From Climate Scepticism

By John Ridgway

Texas floods: Disaster or political opportunity?

There are only three certainties in this world: death, taxes and the BBC exploiting every weather-related tragedy in order to heighten anxiety over climate change. The recent Texas flooding, in which over 100 people lost their lives, provides the most recent example. The horror of the event cannot help but cause distress to anyone prepared to pause for a moment to contemplate the fate of all those poor children. This is surely not the time to argue the toss over the science behind the tragedy. But I’m afraid I am going to have to do so, if only because the BBC has already beaten me to it with its most recent report.

As is often the case nowadays, the report initially gives no clue as to where it is headed; seemingly providing a straightforward account of the weather conditions leading to the event, together with a recognition that the area is notorious for flash flooding (hence the local name, ‘Flash Flood Alley’). It would seem that history, geography and local weather conditions, combined with highly questionable decision-making, do more than enough to explain the cause of the horror that unfolded. Not, however, enough for the BBC. Despite opening with the headline, “Volatile weather, unusual humidity and the Texan landscape all contributed to scale of destruction”, the article closes with:

The influence of climate change cannot be ignored as another factor in extreme weather events like this. Whilst it is difficult to directly attribute the influence of the warming planet to one particular weather event, sea surface temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico, where some of the air originated from, continue to be warmer than normal. Warmer waters mean more evaporation and so more available moisture in the atmosphere to feed a storm.

Nice theory, but scepticism is all about resisting the “theorizing disease”. The empirical sceptic prefers instead to focus upon the data, to see if there has been a recent trend that supports the idea that this tragedy has all the hallmarks of a climate change catastrophe. As Cliff Mass reports, this is what the precipitation history data looks like for nearby San Antonio:

I’m not going to dwell on this; the data speaks for itself and I’m finding the whole idea of discussing such matters whilst the death toll is still rising quite distasteful. We should instead just pause to reflect upon the human dimension; a dimension that most certainly encompasses human frailty, grief and horror, but must also involve a determination to learn from obvious failings. A failure to meet Net Zero may be uppermost in the minds of the average environmental journalist, but surely the proximate failure of those in charge to respond to the more than adequate weather alerts should, at least for the time being, be the greater concern.

Meanwhile, anything the BBC can do, the Guardian can do much better. Even as the bodies and teddy bears still float down the river, the Guardian takes the opportunity to attack Trump, with the suggestion that “Deadly floods could be new normal as Trump guts federal agencies”. As the article explains:

It remains unclear why the early warning system failed to result in the timely evacuation of Camp Mystic, where 700 girls were camped on a known flood plain on the Guadalupe River, but there is mounting concern that the chaos and cuts instigated by Trump and his billionaire donor Elon Musk at the National Weather Service (NWS) and Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) may have contributed to the death toll.

Why do I feel sickened by this?