How can you be ready for a flood?

Vincent J. Curtis

18 July 24

RE: Is Toronto prepared for the next flood? CP story. The Hamilton Spectator 18 July 24.

Nonsense abounds in this CP story which follows up on the historic flooding that occurred in Toronto on Tuesday, July 16^th.  The first bit of nonsense is in ‘being prepared for a flood.’  One can be prepared for the next torrential downpour of the magnitude of Tuesday, but flooding means, quite plainly, that one was not prepared, for preparation would have prevented flooding.

The more subtle and commonplace nonsense was uttered by Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow, who said that more extreme weather events will occur due to climate change.  Climate does not cause weather, for if it did then climate would be as changeable as the weather.  But we maintain that climate is something stable, and that if it changes, it does so over a protracted period of time.  We say of a place that it has a certain climate on account of the characteristic weather of the place.  But even deserts experience torrential rainstorms from time to time, which is why they have washes and wadis.

The last storms of this magnitude that occurred in Toronto were Hurricane Hazel of 1954, and other storms in 2005 and 2013.  Freak storms do not foretell a new climate, which is what climate change produces: a new climate.  To conclude that Toronto’s has a new climate, it would require over a decade of experience.

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