Is Increased Flooding in Houston an Effect of Climate Change?

all bad things (even the weather) are a product of human activity, and the only solution is forcible restriction of that activity

 

Absolutely, everything is evidence of anthropogenic climate change. If it rains more, less, or exactly the same, it's climate change. If it gets hotter, colder, or stays the same, it's climate change. If there are more intense hurricanes or less intense hurricanes or if it's the same strength hurricanes, it's climate change.

 

detain all of the polluters.

rack them up in FeMa concentration camps

 

It's scientifically proven that El Niño & La Niña, specifically El Niño-Southern Oscillation, is the cause of this flooding.

Now you could argue, are the El Niño & La Niña cycles getting respectively stronger due to climate change? If yes, taking it further, is this climate change man made? Can't be proven at this point and maybe never.

All that said, Houston's concrete/strip mall paradise and lack of flood control public park projects exasperates the issues. I know that Mayor Parker, Greater Houston Partnership, Buffalo Bayou Partnership, and others have made some hay in this regard but it's about 50 years too late and even now still too slow.

 

Destroy everything emitting Carbon Dioxide and we'd never have to worry about storms ever again.

 

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that's the plan

http://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/papers/sciam.inherit.html

 

Water is our most precious resource - we should be thankful, as our cup overfloweth.

 

so grateful.

Spoiler

 

All the factors posted by the OP are true.

The city and county are doing a lot of flood control development, but nothing is designed to contain 12" of rain in 4 hours. Also, roadways are designed to be secondary rainwater confluences, the streets are usually graded lower than the houses and businesses.

It seems counter intuitive but we chose to live in a house fairly close to Buffalo Bayou.
Immediately upstream we are protectected by 10,000 acres of flood control and our streets clear very quickly to the bayou drainage. We don't pay for flood insurance.

 

I read that scientists pinned the yearslong California drought on La Nina.

Time to evacuate to Katy.

 

Houston has always flooded, Judo. If it has gotten worse, it is likely due to all the oil and water/drinking water pumped out of the ground, lowering how high parts of the city are above sea level. Don't misunderstand me. I completely agree with the upcoming dire effects of climate change and fear for the future of my kids and any possible grandchildren I might have (if one of them ever gets around to it!). I just don't think it has had an appreciable impact on the Houston area. Not yet, anyway. It will.

 

Houston has been sinking for years... (Article from 1982)

 

Heck, you could have saved me a post had you been a few of minutes faster. ;-)-

I moved from Houston to Austin in 1980 and this was a story long before I left. There were neighborhoods that had terrible foundation problems linked to energy companies sucking the oil and water out of the ground (as God intended!), causing subsidence, "subsidence" becoming a buzzword for companies repairing homes with cracking sheetrock and worse, of course (read a hell of a lot more expensive), those cracking foundations. That started at least back in the 1970's before I left, and probably first became a local news story in the 1960's, if not before.

 

Do you believe there is a lot of oil drilling in Houston?

Just LOL. Ignorance

 

What evidence would disprove climate change theory?

 

It seems like our roads and drainage just suck and are getting worse with more people moving in

 

There was at one point. I remember the active pump jacks along Westheimer/Dairy Ashford/Highway 6 back in the late 70's/80's. It was apparently much more extensive on the east side.

The issue of subsidence has been studied extensively. It's mostly been caused by groundwater extraction, but oil and gas has had a non-negligible effect.