has been producing well, cherry tomatoes just getting started, nothing on the Roma tomatoes yet, a few cantaloupes not yet golf ball size. Neighbor tells me his tomato plants are drooping from too much water...

Didn't go look at the lake today, need to tomorrow though, I take care of all the boats for everyone while they're out of town for the week. I'll probably have to move everything tomorrow and crank up a few bilge pumps...

Overall no real problems here, but I'm sure worried about folks in other areas, this flooding is getting really bad and lots more rain on the way. Houston and Austin areas are getting hit hard, governor has already declared something like 30 - 35 counties disaster areas. The one thing we might have trouble with is if we get much more rain, the ground will start to get really soft and some big trees might just fall over. Still not near as bad as what some folks have to deal with...

They found 2 more dead in that Ft Hood truck incident, 4 still missing as of this morning. Saw some news footage yesterday of the area - soil so saturated that trees are falling over everywhere. But this is just regular weather, right - no global climate change?

Bass fishing is still very good. One of the best lakes in Texas. I put my rods away years ago, got burned out on it. I pulled bunches of 3 to 5lb bass out of this lake, all within a half mile of where I put in. Finally got tired of it...

News report this morning is 5 dead, 3 alive and in hospital, 4 still missing at about 7AM.

No rain here yet today, expecting it though.

Yes it's part of climate change but a minor part. And climate change is the exact opposite of what politicians like Obama and Al Gore want you to think. They're not scientists, they can probably barely spell scientist. They're politicians, with an agenda. "Climate change" gives them an excuse to hit businesses and individuals with more taxes and regulations, which is what already killed the coal industry in a couple of states. And a lot of other businesses. If your business has all its revenue tied up paying taxes and trying to comply with regulations, it can't expand, hire new people, create new jobs, or even give existing employees raises if they deserve it.

The climate has been going through cyclic changes for billions of years, fairly regular. The main catalyst is solar energy. The sun goes through several regular cycles, the most important one every 206 years. It just started into a cycle of reduced solar activity and sunspots, which always results in colder winters, more agitated weather (as opposed to climate) and geological activity. That's why we've seen more earthquakes and volcanoes recently than usual. It's not getting any better.

In the next 30 to 50 years, we'll see even more harsh winters than the past 3, most likely a mini ice age, which has happened several times in recorded history. The last one resulted in a serious earthquake along the new Madrid fault that runs though Indiana and Missouri in 1810 or 1811. (I'll look it up and post a link)

That's not the worst of it. Crops will fail if we don't start growing south of where we do now. Famines resulting from the exact same thing is what led to the wars all over Europe during Napoleon's time. People were angry with their government as a result of crop failures, which actually wasn't government's fault, but nobody realized what was happening. If they had known, they could have started growing crops in more southern locations and it would have been a better situation.

Don't tell me about the 97% of scientists who say climate change is real, the majority of them had absolutely nothing to do with climate studies. A professor of agriculture in Podunk wherever probably knows almost nothing about climate science. And that's who they were surveying.

Watch the documentary Dark Winter, it explains it much better than I can. Humans are arrogant at best to think they can do much at all to affect the overall climate of this planet. The greatest source of energy in the solar system is the sun, it has been the main controlling factor of the climate forever.

http://www.newsmaxtv.com/vod/Dark-Winte ... UxzONK0G6/

Mr Casey also explains the geologic affects, including the New Madrid earthquake. He also explains that the climate goes through regular warming and cooling cycles, and that the CO² levels always increase AFTER a warming period is over. The most recent one ended about year 2000 or so. The warmest summer on record is 1997. Currently, sunspots have almost disappeared entirely, since 1997 no warming at all has been recorded. Al Gore was only partially right, the planet was in the process of a minor warming period for a few decades, it has stopped now and we're entering a serious cooling period, expect winters to be more and more harsh for the next 30 to 50 years.

More links. Ice in Antarctica is actually expanding at an increased rate, not decreasing, as the UN wants you to believe.

http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/envi ... nt&print=1

Several good articles here

https://nextgrandminimum.wordpress.com/ ... on/page/3/

Here is a rather skeptical, but honest review of Dr Casey's book Dark Winter, along with the author's observations. A good article, with a couple of interesting graphs.

https://biblescienceforum.com/2015/03/2 ... rk-winter/

Virtually all of Al Gore's predictions have proven false. The ice caps didn't disappear by 2013, they're actually growing. New York and Miami are not underwater, the entire world is not currently hot enough to fry eggs on any sidewalk by any means. Temperatures are actually getting slightly cooler, but so far very little, barely enough at this point to measure. The idea that CO² is a greenhouse gas and dangerous is ludicrous. CO² is required for plants to grow, it's inert, and the atmosphere contained a much higher concentration of it during earlier eras, hundreds of millions of years ago, when the climate was cooler overall. I think it was the Cambrian period, but I may be mistaken. Without CO² life could not exist, because plants would not grow and we cannot survive without them. And why is it literally all of the global warming fearmongers travel all over the world in huge jets that create more "carbon emissions" in one trip than your car will in 3 months? For the recent climate conference in Europe, they had to clear a military base to create space to park 1700 private jets. Nobody could car pool? Or jet pool? Obama went to the climate meeting in Florida in Air Force One, didn't seem to be too worried about the exhaust he created...your car won't do that much in several months. And a trip overseas? It would take a lot longer for your car to create that much emissions. Hypocrites.

Climate change has very little to do with the recent flooding, that's weather not climate. but the curent climate trend will affect short term weather, as it always does. El nino, El nina and the jet stream have more impact on short term weather than climate itself. We will see more severe storms. but mostly due to changes in local influences, but the reduction in solar activity will play a part. In the long term view, it will result in more severe winters, greater geological activity, and probably cooler summers. Short term weather itself is subject to a host of factors I can't begin to understand...The Gulf Stream, for example, has a definite affect on hurricanes. Just moving across that area of warmer water causes notable changes in a hurricane. Then you have the jet stream, equatorial air currents, various levels of temperatures and air currents in the upper atmosphere, ground moisture and air moisture levels, I wouldn't be too surprised if gopher farts figured in there somewhere...

But weather and climate are different critters. Don't confuse one storm or flood with climate overall. A long term general trend, sure, but not one event. Stop listening to people who have a political agenda and start looking into the actual facts.

es ist verboten, die Wahrheit über den Klimawandel zu sprechen

is that Old English? or Anglo Saxon? maybe Frisian?

aber die polaren Eiskappen schmelzen ?