On Monday, Washington D.C. experienced flash flooding leading to over 100 water rescues, mostly of stranded motorists. A normal person would realize that it’s July, that storms and rain are not a new thing, and that the nation’s capital is built on a low-lying swamp that invites flooding.
But Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is not a normal person. Instead, she took the sudden downpour as proof of global warming, because what else could possibly cause it to rain in a swamp?
Climate change intensifies flooding, wildfires, & extreme weather.
It’s more than 1 day or 1 storm; it’s all of them. Places are flooding where they haven’t before; there are 90-degree days in Alaska in June. The GOP will mock & sow confusion until it’s their home swept away.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) July 8, 2019
This is nonsensical for many reasons.
Let’s note that the hysteria over global warming started out with a primary complaint of coming desertification of large swaths of land. This is where we get the left-wing talking points that droughts are driving migrant rushes across the globe. In this case, wouldn’t rain be a good thing?
Did the 3.3 inches of rain in an hour break a record on Monday? Yes, it did. For that single day in recorded history. You can find larger rainfall totals going back into the 1800s and no doubt many, many more before real record keeping started. Were those just flukes while this one was definitely caused by man-made climate change? How is that actually judged? Just AOC’s gut feeling?
What actually happened in D.C. was that a low pressure area producing major convective activity passed through the area. There’s currently more of that building in the mid-west. Even if you believe man is causing the temperature to rise, there was no connection between this specific storm and supposed higher temperatures. Remember, we are constantly told by liberals that weather is not climate. When it’s really cold and snows in the south, that’s not proof of anything. But if it rains in a swamp, that’s global warming according AOC.
Here’s some pictures from prior D.C. floods that were far, far worse.
https://twitter.com/AmeliaFrappolli/status/1148327947427819520
Also, take her accusation that “places are flooding where they haven’t before.” The shifting of flood plains and rivers is a natural occurrence that has been happening since the beginning of time. The Mississippi River, for example, has changed it’s path throughout its history all along its length. Because rivers are never actually static, this means you can eventually see new places become threatened by floods that weren’t before. There’s also the fact that many, many places in the United States that are inhabited exist because of levies, pumps, and other man made tools keeping the water at bay. That’s never a guarantee to work forever.
If you look at the history of just the United States, what you’ll find going back well before the industrial boom of the early 1900s, is centuries of major disasters, huge death totals from weather events, and massive displacement due to flooding. These are normal weather events that will always be with us. No amount of government spending or taxing carbon is going to change that.
AOC sees this as a opportunity to push her socialist tripe though and far too many people buy into it without any critical thinking whatsoever.
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