Reflections on Katrina
posted by Rick at 2:01 PM

In the unfolding disaster that has turned one of America's most beloved cities into a third-world slum, a few things are becoming clear:

1. Much of this was preventable.

No, we don't know how to stop a hurricane; and no, nobody could have predicted a month ago that a strong Category 4 hurricane would strike New Orleans. But the city was unprepared for even a Category 3 storm, and there were plenty of warnings.

And there was much the government could have - indeed, should have - done to reduce the threat. Hurricanes derive their energy from warm water; development of a major storm depends on a surface temperature of at least 81°F. Not surprisingly, most if not all global warming models predict increased hurricane severity. A recent MIT study confirms that over the past 50 years, the strength (as measured by maximum wind speeds) and duration of tropical cyclones has increased by 50% - and that the strength variations from year to year parallel ocean temperature changes, implying a causal relationship. While the rest of the world, and even some US states, implement programs to reduce the threat of global warming, the Bush administration refuses to cooperate.

It's established fact that coastal wetlands provide a buffer zone, absorbing the storm surge before it comes ashore. The Clinton administration instituted tough new wetlands protection policies, which were overturned - over the protests of environmentalists and local governments - by the Bush administration.

Bush also cut FEMA budgets and hurricane preparedness funding (including levee improvement studies in New Orleans), again over the protests of local government.


2. The situation is being badly mismanaged, and the effects are falling disproportionately on the poor.

The governor of Louisiana bemoans the fact that so many people"chose" not to evacuate before the storm. But the overwhelming majority of those who stayed had no choice in the matter. New Orleans has a larger percentage than any other American city, including New York, of residents who do not own cars. The poor (New Orleans is also a national leader in per capita poverty) and the homeless had no way out of harm's way, and now those who survived the hurricane and the initial flooding are dying in the streets while they wait for relief.

It's apparent that planning for hurricane recovery also did not include caring for the survivors. Within 48 hours of the tsunami that hit Asia last December, food and water were being air-dropped to the survivors. It has taken twice that long for supplies to begin to trickle into New Orleans. Meanwhile, President Bush has announced a policy of "zero tolerance for looters." Press Secretary Scott McClellan, asked if the zero-tolerance policy applies to desperate people taking only what they need to survive, confirmed that it does. There are other ways to get what they need, he said. Let them eat cake.

The same policy is espoused by the Democratic governor of Louisiana, the one who gave the mandatory evacuation order but did not provide a means for the destitute to comply, and now has given the National Guard shoot-to-kill orders.


3. This tragedy is not an isolated incident, and it will not be the last.

The failure to confront global warming, the siphoning of funds from hurricane preparedness to help cover wartime tax cuts for the wealthy, and the abandonment of wetlands protections were not deliberately or specifically targeted at exacerbating the misery in New Orleans. They are all parts of larger patterns, patterns that include other components and have other effects.

The Bush administration has made it standard policy to downplay, ignore, or suppress science if it conflicts with the administration's ideology, or with the profitability of its corporate sponsors. In the wake of 9/11, the EPA was pressured to remove or soften warnings about the air quality in downtown Manhattan. Scientists who warn of global warming are harassed by Big Oil-aligned Congressional Republicans. Pandering to the religious right, Bush advocates the teaching of "creation science" and "intelligent design" as viable alternatives to evolution. Good science, like good intelligence, consistently takes a back seat to politics and ideology. Decisions are made based on preconceived notions of what the administration and its cronies want to do; science and intelligence are then "sexed up," distorted, or discarded altogether if they show that the decisions are flawed.

But these decisions have consequences. Setting religious fundamentalism up as equal or superior to science leaves a generation of Americans misled by those who should be educating them; as a result, the US will continue to decline among the best educated workforces in the world, and more and more high-tech jobs will go to the countries that are better educated. Insisting on abstinence-only sex education leaves teens more vulnerable to pregnancy and STDs, including AIDS. Failure to steward the environment has far-reaching effects that we can only begin to guess at, from global warming to mass extinctions to public health nightmares. The continuing, accelerating transfer of wealth to the wealthy pushes more and more Americans into poverty. The concentration of media ownership into a few hands, coupled with the elimination of the Fairness Doctrine, turns American media into a giant propaganda machine and allows the government to lead us into disastrous wars that earn us international contempt and make us less secure. The erosion of civil rights, especially when combined with the lifetime appointments of right-wingers to the judiciary, threatens to turn our society into a police state.


4. Americans care.

Americans are opening their hearts and their homes and their wallets to the survivors of Hurricane Katrina. Across the nation, donations are pouring into disaster relief efforts. As we were in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, we are united in sympathy and support for those affected by this disaster.

If the storm clouds that rained death and destruction on Louisiana and Mississippi have a silver lining, it is that they have awakened Americans to the fact that the path down which the corporate-sponsored right has taken our country is a path fraught with peril. If we're lucky - if we're very lucky - it might not be too late to turn things around.