Are Midwest Floods Caused by Global Warming or Radical Environmentalists?

Many Global Warming Alarmists are pointing to the floods in the Midwest as the latest proof of global warming. But a powerful piece at AmericanThinker.com provides an alternative suggestion as to the real cause of the flooding: the perhaps unintended consequences of radical environmentalist policies regarding the system of dams on the Missouri River.

Al Gore gave a speech in New York last week in which he linked the flooding in the Midwest and the fires in Arizona to global warming: “Today, the biggest fire in the history of the state of Arizona is spreading to New Mexico. Today, the biggest flood in the history of the Mississippi River Valley is under way right now,” Gore said. “At what point is there a moment where we say, ‘Oh, we ought to do something about this?’”

One of Gore’s dimmer acolytes, Bill Maher, took up the issue on his show on HBO, “Real Time with Bill Maher.” Maher seemed to be hooked up to a machine that gave him a shock every time he uttered the words “global warming,” which he repeatedly did, before, in each case, correcting himself to say “climate change.” He said, "I don't call it global warming anymore because that is bad. It is climate change." Maher finally got it out, sort of, and asked, “Why doesn't he [Obama] point to this and say this is all because of climate change. He doesn't seem to use what he has to make a case.”

But in the article, “The Purposeful Flooding of America's Heartland,” in American Thinker, Joe Herring makes a very strong, well documented case, that the system of dams built in the area to tame the Missouri River and prevent this sort of thing from happening was well conceived and executed: “Some sixty years ago, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) began the process of taming the Missouri by constructing a series of six dams. The idea was simple: massive dams at the top moderating flow to the smaller dams below, generating electricity while providing desperately needed control of the river’s devastating floods.”

But in the 1990s the plan was hijacked by radical environmentalists with a different agenda: “The Clinton administration threw its support behind the change, officially shifting the priorities of the Missouri River dam system from flood control, facilitation of commercial traffic, and recreation to habitat restoration, wetlands preservation, and culturally sensitive and sustainable biodiversity.”

Herring cites Greg Pavelka, a wildlife biologist with the Corps of Engineers in Yankton, SD, who told the Seattle Times that “this event will leave the river in a ‘much more natural state than it has seen in decades,’ describing the epic flooding as a ‘prolonged headache for small towns and farmers along its path, but a boon for endangered species.’”

Herring also documents that, through a series of emails last February, “Ft. Pierre SD Director of Public Works Brad Lawrence sounded the alarm loud and clear,” but the alarm of this “flood of biblical proportions” was not heeded. Why don’t the mainstream media follow up on Mr. Herring’s findings?

For people looking for some straight talk about global warming from some actual scientists who aren’t part of that consensus we’re always hearing about, I recommend The Heartland Institute’s conference this Thursday and Friday, which will be webcast here. This will demonstrate why Maher, and Gore and the other alarmists prefer to call it “climate change,” and not “global warming.” The evidence doesn’t support the warming theory. One of the participants will be Australian scientist Bob Carter, who recently pointed out that “Between 2001 and 2010 global average temperature decreased by 0.05 degrees, over the same time that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels increased by 5 per cent. Ergo, carbon dioxide emissions are not driving dangerous warming.”

Caused by the Sunspot Cycle....

It has been known for over 100 years that weather is more variable during sunspot minimums and maximums. Not warmer, not cooler, but more variable.

That is what we are seeing. Weather variability and it has nothing to do with man.

We are coming out of the longest and quietest sunspot minimum in my lifetime. Some say that this is the longest and quietest sunspot minimum in 200 years.

My father is 85 and has farmed all his life. He can not recall a year like last year, wettest and coolest on record for Haskell County, TX. Nor can he recall a year like this year, hottest and dryest on record (possibly back to 1895).

All Gore and the Greenies are a bunch of boobs and idiots. It has nothing to do with human activity and everything to do with what happens on the Sun.

You and Koran-burning buzzsaw, Anne Barnhardt (http://barnhardt.biz)who recently posted the following, appear to be on the same page:

"There are folks who are confused as to how the situation with regards to the Missouri River dams could be the fault of the Army Corps of Engineers. After all, isn't the amount of rainfall an Act of God? This is not a FLASH flooding dynamic. This isn't happening because it rained three feet in 24 hours. The largest factor in this flooding is the runoff coming from the melting of the snowpack in the Rocky Mountains. The snowpack is precisely measured and the number of acre-feet of water that will be drained into the Missouri River basin each spring is a precisely known value. If you don't believe me, pull up the website for ANY ski resort. They will have DETAILED snowpack depth data updated on a near-daily basis. One could work up usable data based just off of the ski resorts - but we also have frequent and detailed snowpack measurements coming from the National Forests and National Parks. I am hard-pressed to think of a meteorological dataset that has the precision, reliability and lead time that the runoff from the snowpack has. The Army Corps of Engineers knew to the acre-foot how much water was coming, and when it would arrive (summer tends to happen at roughly the same time each year). Knowing that we had a RECORD snowpack this year, the ACoE should have opened the Missouri dam system up starting early in the spring so as to gently and gradually draw-down the reservoirs and give each dam system enough slack to absorb the snowpack runoff. They intentionally did not do this, and citing "wildlife habitat" concerns in collusion with the Marxist-Environmentalists, they kept the reservoirs full, thus ensuring that when the snowpack runoff arrived, it would have nowhere to go. Again, this was all 100% unnecessary and 100% intentional. I don't care how many C- affirmative action hires they have, there is absolutely no way that this was a function of being "surprised" by water that has been measured and sitting in the Rocky Mountains for MONTHS. Snowpack of Quantity X inches yields runoff of Quantity Y acre-feet. It is a liner function that any Beavis or Butthead could have looked up on a table. I find myself worried not just about farmground, but about low-lying residential areas in both Omaha and Kansas City. ---------------------------------------------- Here is a citation regarding the ACoE buyout bids on flooded farmground. KC Star Citation Here

She posted additional related information tying Soros to this further down the page under the title "Double Red Alert " June 24, AD 2011 9:01 AM MST

"1. File this one under "Now It All Makes Sense". A Missouri farming and ranching contact just got off a conference call wherein he was informed that the federal government is sending out letters to all of the flooded out farmers in the Missouri River flood plain and bottoms notifying them that the Army Corps of Engineers will offer to BUY THEIR LAND. Intentionally flood massive acreage of highly productive farmground. Destroy people's communities and homes. Catch them while they are desperate and afraid and then swoop in and buy the ground cheap. Those evil sons of bitches. 2. Speaking of evil sons of bitches, George Soros appears to be "investing" in farmground through the same puppet company that he used to get into the grain elevator and fertilizer business. The company is called Ospraie Capital Management and is buying up farmground in a joint venture with Teays River Investments as a partner. Here is that announcement: Click Here Okay. Here's the connection. This Ospraie outfit was a hedge fund specializing in commodities. . .

Read the rest at her link

The simple fact is, the flooding would begin to cease if they would close the gates on the dams in South Dakota.

Maybe down stream, but not for long. Lake Oahe is up to the top of the dam, and the spring snow melt has not yet taken place. When that water arrives there will be no room behind the dam and everything upstream and down will be flooded, in theory.

Gavins point same story.

The entire issue has been the extreme spring rains in the North West. Record spring rains of historic proportions, and the corps of engineers not having previously reacted to the record snowfall in the Rockies by releasing water from the lakes before the spring rains arrived and before the snow melt.

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