"enviro-predator" is perhaps over the top, but he has a point. http://www.techcentralstation.com/083105JKG.html -- Katrina and Disgusting Exploitation By James K. Glassman A profound tragedy is unfolding in New Orleans, the most beautiful city in America, with the richest cultural history and the most wonderful style of living. I lived in New Orleans for seven years. I was married there. My children were born there. I have many friends there. My daughter, her husband and their little baby managed to get out of the city ahead of the flood on Sunday, driving 14 hours into Texas with the few belongings they could stuff into their car. They have no idea what has become of their house and their possessions, not to mention their friends, their pets, their jobs, their way of life. Tragedies happen, and my daughter and her family are happy just to be alive. Their losses and those of hundreds of thousands of other innocents deserve mourning, prayer and respect. That is why the response of environmental extremists fills me with what only can be called disgust. They have decided to exploit the death and devastation to win support for the failed Kyoto Protocol, which requires massive cutbacks in energy use to reduce, by a few tenths of a degree, surface warming projected 100 years from now. Katrina has nothing to do with global warming. Nothing. It has everything to do with the immense forces of nature that have been unleashed many, many times before and the inability of humans, even the most brilliant engineers, to tame these forces. Giant hurricanes are rare, but they are not new. And they are not increasing. To the contrary. Just go to the website of the National Hurricane Center and check out a table that lists hurricanes by category and decade. The peak for major hurricanes (categories 3,4,5) came in the decades of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, when such storms averaged 9 per year. In the 1960s, there were 6 such storms; in the 1970s, 4; in the 1980s, 5; in the 1990s, 5; and for 2001-04, there were 3. Category 4 and 5 storms were also more prevalent in the past than they are now. As for Category 5 storms, there have been only three since the 1850s: in the decades of the 1930s, 1960s and 1990s. But that doesn't stop an enviro-predator like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from writing on the Huffingtonpost website: "Now we are all learning what it's like to reap the whirlwind of fossil fuel dependence which Barbour and his cronies have encouraged. Our destructive addiction has given us a catastrophic war in the Middle East and - now -- Katrina is giving our nation a glimpse of the climate chaos we are bequeathing our children." Or consider Jurgen Tritten, Germany's environmental minister, in an op-ed in the Frankfurter Rundschau. He wrote (according to a translation prepared for me): "By neglecting environmental protection, America's president shuts his eyes to the economic and human damage that natural catastrophes like Katrina inflect on his country and the world's economy." The bright side of Katrina, concludes Tritten, is that it will force President Bush to face facts. "When reason finally pays a visit to climate-polluter headquarters, the international community has to be prepared to hand America a worked-out proposal for the future of international climate protection." He goes on, "There is only one possible route of action. Greenhouse gases have to be radically reduced, and it has to happen worldwide." In other words, thanks to Katrina, we'll finally get Kyoto enforced. (He might start at home, by the way. Europe is not anywhere close to reducing CO2 to Kyoto standards. In fact, the U.S. is doing much better than many Kyoto ratifiers.) Ross Gelbspan, in a particularly egregious, almost giddy piece in the Boston Globe that was reprinted in the International Herald Tribune, wrote that the hurricane was "nicknamed Katrina by the National Weather Service Katrina, [but] its real name was global warming." He also finds global warming responsible for droughts in the Midwest, strong winds in Scandinavia and heavy rain in Dubai. The reason for all this devastation, of course, is that the Bush Administration is controlled by coal and oil interests. And the Independent, a widely read British newspaper, reported today that "Sir David King, the British Government's chief scientific adviser, has warned that global warming may be responsible for the devastation reaped by Hurricane Katrina." King contended that "the increased intensity of hurricanes is associated with global warming." The Kyoto advocates point to warmer ocean temperatures, but they ought to read their own favorite newspaper, The New York Times, which reported yesterday: "Because hurricanes form over warm ocean water, it is easy to assume that the recent rise in their number and ferocity is because of global warming. But that is not the case, scientists say. Instead, the severity of hurricane seasons changes with cycles of temperatures of several decades in the Atlantic Ocean. The recent onslaught 'is very much natural,' said William M. Gray, a professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University who issues forecasts for the hurricane season.'" An article on TCS quoted Gray last year as saying that, while some groups and individuals say that hurricane activity lately "may be in some way related to the effects of increased man-made greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide,…there is no reasonable scientific way that such an interpretation…can be made." Indeed, there is no evidence that hurricanes are intensifying anyway. For the North Atlantic as a whole, according to the United Nations Environment Programme of the World Meteorological Organization: "Reliable data…since the 1940s indicate that the peak strength of the strongest hurricanes has not changed, and the mean maximum intensity of all hurricanes has decreased." Yes, decreased. Not only has the intensity of hurricanes fallen, but, as George H. Taylor, the state climatologist of Oregon has pointed out, so has the frequency of hailstorms in the U.S. (see Changnon and Changnon) and cyclones throughout the world (Gulev, et al.). But environmental extremists do not want to be bothered with the facts. Nor do they wish to mourn the destruction and death wreaked on a glorious city. To their everlasting shame, they would rather distort and exploit.
Unfortunately, he sounded more on a rant than objectivity and runied his point as quickly as Kennedy did. I think it is reprehensible and disgusting for environmentalists to use this spectacle of loss and human suffering as a launching point for their agenda. However, the author has taken it too far and his argument that global warming has had no effect on any storm, weather or climate patterns is flat out false.
I'm all for cutting pollutants and greenhouse gases, but Katrina isn't a result of global warming. There is no way to prove that the hurricane is anything other then a hurricane. If Hurricane Carla would have hit New Orleans it probably would have been toast years ago. If anything contributed to New Orleans demise it is the loss of wetlands and subsidence. It is long overdue for the Mississippi to change its course. All of the river's silt is being dumped off the continental shelf. Long term, I don't think there is a way to save New Orleans.
That the writer James K. Glassman is using this catastrophe to push his anti-environmental cause is truly appalling. Tech Central Station/basso = Zero Credibility
Agree with everything except the last bit. Long term, I think New Orleans can be saved, if the will and the money is there to do it. I wish the proper steps had been taken long before this disaster occured, but they weren't. The Dutch have tamed the Rhine river delta in the south of their country. It took decades to finish, and they had to have their horrific 1953 flood first, but they have reduced the likelyhood of a catastophic flood to 1 every 10,000 years. That's not too shabby. http://www.deltawerken.com/en/10.html?setlanguage=en&PHPSESSID=7f6e970fef62cfaa313d878b24068375 Everyone who was paying the least attention to the subject knew that New Orleans was ripe for a disaster like this. Those who lived there did. They had dodged the bullet for so long that I think they became a bit complacent. The Federal government kept slashing funds for completing a project that might have saved the city from Katrina, but not from a worse storm hitting at the right location and direction. Yes, this could have been even worse. There is a lot of blame to throw around today for what has happened, and is happening, the top culprit being Mother Nature. You can bet that after the water recedes this will be studied to death. For now, we hope for the safety of those affected by the storm. Houston is showing it's native generosity, bless her. I won't comment on whatever goofy "environmentalist" stuff basso found. Keep D&D Civil!!
Its sad that environmentalists do use this terrible event as an opportunity to push an agenda but this article isnt exactly on the right side of the debate either. Right now we need to focus on the tragedy and do all that we can to rebuild those areas affected by the hurricane. That being said, its foolish to say that global warming doesn't have an affect on hurricanes. The biggest issue with global warming isn't rising surface temperatures. Those are incredibly variable anyway and in some ways can be good for some places. The problem is ocean temperatures. Oceans generally operate within a 2 to 3 degree band of temperature fluctuation year around. That means all wildlife in the ocean and things like storms and what not generally stay stable due to this relatively constant temperature band. HOWEVER, when ocean temperatures rise, it can create massive havoc. I'm sure everyone remembers el nino and la nina which raised and cooled the pacific ocean and caused terrible fluctuations in climate for North and South America, creating droughts and floods all over the place. The same happens if global ocean temperatures rise. With warmer water coming earlier thanks to GW, tropical formations are easier created off the coast of Africa that eventually move towards North and South America. Also, warmer temperatures in the Western Atlantic also allow for more powerful hurricanes since they have more warm water to build up on. This is a terrible tragedy that really does highlight what might happen should the rise in ocean temperatures continues but I agree that this is the wrong time to use this as a tool to push an agenda. I believe that more needs to be done to combat global warming but lets focus on getting aid and money to the Gulf Coast. So I hope everyone does whatever they can to help out those who were victimized by this unfortunate event.
Goodness gracious. Just about every post in this thread has been a "Boy! Both sides were awful to use this for their agenda, but here's my two cents on the take". Leave it be. Whatever your thoughts are on Global warming, now is not the time, or the place. If you must, start an entirely new thread. Mention nothing of this tragedy. It is simply wrong. This thread needs to be closed.
In case you didnt realize all the responses to this thread were a response to the article which was rather slanted and wasnt very accurate. No one should use this as a moment to push an agenda but I think it doesnt make sense to not allow people to argue that PART of the article was incorrect. My post wasn't a call to challenge global warming but rather it was an answer to the article itself. The distinction is rather clear. Anyway, now that I said that lets end the thread and do what we can to help
Just as there is no real way to say that any particular case of lung cancer is the result of smoking. That doesn't mean that smoking doesn't cause lung cancer. It's just something that you can't trace in individual cases. This is one piece of data. It may turn out to be part of a larger pattern and it may not. You'll have to let the patern unfold. Four category 5 hurricanes have hit the US since the introduction of the scale. The Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, Hurricane Camille (1969), Hurricane Andrew in August 1992, and this one.
Come on. Environmentalists are no more using Katrina to "further their agenda" than neo-cons used 9-11 to push for a tougher stance against terrorism. But, as long as we're on the issue, anyone wondered how much Bush's policies might have to do with exacerbating this tragedy? "No One Can Say they Didn't See it Coming" By Sidney Blumenthal In 2001, FEMA warned that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S. But the Bush administration cut New Orleans flood control funding by 44 percent to pay for the Iraq war. Biblical in its uncontrolled rage and scope, Hurricane Katrina has left millions of Americans to scavenge for food and shelter and hundreds to thousands reportedly dead. With its main levee broken, the evacuated city of New Orleans has become part of the Gulf of Mexico. But the damage wrought by the hurricane may not entirely be the result of an act of nature. A year ago the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed to study how New Orleans could be protected from a catastrophic hurricane, but the Bush administration ordered that the research not be undertaken. After a flood killed six people in 1995, Congress created the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, in which the Corps of Engineers strengthened and renovated levees and pumping stations. In early 2001, the Federal Emergency Management Agency issued a report stating that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S., including a terrorist attack on New York City. But by 2003 the federal funding for the flood control project essentially dried up as it was drained into the Iraq war. In 2004, the Bush administration cut funding requested by the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for holding back the waters of Lake Pontchartrain by more than 80 percent. Additional cuts at the beginning of this year (for a total reduction in funding of 44.2 percent since 2001) forced the New Orleans district of the Corps to impose a hiring freeze. The Senate had debated adding funds for fixing New Orleans' levees, but it was too late. The New Orleans Times-Picayune, which before the hurricane published a series on the federal funding problem, and whose presses are now underwater, reported online: "No one can say they didn't see it coming ... Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever, serious questions are being asked about the lack of preparation." The Bush administration's policy of turning over wetlands to developers almost certainly also contributed to the heightened level of the storm surge. In 1990, a federal task force began restoring lost wetlands surrounding New Orleans. Every two miles of wetland between the Crescent City and the Gulf reduces a surge by half a foot. Bush had promised "no net loss" of wetlands, a policy launched by his father's administration and bolstered by President Clinton. But he reversed his approach in 2003, unleashing the developers. The Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency then announced they could no longer protect wetlands unless they were somehow related to interstate commerce. In response to this potential crisis, four leading environmental groups conducted a joint expert study, concluding in 2004 that without wetlands protection New Orleans could be devastated by an ordinary, much less a Category 4 or 5, hurricane. "There's no way to describe how mindless a policy that is when it comes to wetlands protection," said one of the report's authors. The chairman of the White House's Council on Environmental Quality dismissed the study as "highly questionable," and boasted, "Everybody loves what we're doing." "My administration's climate change policy will be science based," President Bush declared in June 2001. But in 2002, when the Environmental Protection Agency submitted a study on global warming to the United Nations reflecting its expert research, Bush derided it as "a report put out by a bureaucracy," and excised the climate change assessment from the agency's annual report. The next year, when the EPA issued its first comprehensive "Report on the Environment," stating, "Climate change has global consequences for human health and the environment," the White House simply demanded removal of the line and all similar conclusions. At the G-8 meeting in Scotland this year, Bush successfully stymied any common action on global warming. Scientists, meanwhile, have continued to accumulate impressive data on the rising temperature of the oceans, which has produced more severe hurricanes. In February 2004, 60 of the nation's leading scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, warned in a statement, "Restoring Scientific Integrity in Policymaking": "Successful application of science has played a large part in the policies that have made the United States of America the world's most powerful nation and its citizens increasingly prosperous and healthy ... Indeed, this principle has long been adhered to by presidents and administrations of both parties in forming and implementing policies. The administration of George W. Bush has, however, disregarded this principle ... The distortion of scientific knowledge for partisan political ends must cease." Bush completely ignored this statement. In the two weeks preceding the storm in the Gulf, the trumping of science by ideology and expertise by special interests accelerated. The Federal Drug Administration announced that it was postponing sale of the morning-after contraceptive pill, despite overwhelming scientific evidence of its safety and its approval by the FDA's scientific advisory board. The United Nations special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa accused the Bush administration of responsibility for a condom shortage in Uganda -- the result of the administration's evangelical Christian agenda of "abstinence." When the chief of the Bureau of Justice Statistics in the Justice Department was ordered by the White House to delete its study that African-Americans and other minorities are subject to racial profiling in police traffic stops and he refused to buckle under, he was forced out of his job. When the Army Corps of Engineers' chief contracting oversight analyst objected to a $7 billion no-bid contract awarded for work in Iraq to Halliburton (the firm at which Vice President Cheney was formerly CEO), she was demoted despite her superior professional ratings. At the National Park Service, a former Cheney aide, a political appointee lacking professional background, drew up a plan to overturn past environmental practices and prohibit any mention of evolution while allowing sale of religious materials through the Park Service. On the day the levees burst in New Orleans, Bush delivered a speech in Colorado comparing the Iraq war to World War II and himself to Franklin D. Roosevelt: "And he knew that the best way to bring peace and stability to the region was by bringing freedom to Japan." Bush had boarded his very own "Streetcar Named Desire." Sidney Blumenthal, a former assistant and senior advisor to President Clinton and the author of "The Clinton Wars," is writing a column for Salon and the Guardian of London. http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,372455,00.html
I'm not sure of exactly how you honor the dead in a natural or a man-made disaster by not taling about how to prevent it next time. It is different if you are badgering someone who lost a loved one right afterward,who tells you they don't care to discuss it. Fatty and Max are not claiming that status. Funny, I don't remember the President or anyone else saying after 9/11, let's dont talk about how to prevent another one or what caused it. It is sort of like the claim that you honor the dead in Iraq by not questioning the President or the War.
If Katrina proved anything, it proved that we as a country are ill-prepared for a disaster of this magnitude, and we had better correct it sooner rather than later. Shouldn't the Department of Homeland Security be taking the lead in preparing for all disasters...manmade as well as those caused by nature?
I am no specialist in global warming but to claim Katarina has nothing to do with that is foolish at best. The environment is a integrated system, and too much human input will cause systematic disasters. Fear the Nature!
Actually I saw a meteorologist yestserday say that the Gulf Coast has been lucky over the past twenty five years, that the number of hurricanes to hit has been very low.
the storms in the 50's and 60's were monster. carla and camille come to mind right away. storms run in huge cycles...in 30 year cycles. if we contributed to this...let's discuss it. let's figure it out. but let's count the dead first. let's focus energy on getting new orleans out of this mess.
The 5 most recent threads are dealing with politics and the Hurricane. This Forum is turning more and more into a cesspool every day. Perhaps this entire forum needs to be put under "martial law", and all activities need to be suspended until people can straighten up, much like in New Orleans now. That, or just shut down the forum alltogether. I'm tired of seeing people bicker just for bickering's sake.
