Everything Flows Downstream
Maybe it's just part of the stupor caused by recently returning to work after a wonderful four-month hiatus, but I have been far too susceptible to loops of estuarine suffering and the almost-smarmy credibility of Aaron Brown this week. I never watch CNN or network news in general, but this evolving display of meteorology, politics, sociology, fluid dynamics, and pathos has kept me hostage.
I see a link between N'awlins and Iraq, but nothing as obvious as absent national guard troops or guns-or-buttress choices about federal spending. It's the intractability of ideas: the folly of Bush's recent talking point about staying the course in Iraq is paralleled by three centuries of colossal metropolitan error in allowing a city to flourish on such a site. Bush says we must persevere in order to honor the dead; New Orleans endured because Louisiana never had the political will to remove its primary city to higher ground. Too much invested, perhaps, in both cases to change course.
The river never had trouble changing course before federal engineers channeled it into a long last culvert spewing the effluent of the heartland into the Gulf of Mexico. It swamped its banks and abandoned old channels for eons. But young man hubris, he just keeps strolling along.
posted by Michael Nordskog @ 3:36 PM
1 Comments:
There is one shiny example of natural catastrophe forcing wise community planning. Its Hilo, Hawaii. Tsunamis devastated the cities waterfront in the 1940's and again in the 1960's. The city wisely decided to not rebuild its waterfront, but opted to create a 130 acre park of open/green space, which has since become a great assett to the community and its visitors.
New Orleans can today take a similar wise step, or perhaps they might look to the Hollanders who appear to have the sea in the palm of their hand....or do they? They have invested billions in their seawall and are looking pretty intelligent for it these days, but the global warming card is yet to be played. I fear the next century will make the previous one appear a different dimension.
Sea levels are forecasted to rise 3 feet in this period. In Holland, on the shore of the North Sea, this may be just another 3 feet, but in the Gulf of Mexico, the additional 3 feet coupled with increased frequency and intensity of hurricanes caused by the warming seas might make this last catastrophe mere childsplay.
With our tax dollars channeled to rebuilding efforts, I'd opt for conditional rebuilding, based on the humbling realization we will eventually lose if we choose to battle against Mother Earth.
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