Tag Archives: Hurricanes

Shellenberger: Media Is Lying About Climate & Hurricanes

The never ending propaganda masquerading as science in the name of climate change. From Michael Shellenberger at zerohedge.com:

Over the last several weeks, many mainstream news media outlets have claimed that hurricanes are becoming more expensive, more frequent, and more intense because of climate change.

All of those claims are false.

The increasing cost of hurricane damage can be explained entirely by more people and more property in harm’s way. Consider how much more developed Miami Beach is today compared to a century ago. Once you adjust for rising wealth, there is no trend of increasing damage.

Claims that hurricanes are becoming more frequent are similarly wrong. “After adjusting for a likely under-count of hurricanes in the pre-satellite era,” writes NOAA, “there is essentially no long-term trend in hurricane counts. The evidence for an upward trend is even weaker if we look at U.S. landfalling hurricanes, which even show a slight negative trend beginning from 1900 or from the late 1800s.” What’s more, NOAA expects a 25% decline in hurricane frequency in the future.

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Do Global Warming Alarmists Realize The US Won The Revolutionary War In Part Due To A “Category 6” Hurricane? by Duane Norman

Here is an important story about the Revolutionary War you probably didn’t know. From Duane Norman at fmshooter.com:

Hurricane Katrina, viewed from outer space

“Climate change” proponents love to blame any extreme weather event on human activities, specifically CO2 emissions.  The National Climate Assessment states that “stronger evidence confirms that some of these increases are related to human activities” in regard to the weather events listed below:

  • Heat Waves
  • Drought
  • Heavy Downpours
  • Floods
  • Hurricanes
  • Winter storms

The irony of their position is laughable – not only does the climate change crowd show almost no regard towards meaningfully decreasing CO2 emissions, there exists scant evidence (at absolute best) that CO2 emissions have a meaningful impact on the planet’s climate.  All of the above “extreme weather” events have occurred since long before the industrial revolution, with many (notably the dust bowl in the 1930s) occurring well before human beings began emitting substantial amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.

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The Case For Wiping Out Puerto Rico’s Debt, by Tom Sanzillo

Except for the those Puerto Rican creditors who had insurance on their loans, at most creditors will receive is 10 to 20 cents on the dollar. Tom Sanzillo argues that for Puerto Rico to recover and rebuild from recent hurricanes, its debt must be wiped out. From Sanzillo at valuewalk.com:

President Trump, who knows a thing or two about bankruptcy, says Puerto Rico’s public debt should be wiped out. We agree.

The commonwealth owes bondholders somewhere on the order of $70 billion, with most of that debt tied to general-obligation bonds, revenue bonds and bonds issued by the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA).

Ahead of the wide devastation wrought by Hurricanes Irma and Maria, we were of the view that the commonwealth could manage perhaps 20 to 30 percent of its general-obligation and revenue-bond debt and that PREPA could pay off perhaps 30 percent of its debt.

Now, as the island and its economy reel from the carnage of the hurricanes, we see the only viable way forward as a zeroing-out of the bonds in question and an immediate cessation of interest payments. Puerto Rico’s badly-crippled economy must rebuild, and the only way for that to happen is for legacy governmental debt to be handled in a way that won’t impair the restoration of markets and physical development.

This is a necessary remedy that will affect three sets of bondholders.

First, the large investment houses like Franklin Templeton, Oppenheimer, Citi and JP Morgan, which own large chunks of bonds. These investment houses, however, have vast and diverse holdings in the trillions of dollars that are hedged against just about every eventuality.

Second, a host of hedge funds that bought into the Puerto Rico bond market at a discount. These hedge funds have made extraordinary gains on this debt by way of interest-rate payments on the face value of the discounted bonds.

Third, small investors who live in Puerto Rico and elsewhere who stand to suffer the most. These investors have no hedges against these losses, and (unlike hedge funds) have not reaped extraordinary gains on Puerto Rican debt.

The way out of this is not pretty but there is ample precedent.

To continue reading: The Case For Wiping Out Puerto Rico’s Debt