The NY Times Joins In The Global Warming Chorus
Whether one believes the theory of global warming is firmly grounded in science or not, blaming singular current events on centuries-long trends is nearly always incorrect. The world just doesn’t work that way, more often than not. Yet the worst editorial board working for a major city daily (of course, I’m talking about Gail Collins’ New York Times joins the irresponsible progressive lemmings in blaming Katrina on George Bush and global warming:
While our attention must now be on the Gulf Coast’s most immediate needs, the nation will soon ask why New Orleans’s levees remained so inadequate. Publications from the local newspaper to National Geographic have fulminated about the bad state of flood protection in this beloved city, which is below sea level. Why were developers permitted to destroy wetlands and barrier islands that could have held back the hurricane’s surge? Why was Congress, before it wandered off to vacation, engaged in slashing the budget for correcting some of the gaping holes in the area’s flood protection?It would be some comfort to think that, as Mr. Bush cheerily announced, America “will be a stronger place” for enduring this crisis. Complacency will no longer suffice, especially if experts are right in warning that global warming may increase the intensity of future hurricanes. But since this administration won’t acknowledge that global warming exists, the chances of leadership seem minimal.
One sure sign that you’re reading a partisan polemic rather than a measured discussion is the lack of internal consistency. “Especially if experts are right” followed by “this administration won’t acknowledge that global warming exists” is simply incoherent.
Yes, some heads need to roll over New Orleans, but they belong to state, local, and federal officials over a period of years and decades who allowed a precarious situation to exist in regards to a weak levee and an over-developed flood plain. I don’t think we elect President’s to mediate disputes regarding local building codes and development deals.
I wouldn’t say automatically that heads should roll, although as a political fact of life they certailnly will. Building major cities below sea level is a tricky and expensive business. Billions have been spent over decades keeping the water out. Is there really a civil engineering solution? That is economically practical? Hmm. NO always was an accident waiting to happen. Whether large public sums should be spent to return things to the way they were is a wide open question.
I highly recommend this article (a little long, but fascinating) about the civil engineering challenges posed by New Orleans. Money quote:
The people of New Orleans, and more broadly, Louisianna, weighed the relative costs and risks of making the levees stronger or leaving them as they were. Obviously, given that Katrina has struck so catastrophically, they made the wrong choice.
The choice now is whether the city should be rebuilt as it was. I’m with Charles Krauthammer on this one (as said on Brit Hume’s show the other night): the nation should rally together to help and assist those directly affected by this tragedy but that assistance and help should not include rebuilding the city in, what is, a naturally unihabitable place.
You’re making this way too complicated.
Something bad happened. Therefore it’s President Bush’s fault. Q.E.D.
If something’s done well — it should have been done perfectly, and the difference is President Bush’s fault.
Has anyone else noticed a big difference in the coverage by different news networks? We had CNN for a while, earlier, and someone asked me — “What happened to all those national guard and FEMA teams? Why aren’t they doing anything?” I thought for a moment, and then responded, “That’s a good question. Why isn’t CNN showing us any of the rescue efforts?” So we flipped to Fox News, which was reporting live from a camp on the highway somewhere where blackhawks and other helicopters were bringing a steady flood of wounded survivors for triage, and school busses were bringing the walking wounded farther north. Then they had short addresses by President Bush and the governor of Louisiana, while continuing the triage center coverage on split screen.
Quite a difference.
Now, if we could just get Fox to send a camera team to back up Michael Yon in Iraq…
Just a heads up, people: Sully is now plugging a piece by Josh Marshall that blames budget cuts to the Army Corps of Engineers for the problems with the levy. This argument seems to have replaced “Haley Barbour caused the hurricane by killing Kyoto” as the conspiracy du jur at DailyKos (which, if anything, has grown even more classless and shrill in the last few day). Anyway, expect to hear a lot about the levy breach being Bush’s fault in the next couple of weeks.
I don’t know about budget cuts for the Army Corps of Engineers, but the administration strongly opposed a one billion dollar allotment in the recently passed energy bill earmarked for coastal improvement in areas with offshore drilling platforms. Transportation Secretary Bodman on July 15:
“The administration strongly opposes” the new funding, Bodman wrote. “These provisions are inconsistent with the President’s 2006 Budget and would have a significant impact on the budget deficit.”
Congress overruled the administration’s objections and included the funding.
To be clear: no rational person would blame Bush for a natural disaster. Also, even if the administration did not oppose the funding, it would have made no difference, as obviously the money would not have been spent yet. However, the administration can rightly be blamed for its attempt to misallocate resources away from coastal protection in order to support less worthy objectives in the energy bill and elsewhere.
Peter, no doubt, and of course, Congressional Democrats and Republicans loaded up the bill with pork aplenty, as well. Still, fundamentally, I don’t like to see Republicans or Democrats trying to make political points off of things like this. I am an American before I am a Republican…let’s figure out where we went wrong, try to avoid it in the future, decide what in the world we’re going to do about New Orleans, and move forward…
[...] There are two reasons, both weaselly, to not post this. One, I found it by way of the Daily Kos, and two, it attributes part of Katrina’s disastrous consequences, implicitly, to global warming, a theory I’ve expressed skepticism on before. Still, only a fool avoids truth, even if it very uncomfortable, and there is a lot of scarily accurate forecasting in this piece: It was a broiling August afternoon in New Orleans, Louisiana, the Big Easy, the City That Care Forgot. Those who ventured outside moved as if they were swimming in tupelo honey. Those inside paid silent homage to the man who invented air-conditioning as they watched TV “storm teams” warn of a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. Nothing surprising there: Hurricanes in August are as much a part of life in this town as hangovers on Ash Wednesday. [...]
Mark: agreed — but if we are to figure out what went wrong and how to do things differently in the future, a good place to start is how resources are allocated in energy policy –
Well, there are a lot of things that need to be re-examined, for sure, but now is not the time…three or four months from now, maybe…