An Opinion Line contributor asked in Wednesday’s newspaper: “I wonder how long it will be before Hurricane Katrina is blamed on President Bush and the theory of global warming?”
Well, according to this Salon article, it isn’t crazy to think that there is a connection between global warming and hurricanes. A recent paper in the science journal Nature found that as sea temperatures rise, the duration and intensity of hurricanes are going up, too. (Read the Salon article for a straightforward explanation as to why.)
But the frequency of hurricanes has been holding steady — even though it may seem like there are more of them. There is a natural upswing or downswing in hurricanes that happens every 20 or 30 years, and we’re in an upswing now. The reason this one seems worse is because there are more people living in the path of hurricanes.
“A lot of people in my business had been, even in the 1980s, warning anybody who would listen — which was very few, it turned out — that there was going to be this upswing in hurricanes,” said Kerry Emanuel, a professor of atmospheric science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “It’s not rocket science. We’ve been building all this stuff in Florida during this lull that lasted 20 years. We built all this stuff, and it’s waiting to get creamed. There’s been a fantastic amount of construction. A lot of people have built homes on the water. And nobody really listened. And now all of those predictions are exactly coming true. But it doesn’t have much to do with global warming.”
Posted by Melissa Cooley
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32 Comments
Oh, yeah, you betcha. No connection at all. 12 inches of rain in Wichita in August? . . . nothing, it means nothing. Last winter’s ice storm? Pure coincidence. The last 12 years were the warmest on record, but, hey, it’s just “natural cycles.”
Here’s a Boston Globe article that claims exactly the opposite:
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/08/30/katrinas_real_name/
“THE HURRICANE that struck Louisiana yesterday was nicknamed Katrina by the National Weather Service. Its real name is global warming.
“When the year began with a two-foot snowfall in Los Angeles, the cause was global warming.
“When 124-mile-an-hour winds shut down nuclear plants in Scandinavia and cut power to hundreds of thousands of people in Ireland and the United Kingdom, the driver was global warming.
“When a severe drought in the Midwest dropped water levels in the Missouri River to their lowest on record earlier this summer, the reason was global warming.”
Eventually water levels will rise and Kansas will revert back to a shallow sea. Even then we’ll have conservatives saying, “this is what happens when you don’t drill in ANWR.”
As far as blaming Bush for the hurricane, that is ridiculous. But you can blame Bush for not doing more to prepare for a hurricane, like when he cut the budget to strengthen levees.
Even worse, more people died AFTER the hurricane than during it. We responded like some third world country while Bush was holding fundraisers in Utah.
Just like in his military career and on 9-11, when our nation turned its eyes to Bush for leadership during its hour of need, he just went AWOL. . .
Galahad, agreed. But really, we don’t need global warming to blame this disaster on Bush. We can blame his 44% reduction in flood control funding for Corps of Engineer projects around New Orleans, and his defunding of FEMA in advance of placing it under control of Homeland Security. And that doesn’t even mention the shifting away of men and material (amphibious craft) from the U.S. to the war in Iraq.
George Bush’s policies contributed to the magnitude of the flooding in New Orleans, and the slow response elsewhere. He’s already positioning himself to avoid the blowback. But I don’t think the usual spin is going to be much help this time.
How about stop pointing fingers and concentrating on the relief effort.
Right, Joe, just because Bush’s policies led to unnecessary deaths, there’s no need to call him to account for it.
That pretty much sums up his entire presidency, doesn’t it.
Well said, Joe.
Don’t believe anybody except Pat Roberts. God sruck down New Orleans because of all the beads my wife brought back !!!!!!!!!!!!
Don’t believe anybody except Pat Roberts. God sruck down New Orleans because of all the beads my wife brought back !!!!!!!!!!!!
I see I’ve struck a nerve. Good.
Whatever happened to ‘the buck stops here?’ Can you imagine W ever acting like anything but a feckless boy who blames everyone else?
Bush has a LARGE hand in this disaster, and no diaster victims are helped by pretending he doesn’t.
Bush caused the Hurricane and the flood breach? Yeah right! He cut funding for the leeves? Why didn’t they do anything with the leeves for over 50 years?
Since they haven’t really strengthen the leeves in 50 years, you can blame Clinton, Bush Sr. Reagan, Carter, Nixon, LBJ, Kennedy, and Eisenhower.
I guess everything is Bush’s fault.
You liberal bush bashers are funny. I am still laughing — hard to type — back to work.
By the way Dan, I know how girls earn those beads.
“I’m not saying it wouldn’t still be flooded, but I do feel that if it (levee projects) had been totally funded, there would be less flooding than you have,” said Michael Parker, a former Republican Mississippi congressman who headed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from October 2001 until March 2002, when he was ousted after publicly criticizing a Bush administration proposal to cut the corps’ budget.”http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0509010170sep01,1,5853346.story?coll=chi-news-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true
******
When confronted with contrary information, BushCo. once again shoots the messenger. What was once a trend is now a clear pattern.
Hey, maybe they’ll find some Weapons of Mass Destruction under the flood waters. Now would be a perfect time for that wily Saddam to strike . . .
So, Joe and joe, how’s that crow tasting?
Between 9/11 and Katrina, it’s beginning to seem like God doesn’t really like George very much. Just sayin’.
You are speaking to the wrong person CF.
I’m not a Bush lover, nor am I a Bush blamer for everything wrong in America.
Joe, stop misrepresenting my position. I said Bush has a LARGE share of blame, not all the blame for everything that ever happened.
Bush cut large amounts of emergency preparedness funding against the advice of experts. Sounds pretty damn blameworthy to me.
And once again, will he EVER take responsibility for anything?
From National Geographic, known worldwide as a conservative front.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/06/0601_050601_hurricanes.html
Gray does not think global warming has anything to do with the recent increase in hurricanes. “This is a natural thing,” he said. “Even though the Atlantic has had increased hurricane activity, the activity in other global [ocean] basins has gone down a little.”
“If global warming was causing more hurricanes in the Atlantic,” he said, “the other tropical storm basins should have seen an increase also.”
Oh, everybody come see how cunning Bisoni is! He did a google search and found a link that supports his Republican drivel! Wow Bisoni….I sure am impressed!
Let’s help those in need now. There will be plenty of time to step back and pass blame later.
I think the biggest lesson to be learned in this situation is this.
Social safety nets – like FEMA – work best when they’re needed most.
Those American social safety nets most assuredly include Social Security. There is a lesson to be learned here, and it applies to Social Security.
It would appear that the Bush administration’s attempts to privatize Social Security are probably 100 times riskier – to the fabric of American democracy, to our way of life – than his attempts to privatize FEMA have been, even taking Katrina into account.
$0.02
It’s a mystery to me why a local problem — caused by people willing to live by the ocean on land that is below sea level and surrounded by levees that were well-known to be too low and too weak to resist a likely storm — should be elevated to a federal issue.
The equally well-known graft and corruption of Louisiana is the major reason for inadequate protection and disaster preparation for the city of New Orleans.
If available insurance wasn’t bought by the residents of the city, they have only themselves to blame for any losses they incur. If the levees and pumpng systems were inadequate for the storm, it was Louisiana’s and New Orlean’s fault, not the federal government’s.
As long as people insist on living in harms way, it is their own responsibility to deal with it, not everyone else’s.
While I do feel synmpathy for the plight of people who have now lost so much because of their willingness to ignore reality, and while I am moved to help them in their grievous need with my donations to honest charities, and while I certainly agree that disaster relief services from all government agencies should be brought to bear, I also feel real contempt for their stupidity and especially for those who now dare to think the federal government owes them something.
Trell, that’s all well and fine, but what do you suggest we do right now? We have people dying. Do you suggest we just let them die because they made a bad choice about where to live? I can see you’re one of those Compasionate Conservatives.
XXX, Both your question and your uncalled-for swipe at me were fully answered in my last paragraph.
I made no statement about my politics; and I find the efforts by you and others to politicize this disaster to be typical, reprehensible, political opportunism of the worst kind.
Yes Trell, but your answers are the WRONG answers.And I’m betting I got you called. You’re a Republican. You can always tell. Why are you denying it?
I’d be ashamed, too. What a hatefull person you are.
What Trell says is true. It’s a known fact that New Orleans was a disaster waiting to happen. If there is going to be blame and finger pointing, it should be at the state of Louisiana.The people who didn’t evacuate were mostly the poor people who didn’t have the resources to leave the area, and the reason relief efforts have been slow is largely because of the flood waters. Hind sight is 20/20, but this has been the worst natural disaster our country has ever seen.
WARMING…SMARMING–Hell it’s obvious that this is part of “INTELLIGENT DESIGN”. No scientific theories allowed.
IF the local and state governments had planned for a massive natural disaster, as thery should have, this wouldn’t have been near as deadly as it is. IF the army corps of engineers had used modern techniques, which they should have, to strenghten the levees, the flooding would not have been near as bad as it was.They did not, so we have dead people floating in sewage, and a massive relief effort in progress.IF Bush had not cut funding to the army corps of engineers, Katrina would still have done the same amount of damage it did. Even though He’ll probably go down in history as one of America’s worst presidents, and deservidly so, he had NO hand in the basic affects of the hurricane. The aftermath, now that’s a different story.Global warming? Probably not, just cyclic by-products of the natural earth cycle.
Scientists have warned for years we would get these kinds of storms. No one listened. Now we are getting them. I commented on this at http://ottoswarroom.blogspot.com/Melting polar ice caps, increased hurricanes and ice storms in Kansas. Oh! It’s just coincidence.
Well, lets see who we have to blame for founding, and building New Orleans where it is at today.
Oh, we can blame the French!!!
Small villages of the Quinapisa and Tangipahoa peoples occupied the site of present-day New Orleans when the first European visitor, French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, sieur de La Salle, arrived in 1682. In 1699 another French explorer, Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, visited the site. Recognizing the potential of the location, Bienville established a settlement there in 1718 after he became governor of the French colony of Louisiana. He named it Nouvelle-Orléans, for the Duc d’Orléans, regent of France. In 1721 French engineer Adrien de Pauger laid out the first town plan, a rectangular grid of 66 squares (today’s French Quarter). The following year the town became the capital of French Louisiana. In 1763 France divided Louisiana between England and Spain, and New Orleans became the capital of Spanish Louisiana.
Unhappy with Spanish administration—notably, new trade regulations that included the forced importation of Spanish wine—French businessmen and soldiers rebelled in 1768 and 1769, but were swiftly subdued. Under Spanish rule, trade between New Orleans and Spanish colonies in the Caribbean flourished, especially in such products as tobacco, seafood, foodstuffs, and pork. Despite damaging fires in 1788 and 1794, the town grew more prosperous. In 1800 New Orleans was secretly returned to France, although this was not made official until 1803. In that year France transferred the city to the United States through the terms of the Louisiana Purchase.
In 1805 New Orleans became an incorporated city, and in 1812 it became the capital of the new U.S. state of Louisiana. The city was the state capital from 1812 to 1830. In 1830 state legislators moved the capital to Donaldsonville in hopes of keeping the state government and its officials away from the distractions of New Orleans nightlife. However, New Orleans was capital again from 1831 to 1849, at which time its growing economic and political power prompted the rest of the state to pressure the Louisiana government to move the capital. In 1849 the capital was transferred to Baton Rouge.
When the British and Americans were fighting in the War of 1812 (1812-1815), Major General Andrew Jackson and his troops were sent to defend the city of New Orleans from British attack. Leading a ragtag force of pirates, Creoles, blacks, and regular troops, Jackson defended the city against British invasion in the Battle of New Orleans. When the British attacked the Americans, Jackson’s forces held their positions and launched an artillery and musket assault that devastated the enemy. The British commander, Sir Edward Pakenham, was killed in the barrage, and the British were forced to retreat.
Between 1810 and 1850 steamboat traffic on the Mississippi River made the city one of the busiest ports in North America. By 1840 New Orleans was the fourth largest city in the United States. This new growth and prosperity attracted a large influx of immigrants, mainly Anglo-Americans, Germans, and Irish. These immigrants swelled the city’s population, contributed to urban growth, and added to local tension. Conflict between the Creoles and the newcomers led to the division of New Orleans into three separately governed municipalities in 1836. Though the city officially reunited under a single government in 1852, the ethnic conflict continued in often-violent political disputes until the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861.
At the outset of the Civil War, New Orleans was the largest city in the South, a center for the cotton trade, and a major exporter of goods from the Midwest. Although slavery was widespread in New Orleans at this time, commerce formed the economic base of the city. Because of this, many New Orleans merchants initially opposed the secession of Louisiana from the United States because they feared that it would disrupt commercial ties with the North. After the war began, however, the city’s inhabitants readily embraced the Confederate cause. New Orleans was a major port and military center for the Confederacy. However, in April 1862 a Union fleet captured the city, and it remained a Union stronghold for the rest of the war.
In May 1862 General Benjamin F. Butler became the military governor of New Orleans. Many of the city’s inhabitants resisted his policies and the Union occupation of the city. Butler’s harsh treatment of the native population caused his dismissal as governor seven months later. Under the leadership of his Union successors, living conditions in the city improved, and new trade regulations restored commercial prosperity.
During Reconstruction, the process of rebuilding that followed the Civil War, Republicans controlled city government and eliminated several areas of racial segregation—most notably in education and public transit. After Reconstruction ended in 1877, the Democrats gained power in the city and reinstituted segregation by creating separate black and white facilities. The Democrats established a political organization known as the Old Regulars under the leadership of John Fitzpatrick and Martin Behrman. The Old Regulars worked to enhance the city’s economy and improved municipal sanitation and the water supply. They also used their extensive influence to maintain political control in New Orleans, while at the same time forming alliances with rural political leaders to protect their interests in state government and to preserve racial segregation in Louisiana.
In the 1880s Louisiana sugar and cotton planters brought in Italian laborers to work on plantations. However, many of these Italians preferred to live and work in New Orleans and became active in local industry. This influx of Italian immigrants created tensions. When the local police chief was murdered, people suspected a criminal group known as the Italian Mafia. This event provoked strong anti-Italian sentiment among the native population and led to the lynching of 11 Italians in 1891.
In the late 19th century, shipping activities in the city declined with the demise of the steamboat, but by the end of World War I (1914-1918), river barges contributed to a substantial commercial rebound. Also during the early 20th century, engineer A. Baldwin Wood developed powerful pumps that allowed the draining of swampland within the city and opened vast new sections of New Orleans for settlement. For many years the geographic location of the city on muddy subtropical lowlands that were surrounded by water prevented its growth. The rising waters of the Mississippi River frequently flooded the city, and heavy rainfall enlarged the swamps. However, Wood’s pumps along with canals, a line of levees, and the Bonnet Carre Spillway—which diverts runoff from the Mississippi into Lake Pontchartrain—allowed the city to grow.
In 1934 New Orleans Democrats opposed Louisiana Senator Huey P. Long and his statewide political organization, which he controlled first from his position as state governor and then from the U.S. Senate. Long’s forces in the state legislature subsequently undermined the power of the Old Regular Democrats and installed Robert S. Maestri, a Long associate, as mayor of New Orleans in 1936. Maestri improved the city’s fiscal machinery and tax collection early in his administration, but during World War II (1939-1945) city services faltered badly and criminal activity increased. After World War II, reform Democrat deLesseps S. Morrison became mayor and ended the reign of the old political machines.
During the administrations of Morrison (1946-1961) and his successors Victor H. Schiro (1961-1970) and Maurice “Moon” Landrieu (1970-1978), an era of commercial and industrial growth ensued that supported the completion of a series of major public works programs. Building projects included new bridges and overpasses, a new city hall and municipal court complex, a main public library, the Poydras Street commercial corridor, the Louisiana Superdome, the Aquarium of the Americas, and the renovation of the French Quarter as a tourist attraction.
As the racial composition of the city started to change during the 1950s, blacks attained a more prominent role in municipal government. In 1960 New Orleans public schools began to desegregate. In 1978 Ernest “Dutch” Morial became the city’s first black mayor.
During the 1990s race remained an issue in New Orleans. Drug use, high crime rates, and dilapidated housing persist in predominantly black neighborhoods. Furthermore, the departure of many residents for the suburbs eroded the city’s tax base. In 1991 the city council sparked a major controversy when it voted to prohibit racial and gender discrimination in Mardi Gras organizations, a bastion of the white upper class. Several carnival krewes (private organizations that sponsor parades and other events), including Comus, the oldest, abandoned their annual parades rather than integrate. Additionally, recent legislation called for the renaming of all public schools that had been named for slave owners, including George Washington.
At the beginning of the 21st century, New Orleans faces many potential problems. To be competitive, many people believe that the city should diversify its economy and increase its commercial aggressiveness or risk losing business to other port cities. Additionally, New Orleans must deal with questions of racial relations and crime, while at the same time trying to compensate for a tax base that is declining as people leave the city for the suburbs. However, the city remains a popular tourist destination, well known for its food, music, and colorful annual events.
Has anyone considered that all the hot air coming out of Washington,D.C. caused the hurricane and all the hot air here in this blog might cause tonados through out the state.
I’ve just returned from Alaska visiting my sister. I was happy to see this item still in the blog listings. IN Alaska they are relocating villages because the permafrost is melting. The glaciers that have been there forever are melting because the ocean is warming. They have a department that studies the effect of global warming on the tundra and the neighboring villages. Mountain ranges that usually have snow all year round on their caps are bare. There is no discussion that it’s just a trend in the weather. Why are we sticking are head in the sand over this issue? Avoiding a problem only compounds it.
Start watching for headlines that are more optimistic, such as these:
GLOBAL WARMING REVERSED!DIASTER AVERTED… EARTH SAVED!MAN-MADE CLIMATE CHANGES… PERMANENTLY NULLIFIED!
Albert Einstein provided the perfect scientific answer to Global Warming in 1905 with his paradigm, mass-to-energy equation, which is the key to unlocking all of the clean, cheap, environmentally friendly energy the inhabitants of Earth will ever need, without any pollution or waste stream, and with no carbon dioxide or other greenhouse emissions.
Even the super-powerful Energy Cartel will be unable to prevent millions of individuals around the World from freely switching to this abundant and everlasting Einsteinian cornucopia of “home-made energy,” which will automatically reestablish Mother Nature as the exclusive controller of climate change.
http://slow-motion-Thermonuclear.blogspot.com/2006/06/invention-for-sale-slow-motion.html
I read on moveon.org that Dick Cheney spends his day personally creating hurricanes by flying Air Force 2 in a counter-clockwise rotation in the Gulf of Mexico.
Is this true?