Here's another external cost of our energy use NOT being paid for at the time we use the energy. The cost of some of these storms is in the billions. Almost 2 million people were evacuated from the coast from Gustav a week ago - what was the economic cost of that?
From LiveScience.com - Strongest Hurricanes Getting Stronger. This article is based on a report in the September 4 issue of the journal Nature. Excerpts:
"Strong hurricanes are getting stronger, likely thanks to global warming, a new study finds. Scientists have previously predicted that as global warming further heats up the ocean, hurricanes could become more frequent, more intense or both. The new work is in line with some of those previous studies but projects that it is the strongest of these storms — the Katrinas and Andrews — that will suck up this extra heat energy and become even stronger."
The data? "....wind-speed data from a 25-year satellite record of storms across the globe."
What is it going to take for us to make meaningful policy changes now?
P.S. - (also from the article): a typhoon is the same thing as a hurricane, just in a different part of the world.
