Sunday, August 28, 2005
The Big Easy faces the Big One
Oh crap... this is very scary. New Orleans is facing a Category 5 storm with 165 mph winds and a 30-foot storm surge. As much as 80% of the city's housing could be destroyed by winds, which together with flooding could leave a million people homeless.
As the article linked above makes clear, human disregard for the environment will greatly exacerbate the crisis. Building levees along the Mississippi has caused New Orleans to sink below sea level as the land is deprived of silt from seasonal floods. The destruction of wetlands downstream deprives the city of the protection and buffering action they would have afforded. And the levees will trap a huge stagnant pool of water in the city, poisoned by toxic waste, sewage, and dead bodies. And it's very likely that global warming is a factor in the severity of the storm.
We are paying the price for our cavalier treatment of the planet that sustains us. And yet our lords and masters continue to dismiss environmentalism as an extreme fringe movement that cares more about spotted owls than people. No it isn't - it's about our very survival! What will it take to get the message through?
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