Only if they believed in science, we would still have New Orleans

What happened in New Orleans through Katrina was precisely predicted 4 years ago in a detailed analysis by scientists:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&articleID=00060286-CB58-1315-8B5883414B7F0000

Of course who cares what scientists say about this or global warming.

If only "they" (not sure who that is) believed in nature, the problem never would have even developed. The historic French area of the city was hardly touched by flooding. I'm taking a guess here, but it sounds to me like the French years ago were smart enough *not to build* in an area prone to bad flooding. WHY did the city expand into an area below sea level? So they get to spend tons of money on pumps and levees? Wow brilliant idea there, wish I'd thought of it. It doesn't make sense...why not build on higher ground? I don't know the answer to this, but it'd be interesting to know.

At one time, the place NO is now *was* higher ground.

Also, do you live in an earthquake, tornado, or fire-prone area?

How long ago was it "safe"?

There's still a difference though--N.O. could probably be rebuilt, slightly relocated, relatively close to where it currently is...and then the problem is pretty much solved. Earthquake, tornado, or fire-prone areas are much larger so it's not an option in those cases. Given the level of destruction currently, I think the rebuilding effort should focus on the people, and rebuilding into safer areas rather than spending a shitload of taxpayer money rebuilding something that could just get destroyed again. "Spend spend spend" is not always the best or only solution, maybe the smart option is to spend, but spend wisely in this case.

Most below sea level cities were founded before we understood the things we do today about geology and weather.

So the now worn out question, "why did they build below sea" level is really sort of moot, not to mention, historically, millions of immigrants came through N.O., as has an enormous amount of commerce. Cities naturally form in such areas.

It's also noteworthy that the sheer weight of the silt that gets deposited in the Mississippi delta has lowered the elevation of N.O. since it was founded. The settlers didn't know that the earth's crust was actually being lowered in that area. Also, we seem to be having more severe weather in recent decades, for whatever reasons - earth's natural cycles, global warming, or perhaps both.

Most of the Netherlands is below sea level, yet they manage to keep the ocean out rather effectively. Their dike system is light-years beyond that of N.O. Why?

Why do people live in So Cal when they know their lives and homes could be destroyed by earthquakes at any given time? Why do people live on the slopes of volcanoes, or on islands that are actually volcanoes?

These aren't the questions we should be asking. What we should be asking is how we can better prepare in the future.

Sort of old news. PBS did a documentary on this serveral years ago. Predicting the same thing.

Rox

We've been extremely lucky in our nation's history to avoiding major disasters caused by our inability to keep the use of our industry and technology in check with nature. Most things have been subtle, hard to prove - like increase of athsma and lung cancer due to air pollution, increase of melanoma due to a thinning ozone, etc.

It was a matter of time - suddenly, the folks in Lousiana and Mississippi are paying a huge price, and the rest of the nation an economic price, for a disaster quite clearly that was severe because of our destruction of the environment.

And yet we have political leaders like Bush who claim keeping environmental standards are "not economically viable" for our businesses. And we believe these lies. Hopefully mother Earth hitting us in the wallet will shake us enough from our gluttonous complacency to make some significant changes to protect our valuable environment.

The amount of dikes and the work done by the Army Core of Engineers resulted in the disaster we now have. Do you realize how much of the Mississippi Delta has been destroyed by economic interests in the past 50 years trying to line their own pockets with the aid of the US of A government? Over 2/3 of the delta wetlands have been wiped out and look at the results. Thousands killed and a city nearly wiped off of the map.

Wetlands would have absorbed most of the flooding and instead of the nightmare we now face we could have settled for wind damage instead of all of the flooding.

I suspect that that the official government response will be to destroy more wetlands so that the next major hurricane will totally wipe New Orleans off of the map forever.

That's precisely why N.O. is sinking. All of the flood control measures on the Mighty Miss have tamed the lion, but have also reduced the replenishing sediments that sustain the salt marshes and outer barrier islands.

I agree all the way

Ok, there are two different issues at play here. The first one is the very real and very legitimate argument about changing the courses of rivers and damning up large bodies of water or draining marshes for more housing development. There's room for argument here. But the fact is, the problem lies not with the storm, or the alterations (maybe) but the fact that the levees weren't built strong enough. The Netherlands, a country which sits almost entirely below sea level has depended on an intricate systems of dikes and waterways for its survival. Seems like we should have taken a page from their book. It probably boils down to cost. Someone just didn't think it was worth the expense to build better levees.

ON THE OTHER HAND....

People are desperately trying to lump Global Warming into all this and that's just a crock.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,168247,00.html
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,166150,00.html
http://greenspin.blogspot.com/2005_08_28_greenspin_archive.html#112564167872364312
http://junkscience.com/

A terrible hurricane hit the Gulf Coast. If we look at the damage done directly by Katrina, we'd be well into clean up by now and we'd be moving on. The catastrophic part came as an indirect result of Katrina and a direct result of the failure to build stronger levees-ie. the massive flooding. So let's get our facts straight when we talk about this.

-Kiamat Dusk
Tell me again how global *warming* causes an *ice* age.....?

No one mentioned global warming in this thread until you did

But as an answer to your question - its pretty simple - Global warming results in incresses the amount of moisture in the atmosphere. The Atmospheres Ability to hold mositure is Directly related to temperature.

Increased Cloud cover results in an increase in reflected solar energy and a decrease in surface temperatures.

This cycle can lead to a dramatic cooling of the planet. As is hypothesized how ice ages begin.

-----------------------------
The more direct comment that a decrease in errosion upstream effects the Delta and its ability to handle excess water is accurate. There is simply LESS land down stream in the delta then there was becuase of Errosion. Normally Land erroded upstream and deposited in the delta.

Also any city that lives below sea level and doesnt ensure their Dyke system is More that sufficent to handle historically possible/probable storms , I think is negligent.

Its true that it probably waould have been expensive to increase the Levee system in NO,
In the end it would have been far cheaper than this disaster. And all those lives lost are tragic.

Now of course in addition they Probably Will build a better levee system so Both costs were borne.

I think NO gambled that there wouldnt be a storm like this. And Lost. And all those people suffered/ are suffering for it.

Agreed. We learned the same lesson about airport security on 9/11. ...on second thought, maybe not. *sigh*

-Kiamat Dusk

Then why is it hotter on overcast nights? Because the heat is trapped by the clouds an unable to radiate back into space. Greenhouse effect, right? So what's it gonna be? Greenhouse or ice age?

-Kiamat Dusk
Lightly toasted

Greenhouse effect occurs when certain gases (even water vapor) trap the suns energy causing the earth to be about 60 degrees warmer then it would without the greenhouse effect. Now when you add other pollutants (carbon dioxide, methane ect. known as greenhouse gases) things get a bit more tricky. Other than that the greenhouse effect is a natural phenom that keeps us all from freezing our asses off.

Global Warming and the Greenhouse effect are not one and the same although many conservatives love to lump them together...

And Bravo Hiro couldn't agree more...

Thats bush the idiot for not taking action on global warming seeing as though the usa are the main contributers to it

Enough of the USA bashing crap. This is not the place for it.

Hopefully before the next expected "Big One" (IE earthquake) hits the San Andreas chain. That will probably be another good example of "We are ready for this. *rumble* Oh, shit... no we weren't."

Remember 1906. April 18th, next year, signifies the 100th anniversary of said quake.

Five Weeks After:

Now can I talk about how global warming has nothing to do with this?


-Kiamat Dusk

Also look up "the great conveyor belt"

Or "North Atlantic Current" might be better.

Course, none of it is real... so why should we bother worrying? Not like the sacrifices we'd have to make now would be worth avoiding that kind of catastropic event or anything. I need my APC to get the kids to soccer and carry all that milk.