Here's a headline we're tempted to write - or rather, one that we would be tempted to write if we weren't so nice, or so dedicated to avoiding oversimplification:

"Climate-Change Deniers Struck by Climate Change in Texas Tornado Outbreak."

This week two seemingly unrelated but very connected events took place: In the first, freak tornadoes struck the Dallas area today with unexpected ferocity, causing many experts to revisit the issue of whether tornadoes should be included in the list of extreme weather caused by climate change.

In the second, one of the hard-hit area's Representatives bragged about cutting funds for - predicting storms and reducing their impact.

If you think that's bad - and it is - last year Mitt Romney did the Representative one better: He said it would be "immoral" to spend Federal money to help victims of national disasters like the one that just struck Texas.

Immoral.

A Spell of Bad Weather

Even as presumptive GOP nominee Romney was talking like that last year, fourteen weather disasters caused a billion dollars or more in damage. And yet House Republicans insisted on cutting funds for studying the climate, predicting violent storms, early storm warnings, and assistance in helping communities minimize damage and loss of life. They cut $140 billion from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Commission, the agency which monitors the climate and helps minimize damage and loss of life during storms, after trying to cut much more than that.

Last year's GOP budget also slashed more than $500 million from the budget for weather prediction satellites. And they tried to cut funding for FEMA, the agency that helps people get through disasters like these, by more than half the previous year's amount (which would have left FEMA with less than one-third of its 2010 budget).

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Cell phone footage of tornado damage to Moscow, Ohio, March 2, 2012.

Despite the Republicans' continual insistance that climate change isn't a real phenomenon, the tornado season started a full month earlier than most years in the Midwest. To date, there have been 46 confirmed deaths.

Wide swaths of the Midwest have been destroyed, leaving American people to pick up the battered pieces of their lives and rebuild.

But Governor John Kasich has just made it that much harder for Ohioans to do just that:

Ohio Gov. John Kasich said thanks but no thanks to immediate federal disaster relief Saturday, even as governors in Indiana and Kentucky welcomed the help.

Kasich did not rule out asking for assistance later, but his decision means tornado-ravaged towns in Ohio will not get federal aid now and are not eligible at this time for potentially millions of dollars in payments and loans.

The governor said Ohio can respond to the crisis without federal help and he would not ask federal authorities to declare the region a disaster area.

“I believe that we can handle this,” Kasich said while visiting a shelter for storm victims at New Richmond High School. “We’ll have down here all the assets of the state.”

Clermont County Commissioner Bob Proud said he is confident the state can handle cleanup in hard-hit areas, such as Moscow. But he said federal help might be needed in the near future, especially with temporary housing for residents.

Just more proof for all those Ohio Republicans now looking at utter destruction of their homes and their property that elections do have consequences. Hope they remember that in November.

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Those floods along the Mississippi River that have already displaced thousands of people are predicted to get even worse in the coming weeks:

The swollen Mississippi River carried its dangers of flooding and damage into the Delta on Wednesday morning as residents in three states including Louisiana prepared for weeks of battling the river’s growing energy.

The river crested just inches below its record stage of 48.7 feet in Memphis, Tenn., on Tuesday. But, by Wednesday morning, the river had passed its record in Natchez, Miss., reaching 58 feet and growing, according to the National Weather Service. Forecasters predict the river will crest in Natchez on May 21 at about 64 feet.

At Vicksburg, Miss., the river is expected to crest at 57.5 feet on May 19, about 1.5 feet above the record crest of 1927, according to the Army Corps of Engineers. In Helena, Ark., the river on Wednesday was at more than 56 feet, about 12 feet above flood stage.

“The flood crest along the Mississippi is forecast to move slowly downstream towards New Orleans during the next three weeks,” the weather service said in a posting on its website Wednesday morning.

“The White River, the Arkansas River, Big Black River are just a few major tributaries that may be impacted by the Mississippi main stem flooding. Interstate 40 west of Memphis between Hazen and Brinkley is closed in both directions due to the White River overflowing its banks. At this time there is no anticipated time for reopening the road," the statement said.

The swollen river has forced thousands of people along the watery route to seek higher ground, hundreds going to shelters. Crops have been washed away, hundreds of millions of dollars in damage has already been reported and more is expected. As the floodwater moves south, officials worry about the impact on Mississippi’s casino industry and later on Louisiana’s petroleum facilities.

There's also lots of concern in the Delta, where these waters are headed:

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First we had the the professional corporate climate-change deniers snorting at the idea that global warming might have played a role in this week's devastating tornadoes in the South.

Now we have religious-right climate-change deniers claiming that they know what did cause those tornadoes: in fact, the storms were a product of God's wrath and an expression of his judgment.

This time it's Dr. Calvin Beisner, voicing his views on the radio show of the American Family Association's Bryan Fischer, via RightWingWatch:

BEISNER: What this tells me, Bryan, is that we need to recognize that natural disasters like this are like distant early-warning signals. There is judgment to come. We are all sinners. None of us, none of us is righteous enough to say, 'Oh, I wouldn't deserve it if that happened to me.'

I'm sure folks in Alabama and Georgia will be pleased to hear that God singled them out for judgment -- especially ahead of such godless places as Hollywood -- just to prove that it can happen to good people too.

And why are we getting God's wrath? you ask. Well, Pat Robertson has the answer -- it's because we've become a modern-day "Sodom and Gomorrah":

Robertson: And I believe that the anointing of the Lord has been here to fulfill the desire of those early settlers, to take the gospel from America throughout the world, and that’s what we’ve been here to do. But let me tell you, ladies and gentlemen, it doesn’t take a great scholar to tell you the United States has lost its moorings.

When you think that courts have denied children the right to pray in schools, that there’s a vendetta against religious belief, that now homosexuality has been made a constitutional right, that abortion has been made a constitutional right, the courts and judges have trampled on the early origins of our nation, they have distorted the meaning of the First Amendment. It’s all been done, and we’ve let it happen.

But I was reading today about a place called Sodom and Gomorrah, and a man named Abraham stood before God, and he says, “God, there’re righteous people in that city, would you kill them along with the wicked, must not the judge of all the earth do right?” And God finally promised, “If I can find ten righteous in that city, I will spare it,” just ten. Well the time came he could only find six, so they destroyed Sodom and Gomorra. But there’re many righteous here in America, and we need to band together and pray that God Almighty will spare this great land and reestablish in our hearts the vision of the pioneers.

Well, considering that the storms struck hardest in states represented by some of the most hardcore global-warming denialists, maybe they're onto something with this whole "God's retribution" bit. Though not for the reasons they presume.

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Hey, folks in the South -- you'll be happy to know those unusually nasty tornadoes that just blew through your towns and killed hundreds of your neighbors aren't any kind of serious long-term problem. At least not according to Fox News.

Because to think so would be to perhaps admit that climate scientists might be onto something to suspect that climate change might have had a hand in these extreme storms. Perish the thought!

Filling in for Neil Cavuto yesterday on Fox, Connell McShane invited on Marc Morano of ClimateDepot, fondly remembered by some of us as wingnut Republican Sen. James Inhofe's ex-communications chief. (I'm sure you'll be shocked to learn that his outfit is primarily funded by money from corporate sources like ExxonMobil and Richard Mellon Scaife.)

Morano was appalled that environmentalists might connect this week's devastating tornadoes to scientists' warnings of climate change and global warming:

MORANO: Well, this is following them blaming the tsunami on climate change, the record cold on climate change, the blizzards and record snow on climate change. This is them blaming record ice in Antarctica on climate change. This is them blaming any weather event on climate change. It's the latest incarnation. The problem is, this time it's even more absurd than the previous times.

Actually, Fox News probably isn't the place you want to be making this charge, considering that Fox anchors have a long and colorful history of using extreme winter storms to claim that it's evidence global warming is, in Sean Hannity's words, "the biggest scientific fraud in our lifetimes". Indeed, one of the more notable such cases involved Neil Cavuto.

And of course, Morano also repeats previously debunked falsehoods about the weather. For instance, it is a a lie that Antarctica as a whole is getting record ice: "Antarctica is losing land ice as a whole, and these losses are accelerating quickly."

To claim that the tornadoes had nothing, nussink! to do with climate change, Morano cited previous tornado data and claimed they showed "absolutely no trend" to increasing tornadoes. So don't worry about it, folks! Nothing to see here! And anyone who thinks so is just like those primitive Aztecs who cut out people's hearts to make it rain:

MORANO: So any way you cut it, tornadoes are not a crisis. For them now to use this is yet another example of climate astrology. They're trying to peddle the idea that our SUVs are causing severe tornadoes and our light bulbs and our industry and our way of life.

It's no better than in 1450 when Aztec priests encouraged people to sacrifice to the gods to end a drought. We actually are going back to a primitive culture where we actually think that we can affect the weather to this level, like a tornado is caused by our cars.

Yes, because being encouraged to drive a hybrid car in place of your gas-hogging SUV is just like having your heart cut out and sacrificed to the gods.

Morano then wrapped up by attacking discussions of the tornadoes in the context of climate change as "purely a propaganda tool" without even a hint of irony.

In reality, the trends aren't clear, as Bryan Walsh at Time explains, but there is unquestionably change in the patterns afoot:

And the answer is... Scientists really don't know. It's true that the average number of April tornadoes has steadily increased from 74 a year in the 1950s to 163 a year in the 2000s. But most of that increase, as A.G. Sulzberger reports in the New York Times, comes from the least powerful tornadoes, the ones that touch down briefly without causing much damage. Those are exactly the kind of tornadoes that would have been missed by meteorologists in the days before the Weather Channel and Doppler radar—scientists today would almost never miss an actual tornado touchdown, no matter how brief or weak. That makes it very difficult for researchers to even be sure that the actual number of tornadoes is on the rise, let alone, if they are, what might be causing it. The number of severe tornadoes per year has actually been dropping over time.

It is true, however, that as the climate warms, more moisture will evaporate into the atmosphere. Warmer temperatures and more moisture will give storm systems that much more energy to play with, like adding nitroglycerin to the atmosphere. This month's possibly record-breaking tornadoes are due in part to an unusually warm Gulf of Mexico, where as Freedman reports, water surface temperatures are 1 to 2.5 C above the norm. The Gulf feeds moisture northward to storm systems as they move across the country, and that warm moist air from the south meeting cool, dry air from the Plains often results in some powerful weather. But at the same time, other studies have forecast that warmer temperatures will reduce the wind shear necessary to turn a routine thunderstorm into a powerful system that can give birth to tornadoes. So in a hotter world we could see more frequent destructive thunderstorms, but fewer tornadoes—although some researchers think we could still end up with both.

Moreover, as at ThinkProgress reports, a number of scientists think that climate change is obviously part of the picture here, and ignoring it not only won't make it go away, it's profoundly irresponsible:

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[Unedited YouTube version here.]

As the obviously religious man shooting the video suggests, pray for Alabama:

Tornadoes killed dozens of people in Alabama on Wednesday afternoon and evening, part of a violent storm system that left destruction and death across a large swath of the South.

Two major cities, Tuscaloosa and Birmingham, were hit hard by one huge tornado. President Barack Obama declared an emergency in Alabama, and Gov. Robert Bentley mobilized 1,400 National Guardsmen to help in rescue operations.

The system of heavy winds, rain and tornadoes began late Tuesday and by Wednesday morning had left at least 17 dead in Arkansas, Tennessee, Louisiana and Mississippi.

Then the latest round of storms hit Alabama on Wednesday afternoon and evening, pushing the death toll much higher. The Associated Press said the toll in Alabama was at least 58. A count by msnbc.com that included county-by-county numbers from The Weather Channel and NBC station WAFF of Huntsville showed at least 62 dead.

The storm system was predicted to move on through the Carolinas.

A giant tornado touched down near the Mississippi state line, then spent more than two hours on the ground tracking northeast. Local TV channels showed the black wedge cloud, estimated at a mile wide, moving through Tuscaloosa, then along Interstate 59 through Birmingham's northern suburbs and just missing the airport.

As you can see from the video above, the tornado that tore through Tuscaloosa was monstrous. More from the Tuscaloosa News, which reports that it the twister was "a mile wide".

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[H/t Karoli]

Digby has a great point about tsunami warnings:

I'm sitting here now, six blocks from the beach in California, waiting for the wave to hit the west coast. Luckily it doesn't appear to be dangerous to us at this point.

The good news is that if the Republicans have their way, when one of these things does hit us in this earthquake zone, we won't have warning:

Thursday night's massive earthquake in Japan and the resulting tsunami warnings that have alarmed U.S. coasts, seem likely to ignite a debate over a previously little-discussed subsection of the spending bills currently being debated in Congress.

Tucked into the House Republican continuing resolution are provisions cutting the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, including the National Weather Service, as well as humanitarian and foreign aid.

Presented as part of a larger deficit reduction package, each cut could be pitched as tough-choice, belt-tightening on behalf of the GOP. But advocates for protecting those funds pointed to the crisis in Japan as evidence that without the money, disaster preparedness and relief would suffer.

"These are very closely related," National Weather Service Employees Organization President Dan Sobien told The Huffington Post with respect to the budget cuts and the tsunami. "The National Weather Service has the responsibility of warning about tsunami's also. It is true that there is no plan to not fund the tsunami buoys. Everyone knows you just can't do that. Still if those [House] cuts go through there will be furloughs at both of the tsunami warning centers that protect the whole country and, in fact, the whole world."

The House full-year continuing resolution, which has not passed the Senate, would indeed make steep cuts to several programs and functions that would serve in a response to natural disasters (not just tsunamis) home and abroad. According to Sobien, the bill cuts $126 million from the budget of the NWS. Since, however, the cuts are being enacted over a six-month period (the length of the continuing resolution) as opposed to over the course of a full year, the effect would be roughly double.

Just remember: When it comes to disaster preparedness and relief, Republicans are the folks who brought you the Hurricane Katrina fiasco.

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Good God:

Japan was struck by a magnitude 8.9 earthquake off its northeastern coast Friday, unleashing a 13-foot tsunami that washed away cars and tore away buildings along the coast near the epicenter.

TV footage showed massive damage from the tsunami, with dozens of cars, boats and even buildings being carried along by the water. A large ship swept away by the tsunami rammed directly into a breakwater in Kesennuma city in Miyagi prefecture, according to footage on public broadcaster NHK.

A tsunami warning was also issued for Hawaii and the coasts of Oregon, California, Washington and parts of Alaska.

"A tsunami has been generated that could cause damage along the coastlines of all islands in the state of Hawaii," the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center's bulletin said. "Urgent action should be taken to protect lives and property."

The first tsunami wave was expected to hit Hawaii at 2:59 a.m. local time (7:59 a.m. ET), officials said.

Black smoke was also pouring out of an industrial area in Yokohama's Isogo area. TV footage showed boats, cars and trucks floating in water after a small tsunami hit the town of Kamaichi in northern Japan. An overpass appeared to have collapsed into the water.

The footage coming in of the tsunamis sweeping inland are frightening and disturbing -- though, judging from the lack of human activity, it appears their warning system may have worked well.

Likewise judging (guessing?) from reports from Tokyo, it appears their building safety standards made a big difference in minimizing casualties. We'll see if that remains the case as more details arrive.

More on the warnings for the USA's West Coast and Hawaii:

The warning was issued Thursday at 9:31 local time. Sirens were sounded about 30 minutes later in Honolulu alerting people in coastal areas to evacuate, and the first waves were expected to arrive at 2:55 a.m. local time (7:55 a.m. ET) Friday.

About 70 percent of Hawaii's population resides in Honolulu, and as many as 100,000 tourists are in the city on any given day.

"A tsunami has been generated that could cause damage along the coastlines of all islands in the state of Hawaii," the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center's bulletin said. "Urgent action should be taken to protect lives and property."

Victor Sardina, a geophysisist for the center, told the Honolulu Star-Adviser that 12- to 14-foot waves could hit the town of Hilo on the island of Hawaii and the town of Haleiwa on Oahu.

Residents in Oahu were lining up to get gas, the Star-Adviser reported.

A tsunami watch was issued for California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia and Alaska from the California-Mexico border to Chignik Bay, Alaska.

Just before five o’clock yesterday morning, in Dunedin, I was woken by a very familiar feeling – the bed began to shudder ever so slightly, then shudder harder as the walls and ceiling in the house creaked ominously around me. Having grown up in Southern California, I recognised the signs of a major earthquake; this was not a sharp shake but a rolling series of waves, meaning we weren’t sitting on top of the quake, but strong enough that I knew wherever the epicentre was, it was going to be bad. ‘Earthquake,’ I said simply to my partner. ‘Yup’, he said, and put a hand on my side as we waited for it to end. It went on for quite some time before it finally subsided.

Dunedin is 225 miles from Christchurch, which itself was only 30 kilometres from Darfield, the epicentre of the 7.1 Richter scale earthquake, the largest earthquake in New Zealand since the Richter 7.8 that devastated Hawkes Bay in 1931 and nearly completely destroyed the city of Napier. The quake’s centre was only 33 kilometres deep, a shallow quake that is felt more strongly and does more damage than quakes at lower depths. A state of emergency was declared this morning as the city of Christchurch as well as large parts of the Canterbury region is without power, water or telephone. Civil Defence Minister John Carter has announced a decision to evacuate people from the centre of Christchurch –and as I’m typing this I’m watching the Prime Minister on the tellie as he is watching a building on fire, fire crews having been helpless to put it out, water pressure having been out for hours, and just on in the last few minutes. Speculation is that the fire started as electricity is returning and igniting burst gas lines, a worry for other buildings as power is slowly restored to the area. The Christchurch suburb of New Brighton and other seaside area are preparing for possible evacuation. Pipes have been shattered in many parts, with sewage making flooded streets even worse. The quake’s damage has reached even as far as the lower end of the North Island, with burst water pipes in the Wellington area as well. The force of the quake was felt nearly as far as Auckland itself, in the upper North Island.

Christchurch has been severely damaged, the mayor Bob Parker saying ‘There would not be a house or a family in our city that has not in some way had damage done to their person or their property.’ Two men were seriously injured, one when a chimney collapsed on him and the other cut by broken glass, both in intensive care. Christchurch hospital has been treating broken bones, bruises and cuts since early morning. All flights to and from Christchurch have been cancelled until later today. Water is in short supply, and shops themselves hard hit by the quake are struggling to meet demand. Rural areas are as hard hit – without power, milking machines and refrigeration is impossible, livestock being milked by hand as quickly as possible while farmers are desperately calling for generators.

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At a time where most nations haven't even kept their pledges of relief to Haiti, this is very bad timing for the flood-ravaged country of Pakistan.

In the meantime, President Zardari went off on a state visit to France, infuriating Pakistanis:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Sunday that he had never seen anything like the flood disaster in Pakistan and urged foreign donors to speed up assistance to the 20 million people affected.

“I will never forget the destruction and suffering I have witnessed today,” Mr. Ban said after flying over hard-hit areas with President Asif Ali Zardari. “I have witnessed many natural disasters around the world, but nothing like this.”

The secretary general visited Myanmar after Cyclone Nargis struck there in May 2008, killing an estimated 138,000 people. Two months earlier, he flew to Sichuan Province in China, just days after an earthquake killed nearly 90,000 people.

Mr. Ban’s comments also reflected widespread concern about the unfolding disaster in Pakistan. The country is battling militants from Al Qaeda and the Taliban and has a weak and unpopular government, while its anemic economy is propped up by international assistance.

The floods, which began more than two weeks ago in the mountainous northwest, have hit about one-quarter of the country, especially its agricultural heartland. While the death toll of about 1,500 is relatively small, the scale of the flooding and the number whose lives have been disrupted are staggering. On Saturday, the prime minister said 20 million people had been made homeless.

The United Nations has appealed for an initial $460 million to provide relief, but only 20 percent has been given.

The relief effort has had nowhere near the success of aid for Haiti after its earthquake:

ISLAMABAD – The global aid response to the Pakistan floods has so far been much less generous than to other recent natural disasters — despite the soaring numbers of people affected and the prospect of more economic ruin in a country key to the fight against Islamist extremists.

Reasons include the relatively low death toll of 1,500, the slow onset of the flooding compared with more immediate and dramatic earthquakes or tsunamis, and a global "donor fatigue" — or at least a Pakistan fatigue.

If you would like to help, you can give at any the following sites [via Pakistani Perspective].