Killer Tornadoes Rip through American Bible Belt

welsh

welsh

Junkmaster
Some of the videos are pretty awesome.

PBS Newshour- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UUHJk05hMg&feature=player_embedded#at=24


http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelo...elookout/watch-tuscaloosas-terrifying-tornado

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelo...elookout/watch-tuscaloosas-terrifying-tornado

As tragic as the loss of life is, there is an irony here.

This pretty wild weather, rather unusual in its intensity, may be due to climatic forces unleashed by global warming, a phenomena that many of these people don't believe in.

Alternatively, if these weather conditions are caused by the hand of God, some of these folks must really have pissed off the old guy.


One might also consider what kinds of tornadoes would be unleashed in the case of a post-apocalyptic warming of the globe. Imagine it, a tornado a mile wide.
 
It's not Global Warming, we get this kind of stuff all the time in the south. There's at least one big storm a year. It's just part of living near the Gulf.

Edit: The damage done by this has been more than usual though. Go figure. :?

Edit: I'm incredibly glad I didn't get caught in this flying today though. The storm hit about an hour after I landed. :|
 
Oh it was indeed fun since one of those tornadoes went off 3 miles away from the place I was at. Fun stuff when people are all around you freaking out and sirens are in the background.

It was almost apocalyptic.
 
Yeah right.

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Some pretty cool shots though. Must be mad to witness a tornado!
 
SkuLL said:
Yeah right.

images


Some pretty cool shots though. Must be mad to witness a tornado!
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Seriously man. Waco, Texas. It touched down on a school campus but pulled itself right up. No one was killed, no serious damage.

I do feel for the others though. Tornadoes are some serious shit not to mess with. I never saw the appeal of those who actually try to chase them down. Sure its exciting, but what if you make the mistake of getting too close?
 
Honestly, we had a tornado touch down close to wehre I live in Virginia and it tore up a local community. So, yeah, its a tragic loss of life.

But then, they are also saying these are the worst tornados in 40 years.

Given other strange weather, you've got only three theories.

(1) More intense and fierce weather is the result of climate change, largely the result of human impacts on the environment.

(2) More intense and fierce weather is the result of climate change, but these are natural occuring phenomena, with little influence from human behavior.

(3) Abherent weather is just a matter of perspective. In the long history of climate and earth history, this bad weather period is a blink in history.

(4) Science is for the secularists. God's hand is in all of this.

Frankly, I think 3 drops out. Yes, even a hundred years of history may only be a blink but there have been other periods of more intense weather that might have more immediate causes.

We are left with theories (1) (2) and (4).

(2) Drops out given all the evidence that shows warming trends relate to carbon emissions.

Frankly, I think its a combo of (1) and (4). Man's behavior is causing intense weather, and God is pissed off about it. Of course, that's also me being both a academic and a Catholic, and while I sympathize for those who lost their lives I do kind of enjoy this "Wrath of God" stuff.
 
It's more likely to be theory 2. Humans are a bit egocentric and we like to think we have more of an impact on Mother Nature than we do. Before we thought that humans were causing disasters with global warming, we thought that we were causing them by pissing off gods.
 
welsh said:
(1) More intense and fierce weather is the result of climate change, largely the result of human impacts on the environment.
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Fierce weather has happened pre-civilization also. Actually much more fierce than anything in civilized times. Imagine the majority of the earth frozen.

welsh said:
(2) More intense and fierce weather is the result of climate change, but these are natural occuring phenomena, with little influence from human behavior.
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Accurate, this has been proven. Before man had any impact on planet earth what-so-ever there was fierce weather. About a billion times worse than anything seen during man-kinds reign so far in fact.

welsh said:
(3) Abherent weather is just a matter of perspective. In the long history of climate and earth history, this bad weather period is a blink in history.
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Also accurate, and will continue to do so long after man ceases to exist.

welsh said:
(4) Science is for the secularists. God's hand is in all of this.
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Couldn't even speculate.

welsh said:
Frankly, I think 3 drops out.
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I don't think it does, the earth has proven cycles, lasting many times the lifetime of man or civilization. Some are hot, some are extremely hot, some are cooler, some are very cold, frozen even. Most of the large changes were before man was even in the scope of things. To think these small changes are happening ONLY due to man is a tad egocentric. Maybe some small part, sure, why not. But only due to man, not a chance.

welsh said:
(2) Drops out given all the evidence that shows warming trends relate to carbon emissions.
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Not all, the earth has plenty of evidence that it has been VERY hot in the past, as well as absolutely fridged. Saying that all the evidence is due to carbon emissions is basically a lie, when geology proves that vast parts of the planet have been frozen/scorched for thousands of years at a time. Some small part maybe due to emissions, but all? Come on.

welsh said:
Of course, that's also me being both a academic and a Catholic
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Same here. But I can't ignore the science either, I appreciate the modern science that says emissions are having an effect, I believe they are, but to say emissions are to blame for all of this is to ignore all history (not of man, of planet earth), and that I can not do.
 
It's not black and white, either climate change or random chance, could be a bit of both.
The only way to tell if climate change is involved is with several years of graphs and measurements to see if this sort of thing is the start of a far more chaotic weather pattern (which has been predicted but is a bit tricky to determine when it'll start proper) or merely chance (considering this year has been really bad all round so far even in non climate related problems).
 
Not unusual. The tri-state tornado in the 20's killed about 700 people. There have been other massive tornadoes before and since, that killed hundreds.

There have been bigger tsunamis and earthquakes than the one in japan. It's all natural occurrences. Now, I'm not saying that men didn't cause any of it but most of it would probably happen regardless.
 
Yeah, plenty of people dead in and around where I live, (Northwestern Alabama) in all this, I think it's kind of funny the first thing people jump to is religion jokes. I'm pretty sure Ah-Teen hates the south.
 
darby70 said:
Yeah, plenty of people dead in and around where I live, (Northwestern Alabama) in all this, I think it's kind of funny the first thing people jump to is religion jokes. I'm pretty sure Ah-Teen hates the south.
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Nah, don't hate. Just like to make fun of constantly. The only thing I ever really saw of the south was sand hill on Fort Benning.

But when it comes to natural phenomenon raping the bible belt, I have little pitty.

Maybe if yall would build buildings in response to natural happenings rather than cultural norms fewer people would die.
 
Should we start building our houses underground? It's not as if 1-mile-wide tornadoes are a constant threat to our safety. Also we don't build according to 'cultural norms' we build houses. Just houses.
 
Yes, we very much build to cultural norms. Try building a giant vagina-shaped building as your home. See the backlash.

Anywhoo, nobody's denying that fierce weather is natural phenomena and heaping blame upon humanity. The problem here is that humanity does everything in its power to exacerbate the symptoms, by cutting down forests, pumping the atmosphere full of emissions etc.

Everyone claiming that it'd happen anyways is right. But they are wrong when they claim that the human impact is non-existant.
 
darby70 said:
Should we start building our houses underground? It's not as if 1-mile-wide tornadoes are a constant threat to our safety. Also we don't build according to 'cultural norms' we build houses. Just houses.
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Well, yes actually.

Every year they have a tornado season in the area. Even at that a buried or semi buried structure has so many environmental and economic advantages beyond weather it's not even funny.

Yet we still build a house shaped somewhat like a building built in 1600 when we first arrived on the continent. And if that's not bad enough we've been using the same basic construction for a home since at least the 40s dispute major advances in materials and techniques.
 
Imagine a post apocalyptic game where the apoclaypsis was not caused by nuclear bombs or alien invasions, but by out of control weather, and it would be called TWISTOUT!
 
Ah-Teen said:
Yet we still build a house shaped somewhat like a building built in 1600 when we first arrived on the continent. And if that's not bad enough we've been using the same basic construction for a home since at least the 40s dispute major advances in materials and techniques.
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As a person who has built buildings (both residential and commercial) to code for over 20 years, I can safely say you are full of shit.
 
Walpknut said:
Imagine a post apocalyptic game where the apoclaypsis was not caused by nuclear bombs or alien invasions, but by out of control weather, and it would be called TWISTOUT!
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I would buy that.
 
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