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Global Warning - Sep 10, 2005 - Printable Version
- Katrina and the Waves
by Robin Buckallew
Listen to the wind. The gentle whispering breeze that cools our summers and gently fans across our cheeks. Now it builds in a mighty crescendo, becoming a violent roar that threatens our lifestyles and even our very lives. Listen to the wind, for its message is powerful, and its warnings ignored at our own peril. For too long, we have ignored the wind. Now the wind will be ignored no longer. The wind has been disrespected, but no more. The mighty forces of wind and water have joined together in a powerful ballet that commands our attention, that forces us to focus our wandering minds, dragging us from our dreams of dominion to a nightmare of our own making. Mischievously, the powers that be in their whimsical ways have named the wind Katrina. Now we pay attention to Katrina - Katrina and the waves. Two summers ago, I stood in a boat in the Mississippi Delta, off the coast of Louisiana. I was lucky enough to be part of a field trip that was inspecting one of the most ambitious restoration projects yet undertaken by the hand of man. Aerial photographs revealed the problem - the dramatic loss of land from the Gulf Coast shoreline, a result of years and years of human alterations to a system only poorly understood, and even more poorly respected. Human hubris had made channels, built dams and levees, and cleared vegetation all along the Mississippi River, in the delusional belief that human genius and technology could somehow control the mightiest river on the North American continent. Short-sighted, simplistic and poorly informed, engineers of all sorts devised ambitious construction projects, believing that the mind of man was better prepared to direct the course of nature than nature itself. Gradually, the alterations in the watershed have taken their toll, erasing much of the shoreline, and destroying many of the wetlands that were once a crucial part of the Louisiana landscape. This restoration project was designed to reverse that process, to restore to the coast some of what was once there before it was too late. Now, it is too late. Katrina has reclaimed the coast. We can only stand back in awe before the combined power of wind and water, humbling our modest endeavors, laying waste to our proudest achievements. The cost in human life is as yet untallied, the cost in property yet unmeasured.
Already fingers of blame are being pointed in all directions, as we try desperately to come to grips with a power greater than ourselves, a power we cannot control and cannot understand. We talk about the mightiest of winds as though there were malicious intent, we refer to it by terms that impute consciousness to an unconscious natural force - the wind is "bad", "wicked", or "evil". The wind is "threatening", "cruel" or "monstrous". In fact, the wind is none of these things. The wind just is. Throughout the history of the planet, winds and rains have battered and shaped the landscape, and it is only man who imputes intent. The wind is not a punishment. It is not a judgment. Storms strike indiscriminately, carrying away Christians and pagans, adults and children, good and bad, prayerful and obscene, without any selection for piety or sin. It is only in our limited human imaginations that we believe that somehow the wind is directed at us, that we must be the target. We shudder and cower before the mighty wind, unable and unwilling to recognize the obvious: the wind is totally unnoticing, totally unaware of and uncaring about our existence. But the wind does carry a message, a message of folly and irresponsibility that we must listen to. We must heed the message of the wind, and seek to correct the folly of our ancestors and ourselves if we are to hope to regain our equilibrium and keep hold of our precarious foothold in the world.
Many people ask me, is this about global warming? Did global warming cause Katrina? In reality, yes and no. It is about global warming. But I, like all other scientists, would be ill-advised to say that Katrina, or any other single storm, was caused by global warming. Storms happen, and have always happened. They would happen with or without human intervention. The role of global warming in the current tragedy is much more complex than that. Overall, climate scientists have been noticing trends. There is some evidence that the number of storms has been increasing as the average temperature increases - in fact, there have been more hurricanes this year than any other year by this time since 1854. Five years since 1995 have registered maximum activity levels for Atlantic hurricane activity. Pacific hurricane activity has demonstrated a similar pattern. This makes sense, as a hurricane requires warm surface water to form. Another trend that has been noticed is an increase in the duration and the intensity of the storm events. Not only are there more storms, but they last longer and they hit harder. This trend is likely attributable to global warming, and is of great concern to climate scientists who are studying the impacts of global climate changes. You don't believe me? Ask the insurance companies. Their experts keep a constant tracking of disasters and damage, and they signed on to the fight against global warming some time ago. After all, global warming threatens them where it hurts capitalism the most - in their profits. In addition to the increased severity of the hurricanes, with the global population steadily increasing, the number of people living along the coastlines increases, putting more and more people in harms way. A million years ago, or even 200 years ago, Katrina could have hit the coastline, and the damage would have been much different.
The problem, though, isn't just global warming. After all, the storm could possibly have happened without global warming. Another significant problem that contributed to the extreme intensity of this storm was the loss of coastal wetlands. As the wetlands have eroded away and disappeared into the Gulf, the probabilities of a killer hurricane hitting New Orleans have been magnified. You see, wetlands act as a buffer, which absorb a great deal of the massive surges in excess water and wind caused by large storm events. Wetlands protect against flooding. There is a general rule of thumb that tells us that every mile or two of marshland will reduce a storm surge by as much as a foot. The marshland will reduce the strength of the storm by removing the warm water that acts as a fuel. The loss of the wetlands has, in itself, been a great tragedy. The intact wetlands could have prevented a great tragedy.
Throughout most of human history, wetlands have not been well regarded. They have been seen as stagnant cesspools, breeding grounds for mosquitoes, or sometimes just as an interruption of farmable, ranchable land that must be drained to make room for cows or corn. The Florida Everglades were sacrificed to make room for sugar plantations and retirement villages. The Iowa prairie wetlands were sacrificed for golden rows of corn. Wetlands all across the continent mysteriously disappeared, reappearing in a new reincarnation as amber waves of grain. It wasn't until the middle of the 20th century that anyone stopped, looked around them and said, "Hey, wait a minute. Are you sure this is such a good idea?". The Corps of Engineers (COE) and the Bureau of Reclamation looked up briefly, threw a couple of rotten eggs, and went back to their dam-building and wetland draining activities. After all, wetlands were "wasteland". They served no valuable purpose, made no contribution to the national economy. Attempts were made by wetland protection advocates to estimate a dollar value for the ecological services that wetlands provide. This activity has been highly controversial. Many ecologists feel the economic valuation diminishes wetlands, and reduces them simply to a commodity. Also, they feel the values set are way too low, as many of the services that wetlands provide have no counterpart in the economic sector, leaving nothing comparable to use in establishing the valuation. As a result, many values were set very conservatively, to avoid over-stating the case and make sure that the values thus arrived at could be supported. On the other hand, many advocates of draining and filling wetlands feel that the valuations thus established were too high.
This controversy has been raging for a number of years, and no resolution is in sight. Meanwhile, wetland draining has continued, though now requiring a permit before it can be legally undertaken. The permitting process is believed by many to be adequate protection for the nation's wetlands, but is it? In fact, the COE approves nearly all permits for wetland draining. Wetlands did receive some measure of protection by Congress under the Clean Water Act, and regulation was justified under Congress' power to regulate insterstate commerce. In the latter part of the 20th century, President George H. W. Bush vowed commitment to protection of our nation's wetland resources, under the auspices of "no net loss". This policy was also subscribed to by his successor, President William J. Clinton, and was initially espoused by the current administration under President George W. Bush. In spite of that, the United States continues to lose wetlands at a frightening pace. Only about 95 million acres of wetland remain, out of a total of approximately 215 million acres at the time of European settlement. This represents a loss of 56% of our wetland riches. The loss of wetlands isn't evenly distributed across the nation. Some states, such as Iowa, have lost greater than 90% of their original wetlands to human settlement, while other states have somewhat lower rates of loss. Along the Louisiana coast, the wetland loss has been severe, with an area roughly the size of Manhattan lost every year, roughly one acre every 24 minutes.
Where do the wetlands go? Well, there are many complex answers to that. In Louisiana, as in Florida, much wetland area has been sacrificed to the developers. Shoreline property is highly valued for vacation homes and resorts, and construction has boomed in the coastal areas. In addition, a great deal of marshland has been given over to oil and gas development, with the drillers digging canals at will wherever they wished (more than 8,000 miles of canals), and laying pipeline in massive amounts. Louisiana produces and transports a great deal of oil and natural gas, and the total amount passing through the area amounts to more than a third of the nation's oil and a quarter of its natural gas. In addition, these canals allowed the intrusion of salt water into the freshwater marshes, killing the grasses that helped maintain the wetland. Another culprit in the huge floods that hit New Orleans last week is, ironically, the levees themselves that are designed to protect the city from flooding. Large networks of dams and levees lace the entire Mississippi River, which ultimately empties into the Gulf of Mexico. The levees have effectively confined the river, to prevent the periodic flooding that occurs naturally. During the seasonal floods, the river has typically dumped millions of tons of sediments in the delta which replenished the wetlands and the barrier islands. Because of the levees, most of this sediment is now being dumped in the Gulf, instead of deposited in the floodplains.
This is a problem that has become evident in recent decades in many localities, not only along the Mississippi, but also along the Colorado River, which has been heavily dammed to provide water to a thirsty west to support a rapidly growing population. In addition, Egypt has reported decreasing fertility in agricultural lands along the Nile River following the building of the Aswan dam, which prevented the Nile from flooding seasonally and depositing nutrient rich sediment along its banks. These sediments for centuries provided the residents of the area with the ability to establish crops that would thrive and support them until the next year's flood season brought a fresh supply of sediment. Ironically, actions which we have taken to increase our quality of life may have the ultimate result of robbing us of quality of life, and for many, such as those who didn't make it out of New Orleans in time, robbing us of life itself. Once again, the short-sighted vision of the ever-busy human mind has failed to realize the long-term consequences. When it comes time to pay the piper, it is often our poorest citizens who get stuck with the bill.
Now, as a result of reckless and irresponsible ignorance of natural processes, the city of New Orleans lies buried underneath a blanket of dirty, bacteria-infested stagnant water. Citizens recently departing the city report a stench that forced them to finally evacuate their homes. The lives they knew are gone. United States citizens are now refugees, environmental refugees, from a disaster that puts any self-respecting war zone to shame for the level of total destruction. The long-range problems are as yet only hinted at, as experts debate whether there will even be any attempt to rebuild New Orleans. An old city, and a proud one, has been erased in a flash. We hold the responsibility. And the response of our president? He, and the other leaders of industrial companies, have opened the reserves of gas and oil in an attempt to drive the prices back down, serve the American addiction, and keep consumption of fossil fuels at a reckless and dangerous level. We are so enamored of the chief culprit of this disaster that we cannot even hide our heads in shame at our own culpability, instead exhorting our leaders to lead us further and further off the precipice by feeding our addiction with cheaper fuel. We externalize the problems of New Orleans - it is someone else, it is out there. It is an "Act of God" that we cannot control. We choose not to notice that the answer is in our hands - as we grasp the handle of the gas pump, as we gaily jingle our car keys, as we once more engage in that familiar ritual of turning the key in the ignition. We have blood on our hands. Today the blood of the Arabs is joined with the blood of our fellow Americans, as the citizens of New Orleans mourn their dead and try desperately to keep their living fed. How much more blood is needed?
I urge you, think about the plight of New Orleans. It isn't the President who can lead us through this crisis. He isn't bright enough, he isn't brave enough, he isn't strong enough. He is just one man, and he lacks the moral conviction to set a shining example for his constituents by abandoning the greed of the industry that has been like mother's milk to him. If you want to know who can lead us through this crisis, look in the mirror. Most of us continue to sit back and wonder when someone is going to do something. Only you can answer that question. We have to take the initiative. We have to get out of the car. We have to demand a massive restructuring of our nation's transportation system, a reconstruction of our nation's priorities. Bus and train systems exist, they could be upgraded rapidly if we all pulled together. Convenient schedules, affordable fares, clean accommodations. Those are all achievable, and have been achieved by many other countries. Demand it. Demand that your leaders listen. If they won't listen, replace them. At the very least, quit driving by yourself. During World War II, there was a phrase, "When you ride alone, you ride with Hitler". We need to rework that phrase: "When you ride alone, you ride with Death". Don't hold out your hopes waiting for some distant technology to become cheap enough and available enough to "save" us without sacrifice. We don't have the luxury of time for that anymore.
In addition, insist that our leaders protect our wetlands. It is time to let nature show us how it is done. The removal of dams and levees might seem like a risky undertaking, since flooding will occur. But the flooding will once again serve a useful purpose. Flooding can be protected against by some smart measures. Establish buffer zones around all water bodies, prohibiting development in the flood zone. This will allow the natural flow of the water, the natural flooding process that replenishes the land and the nutrients, and still manage to protect human life and property. Let the water run. Let nature have the wetlands back, and allow them to work in the way they did in the distant past. We need to stop forcing all activities into the strait jacket of economic equations and cost-benefit analyses. The costs of Katrina were never figured into a cost-benefits analysis, as they were not able to be measured until after the fact. In reality, the true benefits of many of our natural systems cannot be measured in dollars and cents. We don't have any industrial process that mimics certain natural processes, and we are not knowledgeable enough to make a reasonable estimate. We should humbly admit our ignorance, and allow nature to do what only nature can do best. Release the rivers from bondage, free them from the slavery that keeps them from being their functional best.
Today, I am again trying to listen to the wind. It is very quiet, and I can feel it blowing gently through the open window. But the message of the wind is harder to hear today. It is difficult to hear above the roar of the passing cars, the thunder of the television, the cacophony that we are now nearly immune to. The wind has a message for us. It is a powerful message, it is an important message. It should not be ignored. Listen. Listen to the wind. Your life may depend on it.
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