The 2019 Hurricane Season, which ends on November 30, has become the third successive tropical season to turn destructive and deadly in the tropics. This year, September has especially been active, destructive and deadly which could be due to the weakening El Nino in the Pacific. Our fourth storm, Dorian, will be another tropical entity that will go down in history and the name retired. Dorian was catastrophic and its devastation complete on the northern Bahamas as it approached from the east as a category 4 and ramped up to category 5 quickly and, unfortunately, stalled for 36 hours over these islands.
Dorian peaked at 155 mph sustained winds with gusts over 220 mph! Dorian leveled the island of Grand Bahama and Great Abaco and it is estimated that over 2500 people have perished. These islands were leveled. Dorian also continued towards the U.S. southeast coast but, fortunately, sparing Florida. The outer banks of North Carolina and some coastal areas of South Carolina were also impacted. Dorian continued its punishing journey by slamming into Halifax and Nova Scotia as a category 2 storm which was very unusual.
Of course, as usual, when weather-related disasters such as Dorian happen people cry "global warming" or "climate change". My take on it is that climate change is real BUT it has always been happening even before humans inhabited our earth. Our planet is a living and breathing entity and global cooling and warming is our planet's way of cooling and heating and balancing. The real problem with climate change is not climate change itself but how climate change will impact humans because of humans. Do humans contribute to the levels of CO2, yes we do. But climatology and statistics show that CO2 levels and Oxygen levels have been much higher in our planet's early history. Once humans were created by evolution and inhabited the earth, climate change has become a major issue because it's more then how climate change effects nature but even more so, humans.
Dorian and other retired historic storms, tropical or non-tropical, are constant reminders that human beings, by nature, our human condition, are ego maniacs by nature. We are untouchable and indestructible. It won't happen here. It won't happen to me. Once again, we hear of the ignorance, politics and "life is cheap" mentalities. Here's my idealistic idea: let's get the United Nations to pass a global law to make it illegal for any human to live and occupy a zone within 100 miles of coastal areas located in major hurricane zones. This would also include islands. A case in point would be the Carribbean islands, Florida, the Gulf Coast and the entire East Coast of the US. Too late isn't it. But imagine creating a buffer zone of 100 miles along the entire Gulf and East coasts of the US. Sure, damage would still be catastrophic to the natural land areas, which is bad enough, but, at least, cities, towns and people would be better protected. Think about how this would save human lives, avoid rebuilding towns and cities, bring down insurance rates, etc.
The northern Bahamas should NOT be rebuilt. Keep them natural preserves. It would be easy to do so now that Dorian has pretty much leveled those areas. Look at what just occurred, again, after Harvey in 2017, with tropical storm Imelda. Southeast Texas, Houston, southwest Louisana once again got devastated with 20 to 40-inch rainfall causing catastrophic flooding. The same setup, the same pattern. If we had that 100 mile coast zone buffer in place, only nature would take the hit and I am not downplaying nature here but our planet earth goes through these cycles as part of its living and breathing entity. We can't stop a category 1, 2 or 3 hurricane from becoming a cat.4 or cat.5 and stall over an area for 36 hours or a tropical storm forming suddenly very close to coastal areas and stalling or creeping while dumping 50-inches of rain but we can remove or relocate "humans - life" and the infrastructures we build in our society to less high-risk zones. Think about it.
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