The Climates They Are a-Changing (Updated) 1

Late last night, my brother sent me a link to a picture of the town of Cape Charles, Va., under water because of, not a hurricane, but a steady rain. (See more pictures of yesterday’s rain.)

You’ve likely never heard of Cape Charles, but I’m quite familiar with it. When I was growing up, one of the highlights of the Christmas season would be a visit to the McCrory’s in Cape Charles to see the model train layout on the second floor. Also, when I was a kid, Cape Charles did not flood. It might take on some water during a hurricane, but it did not drown in a summer rain.

Anyone who does not understand that the climates they are a-changing is either willfully ignorant or just too stupid for words.

Then, again, as Der Spiegel points out, there are those persons who are both:

Still, it is likely that none of the G-7 heads of state and government expected the primitive brutality Trump would stoop to when announcing his withdrawal from the international community. Surrounded by sycophants in the Rose Garden at the White House, he didn’t just proclaim his withdrawal from the climate agreement, he sowed the seeds of international conflict. His speech was a break from centuries of Enlightenment and rationality. The president presented his political statement as a nationalist manifesto of the most imbecilic variety. It couldn’t have been any worse.

Follow the link the complete Der Spiegel story.

Addendum, Two Days On:

My brother, who spent more time in Cape Charles than I did–I think a young lady might have been involved–informs me that flooding in Cape Charles was not so rare as I thought, though he does not recall flooding of such severity in a routine summer rain.

I don’t know how much rain Cape Charles got, but here in Virginia Beach we got only an inch and a half–heavy, but hardly something Noah would have noticed.

Here’s a bit of what he told me:

The problem with Cape Charles is that it’s too flat, too low, suffers from poor planning (too much concrete and asphalt), and they use the streets as their storm drains. If you have a storm drain system and try to route too much runoff through the drains, they back up. The same thing happens when you use streets as storm drains–route too much runoff through the street system and the streets flood.