Hitting the Nail on the Head
cma...@hotmail.com
Today is the second anniversary of the landfall of Hurricane Katrina.
Recently, a barrage of articles condemning the Army Corps of Engineers
have been published in Time Magazine, National Geographic, The
Washington Post and several smaller publications. The articles say,
essentially, that there are many areas that simply aren't worth saving
in coastal Louisiana because federal assets will have to be directed
to more important areas as sea level rise begins to affect more and
more coastal cities. The Time Magazine article emphasized this point
over and over again and was particularly one-sided in its approach of
condemning all who are attempting to protect coastal infrastructure
with levee systems. While I am, in no way, excusing the Corps of
Engineers from fault in the flooding of New Orleans and the
destruction of Louisiana's coastal wetlands and do believe that
restoration is far more important than levees, I still believe it is
naive and selfish to suggest that the ways of the Corps cannot be
changed for the better, that Louisiana is destined to sink into the
Gulf no matter what and that Louisiana is less deserving of help and
attention because it is not on the East Coast or Pacific Northwest.
Making the Time Magazine article more offensive is the fact that the
writer of the article, a Michael Grunwald, was presented with and
accepted an opportunity to speak with scientists, engineers and state
officials who are working diligently to save the coast and have
designed a well-thought out and scientifically rigorous plan that can
reclaim wetlands and protect the infrastructure that is vital to the
entire nation. Grunwald chose not to report that. He has appeared on
several radio interviews since the article was published and he speaks
down his snooty, arrogant, yankee nose at those who tempt fate by
living in such insignificant places as Chauvin (pronounced Show-van,
but pronounced incorrectly by Grunwald as Co-Van), Fourchon, and
Houma. While he raised many points in his article that are true and
well articulated, the idea that he approached a subject as important
as this with such a myopic view of the "facts" is disturbing and
insulting.
In stark contrast, I present to this group an opinion column that
appeared in today's Boston Globe that hits the nail directly on the
head in identifying exactly why South Louisiana is vital to the rest
of the nation, why small towns along this coast matter and what the
rest of the nation owes the wetlands and the people of this state for
all it has taken in the past. Enjoy the read:
thanks,
Mac.
Scott Alister McKinley
notes like that are what makes me so glad we keep this thing going.
I don't really have anything more to add to that topic other than to
note that over the years one of two things have always been assumed:
either reports of out-of-body experiences are taken to be evidence of
an afterlife, or they are not-to-be-believed by rationalist skeptics.
Obviously there is something in between, and I think that we're in for
a fascinating twenty years.
Anybody interested in a semi-good read that will make you think about
this stuff should look to "Stumbling on Happiness" by Daniel Gilbert.
(If there are other suggestions, please let me know!)
...
Secondly, thanks to Chris for forwarding that article. I have to
admit that I had been getting frustrated by most of the second
anniversary coverage I've seen. It seems that the point still has not
been communicated that so much of the scale of the Katrina disaster
was due to generations worth of human error.
It infuriates me how quickly environmentalists rally to the aid of the
Alaska Wildlife Refuge, the Pacific Northwest or the Everglades or to
spotted owls ... and yet I have never seen (even after Katrina!) any
sort of rally for the place that is the _most_ vulnerable where the
environment has the _most_ to lose and the culprit is the _worst_
environmental enemy (oil companies).
It just seems like it oughta be a no-brainer.
Mathieu (occasional post-er to the list) once pointed out to me the
paradox that in Africa, the nations with the most stable governments
and strongest economies are exactly the ones with the least resources.
This is because the resource-rich nations were exploited during the
Colonial years and the local infrastructure never recovered.
I'm becoming convinced Louisiana is another potent example. In some
sense, if Louisiana were an independent nation, it should be as rich
as Dubai. Instead, the rest of America has helped itself to our
coastline at tremendous cost to the local environment and the local
economy. This question is larger than New Orleans. Houma wouldn't be
endangered if we hadn't spent generations dredging the marshes or
throwing up levees without thinking about consequences.
And now that we're hit and hurting, and now that we have a plan and
we're asking for help to undo part of what has been done .... the
national narrative is that it's too costly ...
despite the fact that we're asking over 20 years for less than what we
spend in Iraq in TWO WEEKS.
Sorry for the rant ... today sucks.
Scott
Erik Miller
I don't really have anything more to add to that topic other than to
note that over the years one of two things have always been assumed:
either reports of out-of-body experiences are taken to be evidence of
an afterlife, or they are not-to-be-believed by rationalist skeptics.
Obviously there is something in between, and I think that we're in for
a fascinating twenty years.
Mathieu (occasional post-er to the list) once pointed out to me the
paradox that in Africa, the nations with the most stable governments
and strongest economies are exactly the ones with the least resources.
This is because the resource-rich nations were exploited during the
Colonial years and the local infrastructure never recovered.
I'm becoming convinced Louisiana is another potent example. In some
sense, if Louisiana were an independent nation, it should be as rich
as Dubai. Instead, the rest of America has helped itself to our
coastline at tremendous cost to the local environment and the local
economy. This question is larger than New Orleans. Houma wouldn't be
endangered if we hadn't spent generations dredging the marshes or
throwing up levees without thinking about consequences.
Luggage? GPS? Comic books?
Check out fitting gifts for grads at Yahoo! Search.
Scott Alister McKinley
at the guy who's tops on everyone's list to replace him: Michael
Chertoff. And people actually have the nerve to speak highly of him
on the _anniversary_ of his incompetent response to the storm.
Second: Katrina stuff
After thinking about this a bit, I should admit a few things. I
realize that Louisianians have always had a hand in ruining our own
environment. The key fact is that environmentalists go to great
lengths to protect Alaska from their senator Ted Stevens; and to
protect Florida from their own governor Jeb Bush; but these groups
have never raised a finger to protect La. from its own villains.
In fact, Democrats have bizarrely defended environmentally destructive
commercial fishing interests over the years under the banner of
protecting small business. This has led to the paradox that
Republicans in La. are simultaneously Big Oil's best friend and the
only protector of our wetlands. Suffice it to say, business has
always won.
And Erik, you're right that cause and effect are murky in the large
resources / bad governance debate; my major point there is that
federal laws are set up in such a way that resources are extracted at
a local environmental cost, and yet that cost is not compensated ...
a deal negotiated by dysfunctional local governance.
Third: Science has always reshaped religious views and I really do
believe that advances in understanding consciousness will forever
change the religious sense of what a soul is. Most significantly, I
hope that future generations of religious people will stop arguing
that blastocytes are imbued with souls. In places where there is no
Scriptural basis for difference, the religious consensus tends to
align with scientific consensus over time.
Scott