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extreme weather

Surviving Harvey

Hello!  Long time no blogging.  The doc was getting burned out from work and other things… then Hurricane Harvey hit Houston. I survived with little damage to my house, so I’m pretty happy about that.  Unfortunately, many of my friends and coworkers were not so lucky.  They had damage ranging from a few inches of water in their garage, submerged cars and trucks, a few inches in their house, to having the entire first floor under water.  Lots of hassles, from cleaning out a garage to gutting an entire floor of a house — and all the headaches of dealing… Read More »Surviving Harvey

How to prepare for and survive a flood

This article is taken from a previous, longer article about the health impacts of flooding.  Here we focus mostly on flood preparation and recovery. A recent study titled Increasing Vulnerability to Health Effects before, during and after Floods, observed the following  in people who had experienced a major flood… Males had a higher risk of dying due to risk taking behaviors Females had a higher risk for anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress Young children, the elderly, and those with a chronic disease (e.g. heart disease, lung disease, etc) had a higher chance of getting sick or sicker Poor people have bad outcomes… Read More »How to prepare for and survive a flood

What’s Hot in Climate Change – Oct. 2016

Time for another What’s Hot in Climate Change, a summary of the most interesting and/or important climate change stories from the previous month or so.  For those paying attention, horrific news with respect to the climate seems to be coming at an ever increasing pace. There’s also plenty of encouraging news.  The adoption of alternative energy seems to steadily exceed all expectations.  The race is on between the worst effects of climate change, and those measures we take to stop it from happening.  Our fate quite literally hangs in the balance.   Corrected sea level rise estimates or… it’s worse than you know… Read More »What’s Hot in Climate Change – Oct. 2016

The climate agreement, 2 degrees, and your children’s future

Not too long ago, just after the Paris COP21 climate meeting, I read two interesting articles that contradicted each other.  The first said “COP21: Paris deal far too weak to prevent devastating climate change, academics warn.”  The second was more optimistic, “Rapid switch to renewable energy can put Paris climate goals within reach.” “So which is it?”, I wondered. The first one discussed a letter sent by eleven supposedly prominent climate scientists to The Independent that warned that the climate deal reached at the COP21 gives “false hope” and will result in insufficient action being taken. A few choice quotes… Read More »The climate agreement, 2 degrees, and your children’s future

Houston, Tx - Memorial Day flooding, 2015

Climate Change and Deadly Floods: What you need to know

With all of the extreme rain and snow storms across the US lately, the obvious question arises… are these events linked to climate change? New research shows us the answer is a resounding ‘yes’.   And it actually makes perfect sense.  Carbon dioxide traps heat in the atmosphere, and a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture. When you combine warmer, moist air with disruption of the Jet Stream cased by a warming Arctic, you get huge, slow-moving weather fronts packed with moisture.  This is the exact recipe for epic, extreme storms. As an example, on Memorial Day in 2015, a massive storm parked over southern Texas and dropped nearly 11 inches of… Read More »Climate Change and Deadly Floods: What you need to know