A Change in the Wind

No Central Command

From a Newsweek  story on the disastrous lack of government oversight in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina:

The skies in New Orleans gradually filled with search-and-rescue helicopters, but there was no central command to coordinate them. A NEWSWEEK reporter on a helo flown by the Arizona Air Reserve heard this conversation as the crew readied to leave New Orleans Louis Armstrong Airport after dropping off two evacuees.

FIRST CREWMAN: "F---, is he hearing us?" (referring to the air-traffic controller).
LIEUTENANT: "I don't know, we should just take off."
ENGINEER: "We just got back from Afghanistan. Organization's a lot better there."

Who is Harlan Talking To?

According to a story in USAToday, Harlan L. Watson, the U.S. envoy to negotiations on climate change, finds no connection between climate change and the strength of hurricanes.

"Our scientists are telling us right now that there's not a linkage," he said in Geneva. "I'll rely on their information."

None. Zero. Nada. Zip.

This is depressing. As discussed below at length, to blame Hurricane Katrina and its devastation entirely on global warming, as a couple of prominent speakers have, is simplistic and, for liberals, all too convenient. But at the same time, theoretical math and observational science have found solid links between global warming and stronger, wetter storms, and a highly-regarded M.I.T. researcher named Kerry Emanuel has specified that connection to hurricanes, finding a 50% increase in wind speed in hurricanes in recent years in an important paper published this year in  Nature. His paper, which is linked below, has opened a new line of research that quite possibly will be validated by other scientists. As Emanuel mentions in his opening line, a great deal of evidence suggests that global warming should bring us wetter, longer-lived hurricanes, it just hasn't been shown yet.

A reporter in Geneva needs to ask Watson if he's ever heard of Emanuel or the alarming evidence he's found. If Watson says he hasn't, a reporter needs to ask him who is briefing him, and why he hasn't even heard of the debate in the field on this um, important, topic.

The basic lack of curiousity on the part of the placeholders in the White House towards scientific questions has been thoroughly shown. If they won't ask the questions, it's time for those who make their living asking questions to start putting them on the spot, on this and many other issues. 

Proving the Point...Again

In response to the escalating disaster in New Orleans, the White House proves unable even to co-ordinate its own spokespeople. 

The Bush administration, struggling to master the chaos of New Orleans, seems to have a logistical problem closer to home: getting the White House on the same page with the Homeland Security Department.

But really, we shouldn't be surprised. P.J. O'Rouke, nobody's idea of a liberal, warned us:

The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then gets elected and proves it.

[from Holidays in Hell. l989, London (Picador), 270-271]

Something Gave

Today the Chicago Tribune develops the story about the disastrous Republican underfunding of the flood-control system designed to prevent New Orleans from catastrophe. The lede:

Despite continuous warnings that a catastrophic hurricane could hit New Orleans, the Bush administration and Congress in recent years have repeatedly denied full funding for hurricane preparation and flood control.

The warning:

In July 2004, for instance, federal, state and local officials staged a simulation in which a "Hurricane Pam" slammed into New Orleans with 120 m.p.h. winds and created havoc that was eerily similar to that of Hurricane Katrina, including widespread building damage and death.

A Republican official speaks out:

"I'm not saying it wouldn't still be flooded, but I do feel that if it had been totally funded, there would be less flooding than you have," said Michael Parker, a former Republican Mississippi congressman who headed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from October 2001 until March 2002, when he was ousted after publicly criticizing a Bush administration proposal to cut the corps' budget.

The local expert speaks:

Joseph Suhayda, an emeritus engineering professor at Louisiana State University who has worked for the Army Corps of Engineers, said the corps simply didn't have enough money to build the levees as high as the designs called for. "The fact that they weren't that high was a result of lack of funding," he said, noting that part of the levee at the 17th Street Canal--where one of the breaches occurred--was 4 feet lower than the rest. "I think they could have significantly reduced the impact if they had those projects funded. If you need to spend $20 million and you spend $4 or $5 million, something's got to give."

The President answers, on "Good Morning America."

"I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees."