A week ago in a column in the Philadelphia Daily News, Stu Bykovsky made a provocative point, arguing that "to save America, we need another 9/11."
To put it in a nutshell, he said that because the Bush administration botched the Iraq War, the United States has lost "its righteous rage and singular purpose to prevail" against the enemy.
"We bicker over trees while the forest is ablaze," he wrote.
Some pesky nitpickers might point out that going to war against Iraq was actually not the best way to attack Al-Qaeda. But let me put that aside and make a comparable point: To motivate us as a nation to act to reduce global the threat warming, we need another Hurricane Katrina.
No doubt Stu Bykovsky doesn't really wish for the deaths of his fellow Americans, and as someone who lived through a deadly flood, quite possibly connected to global warming, that killed quite a few of my fellow Californians and tore up my property for months, believe me, I don't wish a flood or other disaster, natural or unnatural, on anyone.
But the fact is that once again the discussion on global warming has bogged down in wonky arguments. Reducing carbon emissions won't be easy, but it's certainly possible -- if we try.
If we don't try; no, it won't happen. And we will find ourselves living on "a different planet" -- which we won't like as much as the one we have. As Nicholas Kristof writes in an op-ed today:
If we learned that Al Qaeda was secretly developing a new terrorist technique that could disrupt water supplies around the globe, force tens of millions from their homes and potentially endanger our entire planet, we would be aroused into a frenzy and deploy every possible asset to neutralize the threat.
It's time to get serious -- starting now. Already the insurance industry has taken action, and in its own monetary way is telling people to move away from the coast in Florida, along the Gulf, and even in the East. Local governments are beginning to move on the issue as best they can. But the powerful Federal government has done nothing, which has global and perhaps irreversible consequences. We need to act, and it appears that it will take what the experts call "a societal trauma" to make it happen.
I'm sorry, but somebody needs to say it. We need another Katrina -- now.
