What a complete farking over-reaction to a catagory 2-3 storm. All hail the AGW hysteria. Get back to work.

Joseph,

who said anything about it being AGW hysteria? Oh ya, you. Show me actual newsreports, anything that linked Gustav to AGW.

Geez, so you don't believe in AGW. Was AGW even mentioned in the post? AGW had nothing to do with the response to the hurricane. Period. Your dislike notwithstanding.

Joseph - "What a complete farking over-reaction to a catagory 2-3 storm. All hail the AGW hysteria. Get back to work."

Gee the authorities can't win can they? After being lambasted by all and sundry about their pathetic response to Hurricane Katrina they then correctly respond to an assessment of the risk of damage and STILL get this sort of response. No pleasing some people.

BTW this is also very typical of AGW deniers. They cannot view climate change as a risk that has to be responded to appropriately. The demand that scientists have a crystal ball and tell them exactly what will happen in 20 years or else nothing should be done that could hurt the untouchable lifestyle we have.

Perhaps the hurricane warning center should invest in clairvoyants so that we could have seen that Gustav would have weakened in 5 days time. This should keep people like Joseph happy.

Is this an overreaction? Yes. But better an overreaction than an underreaction.

One thing, shows up as important politically ...
The GOP convention shut down.

Clearly President Bush, and presidential nominee John McCain cannot handle both the convention and also deal with a problem at the same time. For the rest of us, it's called "multitasking" ...
Shades of not being able to walk and chew gum at the same time.

We miss the political point -- if a hurricane shuts down oil operations in the Gulf every couple of years, and maybe damages infrastructure for a year at a time, then the "drill, drill, drill" party may need to broaden their thinking.

I am not opposed to Gulf drilling, although I don't think deep water drilling will ever be economically viable, but I am opposed to viewing it as the silver bullet train to energy independence.

It is good they are merely shut-in, not shut-out, nor destroyed. Too bad the hurricane won't increase our 3% world wide oil reserve, so drilling still won't reduce gas price.

And yet, today, the price of oil FELL to below $110 per.

Utter over-the-top scare mongering. This is the kind of lame story that put AGW in the toilet.

Utter nonsense dreamed up by lame sensationalist media. A non-story typical of scare-mongering that put AGW in toilet.

Utter nonsense dreamed up by lame sensationalist media. A non-story typical of scare-mongering that put AGW in toilet.

More scare-mongering from those afraid of the TRUTH!

The Gustav photos were fake.
And these posts are unreal.

Although no one (well almost no one) is so crass as to have suggested that AGW is to blame for H Gustav.
In fact more frequent severe storms are one likely scenario predicted by computer modeling.
Along with many other undesirable outcomes.
There were reports however of 200 kph winds and it was cat5.
So, If it had done its worst, - lets hope the next 3 starting with Hanna are equally generous.

Correction. 240kph and "strong category 4"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Gustav

A more productive report would have said something like Gulf oil rigs to be back in full operation in a matter of days. Reporting an outage is the same type of crap that has helped to drive up the cost and beat the hell out of our pockets.

Paul is absolutely correct. Oil prices continue to fall, because oil production will be restored in a matter of days. The only reason for reporting such a story is to try to instigate fear.

Green Car Congress is better than this, gentlemen. Much better.

The matter of fact is that oil rigs are in the Gulf. Hurricanes occasionally go through the gulf. They will effect oil production. Anticipation will cause speculation. It doesn't matter if it was a hurricane or something smaller. In areas of disaster, what happens? Runs on essentials. What makes people think that it won't happen when anticipating a hurricane? If the reaction was to a hurricane that headed towards Mexico but still affected the rigs, would people and the markets react the same? Of course they would. You wouldn't hear about the civilian costs as badly because it would be in another country but there would still be an effect on oil and gas prices.

What would be interesting to find out would be who ordered the shut down of the rigs and the criteria? Civilian or corporate? That would give an idea of the range of anticipation of what Gustav was thought to be.

Oil prices fell as well because the summer driving season is over. Not just the hurricane. So we have a cyclic downtrend and relief in the markets. Counting on supplies, it may even bounce back up as relief of this hurricane's minimal damage calms down and other fundamental signals are used to guess the market conditions. That and its other hurricanes may form and strike.

@anonmous poster, who posted 2-3 posts together denigrating AGW. At least try to post at different times to make it look like different people. Sequentially posting and using similar syntax. Very obvious. Very lame.

And yet, today, the price of oil FELL to below $110 per.

Roughly 30% of gulf oil production will remain off-line for 30 days. Some production, from fields which are declining, will not repay the investment for repair and will never return.

If you saw the maps of oil rigs in the Gulf, you can see the situation. The Gulf gets hurricanes and that is where they get a lot of oil.

Oil prices are moderating because a general slow down around the world. Europe and other regions are slowing down just like the U.S. has.

T. Boone Pickens has said in interviews that if the price of oil drops, OPEC will just reduce production to keep prices up. This is what we face from here on out.

Clearly there is some doubt as to the need for ahem, overblown hurricaning hysteria. It does have a familiar ring.

There were more than 1800 human lives lost in Katrina 3 years ago. I would say that this calls for more than a few precautionary measures.