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by Dave Lindorff
Thursday, Sep. 01, 2005 at 7:15 AM
dlindorff@yahoo.com
If Bush hadn't sent everyone off to war and blown the budget on the military, there'd have been stronger dykes in New Orleans and more troops and equipment to help with the rescue effort.
The destruction of New Orleans--a catastrophe far worse than anything Osama Bin Laden could hope to wreak, considering the number of deaths, the closing down of a major U.S. port city for months, the destruction of an urban environment that will take years to repair, and the devastating disruption of one-fourth of the nation's oil production, which is likely to initiate a national recession--gives final proof of the stupidity and criminality of the Bush Administration's invasion of Iraq and of the bankruptcy of the Democratic so-called oppositon.
First there is the diversion of economic resources that saw New Orleans shortchanged on programs designed to harden the city for the inevitable arrival of super-strong, global-warming-fed hurricanes. The demands of the $200-billion+ war in Iraq caused already-budged funds for levy strengthening and raising to be withdrawn an diverted.
Then too, there is the gutting of the National Guard, which is mostly over in Iraq, leaving Louisiana and Mississippi, the two hardest-hit states, scrambling for first-response personal--a problem that is compounded by the common practice of having police, fire and emergency rescue personnel supplement their salaries by joining the Guard.
How stupid is it that we are spending hundreds of billions of dollars on programs that are supposedly designed to deter or interdict terrorists--a nearly hopeless endeavor, given the ease with which terrorists can just figure out new ways around each new program.
The most a terrorist attack can hope to do is bring down a few buildings and kill a few hundred people, while natural disasters can do tens of billions in damage, wreck a national economy, displace hundreds of thousands, and kill thousands. And unlike with terrorism, there are things that can actually be done to guard against or mitigate natural disasters.
Not, however, if all the government’s resources are being diverted to war.
It is high time that the American public recognize that even if they don't have a relative at risk in Iraq, even if they don't personally feel the impact of that war in any obvious way, the whole nation is being put at risk by Bush's Iraq folly.
The best way to protect America and its people would be for the U.S. to become aggressively involved in combating the global warming that ensures that hurricanes like Katrina will become not the exception but the norm. The best way to defend American interests is to end the hollowing out of the economy that inevitably accompanies a war costing a fifth of a trillian dollars, and to invest in infrastructure improvement, education and the general welfare.
The National Guard, which was meant to serve as a state-run militia, and to be available for national emergencies like this one, should be called home immediately from Iraq and put back on duty here, where it belongs. Those who are supposed to be cops, firefighters and EMT personnel should be furloughed and sent back to their real jobs. Cuts in the military should not be made in Guard units, as is happening in the current round of base closings, but in the regular uniformed services, whose only real function seems to be to give the president a chance to mess around in other countries’ affairs.
The Democrats should be all over this one, but don't hold your breath. That sorry bunch of moral cowards--Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and Joe Lieberman among them-- voted for the Iraq War and they have uttered scarcely a peep at the gutting of the domestic Guard units, instead calling for more troops to be sent over to Iraq. (Louisianans and Mississippians should be grateful their words were not heeded or there'd be nobody home to help!)
The only answer is for the public to demand that the National Guard be recalled for domestic duties, where they belong, and for the war to be ended, immediately.
Bad as it is, New Orleans is just a warning of future disasters sure to come. Heck, the hurricane season isn’t even half over, and the ocean that produces them is getting hotter and hotter.
For the rest of this column and other stories by Lindorff, please go (at no charge) to This Can't Be Happening! .
www.thiscantbehappening.net
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by Ignored by Bush = criminal negligence
Thursday, Sep. 01, 2005 at 9:00 AM
Previous evidence that global warming would result in more severe storm surges was ignored by the GW Bush administration. The result of ignoring global warming predictions is lost lives and damage in the billions. The petroleum corporations need to be held accountable for their role in bringing about global warming, and the Bush administration's criminal negligence in ignoring the warnings.
There was advanced warning about increased storm surges from future hurricanes given to coastal regions. If these warnings were heeded by the federal government there could have been life saving disaster preparations implemented ahead of time. Most of the financial support to implement these programs would need to come from the federal level. Since the Bush administration ignored these warnings about global warming, that amounts to criminal negligence..
"EXPERTS TO WARN GLOBAL WARMING LIKELY TO CONTINUE SPURRING MORE OUTBREAKS OF INTENSE HURRICANE ACTIVITY
Problem Tied to Rising Sea Temperatures From Trapped Greenhouse Gases; Trend Portends More Storm Damage Costs for FL, AL, LA, TX, NC and SC.
WASHINGTON, D.C.//October 21, 2004///With four hurricanes and tropical storms hitting the United States in a recent five-week period, 2004 already is being called "The Year of the Hurricane." But this year's unusually intense period of destructive weather activity could be a harbinger of what is to come as the effects of global warming become even more pronounced in future years, according to leading experts who participated today in a Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School briefing.
The recent onslaught of four major tropical weather disturbances - Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne - that did so much damage in the United States and nearby Haiti have spurred new questions about the relationship between hurricanes and global warming. While experts can't say that climate change will result in more hurricanes in the future, there is growing evidence and concern that the tropical storms that do happen will be more intense than in the past. Fueling concerns about the link between global warming and hurricanes is a new study on hurricane intensity published on September 28, 2004 in "The Journal of Climate." The study used extensive computer modeling to analyze 1,300 future hurricanes and projected major increase in the intensity and rainfall of hurricanes in coming decades.
"Global warming may well be causing bigger and more powerful hurricanes," said James J. McCarthy, a biological oceanographer at Harvard University and lead author of the climate change impacts portion of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) Third Assessment Report (2001). "Warmer seas fuel the large storms forming over the Atlantic and Pacific, and greater evaporation generates heavy downpours. With warmer, saltier tropical seas, the IPCC has projected larger storms, heavier rainfalls and higher peak winds."
Paul R. Epstein, M.D., associate director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School, said: "Scientists cannot say at present whether more or fewer hurricanes will occur in the future. However, even if the number of storms remained constant, more powerful hurricanes with stronger winds, higher storm surges, and heavier downpours would have an even greater potential for damage, including increased risks to human life and public health, more floods and mudslides, increased coastal erosion and damage to coastal buildings and infrastructure. This is the pattern that we already may be seeing related to the overall increase in extremes.""
above info from;
www.med.harvard.edu/chge/hurricanespress.html
second opinion for global waming skeptics;
"(b) Increasing Storms and Floods Dr. Thomas Karl, director of the National Climatic Data Center (NOAA), says that global warming has produced an increase in precipitation during the 20th century, mostly in the form of heavy rainstorms, little in moderate, beneficial rainstorms. Thomas Karl also reports that recent decades have produced a 20% increase in blizzards and heavy rainstorms in the U.S. "Hundred-year events are become more frequent now," notes Karl. In a report issued in November, 1999 the Britain's Meteorological Office warned that flooding in Asia and Southeast Asia would increase more than ninefold over the coming decades. Floods are already increasing worldwide. The year 1998 was the worst on record, with 96 floods in 55 countries.
Scientists are saying that global warming is causing early snowmelts. During the month of December 1996 and the first week of January 1997 unusually warm weather caused an early snowmelt that resulted in record flooding in parts of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, California, Nevada and Montana. These floods forced about 500,000 people to leave their homes. In California alone state officials estimated flood damage to homes and businesses at $1.6 billion. [31]
k) Coastal Flooding Global warming is melting ice to the tune of 50 billion tons of water a year from the Greenland ice sheet. A NASA high-tech aerial survey shows that more than 11 cubic miles of ice is disappearing from the ice sheet annually. "We see a significant trend (in loss of ice mass)," said William B. Krabill, NASA scientist and lead author of a study on Greenland ice melting. "When we can go back after five years and see 10 meters of glacier gone, there is something happening." This is increasing the likelihood of coastal flooding around the world, if this meltdown trend continues. [53]
The rising sea level has led to salt water encroachment producing the "Ghost forests" of South Florida and Louisiana. Since about 1970, the invading salt water has killed hundreds of acres of southern baldcypress trees in Louisiana coastal parishes and sabal palm in Florida. [90] "
above from;
www.ecobridge.org/content/g_dgr.htm
The responsibility of the damage and lost lives from the recent hurricane belongs to the petroleum corporations and their sponsored puppet government led by George Herbert Walker Bush.
There is no amount of money to bring back the dead, however the cost of repairs and clean -up belongs to the petroleum corporations for their role in bringing about global warming, not the taxpayers..
Report this post as:
by Ignored by Bush = criminal negligence
Thursday, Sep. 01, 2005 at 9:27 AM
This work is in the public domain
Previous evidence that global warming would result in more severe storm surges was ignored by the GW Bush administration. The result of ignoring global warming predictions is lost lives and damage in the billions. The petroleum corporations need to be held accountable for their role in bringing about global warming, and the Bush administration's criminal negligence in ignoring the warnings.
There was advanced warning about increased storm surges from future hurricanes given to coastal regions. If these warnings were heeded by the federal government there could have been life saving disaster preparations implemented ahead of time. Most of the financial support to implement these programs would need to come from the federal level. Since the Bush administration ignored these warnings about global warming, that amounts to criminal negligence..
"EXPERTS TO WARN GLOBAL WARMING LIKELY TO CONTINUE SPURRING MORE OUTBREAKS OF INTENSE HURRICANE ACTIVITY
Problem Tied to Rising Sea Temperatures From Trapped Greenhouse Gases; Trend Portends More Storm Damage Costs for FL, AL, LA, TX, NC and SC.
WASHINGTON, D.C.//October 21, 2004///With four hurricanes and tropical storms hitting the United States in a recent five-week period, 2004 already is being called "The Year of the Hurricane." But this year's unusually intense period of destructive weather activity could be a harbinger of what is to come as the effects of global warming become even more pronounced in future years, according to leading experts who participated today in a Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School briefing.
The recent onslaught of four major tropical weather disturbances - Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne - that did so much damage in the United States and nearby Haiti have spurred new questions about the relationship between hurricanes and global warming. While experts can't say that climate change will result in more hurricanes in the future, there is growing evidence and concern that the tropical storms that do happen will be more intense than in the past. Fueling concerns about the link between global warming and hurricanes is a new study on hurricane intensity published on September 28, 2004 in "The Journal of Climate." The study used extensive computer modeling to analyze 1,300 future hurricanes and projected major increase in the intensity and rainfall of hurricanes in coming decades.
"Global warming may well be causing bigger and more powerful hurricanes," said James J. McCarthy, a biological oceanographer at Harvard University and lead author of the climate change impacts portion of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) Third Assessment Report (2001). "Warmer seas fuel the large storms forming over the Atlantic and Pacific, and greater evaporation generates heavy downpours. With warmer, saltier tropical seas, the IPCC has projected larger storms, heavier rainfalls and higher peak winds."
Paul R. Epstein, M.D., associate director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School, said: "Scientists cannot say at present whether more or fewer hurricanes will occur in the future. However, even if the number of storms remained constant, more powerful hurricanes with stronger winds, higher storm surges, and heavier downpours would have an even greater potential for damage, including increased risks to human life and public health, more floods and mudslides, increased coastal erosion and damage to coastal buildings and infrastructure. This is the pattern that we already may be seeing related to the overall increase in extremes.""
above info from;
www.med.harvard.edu/chge/hurricanespress.html
second opinion for global waming skeptics;
"(b) Increasing Storms and Floods Dr. Thomas Karl, director of the National Climatic Data Center (NOAA), says that global warming has produced an increase in precipitation during the 20th century, mostly in the form of heavy rainstorms, little in moderate, beneficial rainstorms. Thomas Karl also reports that recent decades have produced a 20% increase in blizzards and heavy rainstorms in the U.S. "Hundred-year events are become more frequent now," notes Karl. In a report issued in November, 1999 the Britain's Meteorological Office warned that flooding in Asia and Southeast Asia would increase more than ninefold over the coming decades. Floods are already increasing worldwide. The year 1998 was the worst on record, with 96 floods in 55 countries.
Scientists are saying that global warming is causing early snowmelts. During the month of December 1996 and the first week of January 1997 unusually warm weather caused an early snowmelt that resulted in record flooding in parts of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, California, Nevada and Montana. These floods forced about 500,000 people to leave their homes. In California alone state officials estimated flood damage to homes and businesses at $1.6 billion. [31]
k) Coastal Flooding Global warming is melting ice to the tune of 50 billion tons of water a year from the Greenland ice sheet. A NASA high-tech aerial survey shows that more than 11 cubic miles of ice is disappearing from the ice sheet annually. "We see a significant trend (in loss of ice mass)," said William B. Krabill, NASA scientist and lead author of a study on Greenland ice melting. "When we can go back after five years and see 10 meters of glacier gone, there is something happening." This is increasing the likelihood of coastal flooding around the world, if this meltdown trend continues. [53]
The rising sea level has led to salt water encroachment producing the "Ghost forests" of South Florida and Louisiana. Since about 1970, the invading salt water has killed hundreds of acres of southern baldcypress trees in Louisiana coastal parishes and sabal palm in Florida. [90] "
above from;
www.ecobridge.org/content/g_dgr.htm
The responsibility of the damage and lost lives from the recent hurricane belongs to the petroleum corporations and their sponsored puppet government led by George Herbert Walker Bush.
There is no amount of money to bring back the dead, however the cost of repairs and clean -up belongs to the petroleum corporations for their role in bringing about global warming, not the taxpayers..
Report this post as:
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