Turning our back on the Paris Accord

The withdrawal of the USA from the Paris Accord has drawn both criticism and support - from different segments of our society.  Many of us felt it was an important first step for the world to join together to do something about anthropogenic global climate change (AGCC).  What we American do or don't do affects everyone around the world.  What goes on in the rest of the world inevitably has impacts in the USA.  We're no longer isolated bands of hunter-gatherers, and so our species has become deeply interconnected and interdependent.  Agriculture set us on the road to this interconnectedness, and industrialization moved us more rapidly in that direction.  Electronic technology is now accelerating the pace of interdependence.  Our withdrawal from the Paris accord is a profoundly disturbing step backward at a time when moving ahead to mitigate AGCC is critical for the future of our nation.

Apologists for this move are saying it was a "bad deal" for the USA.  If global climate change is worrisome to the military in this nation, is it plausible to suggest it's a myth?  If many business leaders supported our being part of the Paris Accord, is it plausible to suggest it was going to hurt the USA economy?  The US military is not exactly a bastion of left-leaning tree-hugger libtards.  Business leaders don't advocate things that will be bad for their business.  There are abundant examples now showing that reducing our dependence on fossil fuels will not bankrupt our economies, but rather will energize them.  As new technology is developed to replace the old, new jobs will be created and the economy should prosper.  In various places around the world, including American states, this is already happening.  The hard part is the transition period as we wean ourselves from fossil fuels.  To step backward away from the leadership of a movement to mitigate AGCC, will cost our nation in many ways, and is not the path to American "greatness".  It delays the inevitable transition, making the pain of transition last longer.

I'm not a climate scientist, so I have no evidence of my own to support or refute the reality of AGCC.  I defer to the consensus of my scientific colleagues who are doing global climate research.  Would you entrust your health care to someone not a medical doctor?  Would you entrust your safety to a person who has no pilot training or experience?  Why do you lend credibility to non-specialists in issues of science?  Why do you think you know as much or more about the global climate as the consensus of climate scientists?  On what basis can there be such intense political opposition to the climate science consensus about AGCC?  Insofar as I can tell, only a tiny fraction of global climate scientists are arguing the consensus is wrong.  The rest of the chorus of voices opposing efforts to do something about AGCC are not global climate scientists, but are mostly basing their position on propaganda, lies, distortions of the facts, and political machinations.  Opposition to the Paris accord is just another rearguard action against a future technology shift toward renewable energy sources that is already well underway, even here in the USA.  Opposition to progress appeals to those who feel threatened by global unity in the face of global challenges.

The current political situation in the USA is going to result in damage that will take decades to repair.  The regime in power is anti-science, anti-intellectual, supportive of creeping theocracy, contributing to the massive expansion of the income inequality gap, alienating our international allies, devastating our public education systems, encouraging xenophobia and bigotry, and on ... and on ... and on.  Each day, more damage to America is happening, so withdrawing from the Paris Accord is another step down a very destructive path for America. 

Some have said that politics is intruding into science and that isn't good for the science.  AGCC didn't become politicized by some sort of conspiracy among climate scientists.  It became politicized when it became clear that something needed to be done about the threats posed by AGCC.  There would be a price tag attached to any efforts at mitigation of AGCC, and where money is involved, there go some politicians and their corporate sponsors.  And many political conservatives wax eloquent talking of the doom associated with progress.  It's what they do - oppose progress.

Tornado chasing versus storm chasing

Now that spring is well underway, I've observed an increasing tendency for many chasers to be focused totally on tornadoes.  In a way, I can understand this obsession, as I've had a mild form of it all my life.  I wanted to see a tornado for many years before I saw my first on 30 April 1972, near Mangum, OK.  As a chaser, I've chosen not to keep count of the number of tornadoes I've seen.  I don't see the experience as a means to increase the number of tornado notches in my metaphorical gun.  One reason for my choice not to keep count is I detest the notion that one must compete in some sort of machismo contest about who's seen the most tornadoes.  There has always been some tendency for some chasers to seek some sort of mythical crown as the king of chasing.  But it's not my reason for chasing.

I also find that what I see in storms doesn't always allow some uncontestable enumeration of how many tornadoes I saw.  This may or may not be cleared up in a post-storm survey.  Given the vagaries of chasing, one doesn't always have the luxury of being close to the action for the duration of an event, so what may seem to be separate tornadoes may just be gaps between observations of a continuing tornado.  Or it may be a real gap between distinct tornadoes.  It's not always easy to be sure. Tornadoes change their appearance rapidly sometimes and their evolution can include such complications as rapid dissipation and re-forming, satellite tornadoes, etc.  I've discussed some of this here - storms can get complicated in a hurry, making tornado counts problematic.  Hence, when someone says they've seen XX tornadoes, I always have a nagging doubt about their numbers.  So I don't even try to keep track.  Or I just make my best guess in the complex situations, without necessarily having much confidence in the number.  If someone wants to brag about how many tornadoes they've seen, that's up to them.  It's not something I want to do, at least in part because I'm never absolutely sure how many I've seen (in multi-tornado episodes), and in part because it just doesn't matter to me.

Nowadays, chasers are so tornado-focused, they apparently consider any chase in which they fail to see a tornado to be a total bust.  Moreover, they go to extreme lengths to see a tornado - such as going into the "notch" of an HP supercell to check out the possibility of a rain-wrapped tornado, or "core punching".  Apart from taking what I consider to be foolish risks just to see a tornado, they often then proudly post shaky, poor contrast imagery wherein a tornado may be just barely visible, if at all.  Evidently, showing imagery of a tornado, no matter how amateurish it may appear to be, is the most important goal of chasing for some chasers.

Moreover, I guess I've seen enough tornadoes by now that I've become rather circumspect about my images.  A nearly monochromatic shot that shows a dark, backlit cone tornado certainly may document the event for a tornado-count person, but I find them pretty uninteresting.  Same goes for poor-contrast and/or blurry images.  They might serve the purpose of documenting the tornado count, but I just can't get all worked up about imagery of that mediocre sort.  I suppose I've become a bit jaded, at least in this limited sense.  If I see a tornado, even a non-photogenic one, I'm still excited about it, but if I'm going to show off my imagery, it's not going to be like a lot of what I see posted on social media - boring backlit silhouettes, shaky video, low contrast, etc.  In fact, if I don't see a tornado, but I'm able to catch a great lightning show, or see the dramatic structure of a striated supercell storm, I'm just as pleased as if I've seen a tornado.  [I also love images that draw attention to the setting where Plains tornadoes happen - chasing has given me a love affair with the plains and its people, even when there are no storms happening.]  And I don't experience any particular compulsion to court disaster by being as close to a tornado as possible.  Recognition that I'm in the path is virtually always a signal to me to move!  No tornado is worth my life or the life of someone chasing with me.

These days, in certain situations, the chaser hordes are a major concern.  Many horde participants are tornado-obsessed, so they want to get into the "bear's cage" to the maximum extent.  Therefore, one can reduce the impact of the hordes by staying back a few miles, which I usually try to do.  It's not so crowded and, many times, the structure of the storms is far more interesting (at least to me) than some non-photogenic tornado.  I'm no longer a tornado chaser, but a storm chaser.  I'll welcome any tornado opportunities, of course, but that's not my only reason to be out there chasing.  I've never felt the need to be the world's best tornado chaser, nor do I see it as necessary to chase every possible chase day in and near Oklahoma.  I suppose this is the result of 45 years of chasing.  My original goals as a chaser have all been fulfilled, and adding more layers of frosting to the cake doesn't necessarily make it better.