Yet Another Record-Breaking and Devastating Hurricane Season

As I opened my Architecture Week newsletter this morning, I spotted this opening paragraph in an article by Jennifer LeClaire

"As yet another record-breaking and devastating hurricane season draws toward its close, we are still far from a final assessment of damage from Katrina, the most costly natural disaster in U.S. history, or from Rita, the subsequent multibillion-dollar storm."

It has been widely suggested that this year's hurricane season is clearly the result of global warming and indicates a steady pattern of increasing weather related chaos. Anyone who reads my blog knows I am highly skeptikal of such claims. Ms. LeClaire's article focusses primarily on the rebuilding efforts and the AIA's involvement which is fantastic. But that opening paragraph is what stuck in my mind and sent me into research mode. The suggestion that we are here at the end of YET ANOTHER record breaking hurricane season reveals the power the yellow media has over our perceptions. It is likely not Ms. LeClaire's intent to deceive us, but she has become part of an echo chamber that reinforces misleading ideas by repeating them so often they start to seem true.

2005 was a record breaker. It broke the record held by 1933 for most named storms. Their were 21 in that year. Industrialism began in the 1850s. Detailed weather data began being recorded in the 1850s. When the weather service says this year was a record breaker... they mean that it broke a 72 year old record which had stood for about 80 years. This is not "YET ANOTHER" record breaking season... just a regular record breaker. The Seattle Times (surprisingly) had a very factual piece on this year's hurricane season and the history of record breaking hurricane seasons: The Seattle Times: Nation & World: Latest storm is a record-breaker