The Dish

“I think your conclusion that global warming has nothing to do with the destruction in the South is a bit premature. First, two admissions: You (and the Times) are right, science hasn’t shown a connection between hurricane frequency and climate change. Second, global warming is certainly not responsible for any individual hurricane.
However, there is evidence that hurricane intensity may well be linked to global warming. There’s an interesting piece in Nature by Kerry Emanuel that explores this link. While global climate change may not increase the number of hurricanes we experience, an increase in the severity and duration of hurricanes could be just as bad, if not worse.
The point is that our actions have environmental consequences that in turn affect our well being. Combine the preliminary research by Emanuel with the strong evidence that diminishing wetlands around New Orleans removes an important protective barrier, and I think there’s a strong case to be made that we may be making ourselves more vulnerable to severe weather events. This doesn’t mean we should start blaming the victim or saying that ‘we had it coming’, but it does warrant a closer look at how we can make better choices by accounting for all of the costs. Isn’t that essentially your SUV argument?” Here’s what NASA says about the potential effects of global warming:

Right now the IPCC reports that the amount of precipitation, especially in the mid-latitude to high-latitude regions of the Northern Hemisphere, will likely increase. They believe, however, that it will come in the form of bigger, wetter storms, rather than in the form of more rainy days. So it’s more probable that the increase in rain will only serve to tax our drainage systems rather than benefit vegetation or replenish natural, underground aquifers. As to larger more destructive weather patterns, hurricanes will likely increase in intensity due to warmer ocean surface temperatures. And researchers speculate that El Niño events may increase in intensity for the same reason.

Here’s another source:

Although we cannot say at present whether more or fewer hurricane will occur in the future with global warming, the hurricanes that do occur near the end of the 21st century are expected to be stronger and have significantly more intense rainfall than under present day climate conditions.

I already conceded that in the abstract, global warming might be related to hurricanes. But there’s no specific evidence to relate it to Katrina, worse hurricanes have landed before, and nothing that has just happened is somehow unprecedented in recent history. But the climatic future doesn’t look good for New Orleans in the coming century.

HOW TO SELL A CAR SOUND SYSTEM: Inter-species sex, of course!

GET OUT NOW: Juan Cole wants immediate withdrawal from Iraq. Here’s an interview with the leftist prof in Foreign Policy.

96 PERCENT CHIMP: They’ve done the chimpanzee genome – and we’re 96 percent the same DNA. If you’re one of the 70 percent of evangelical Christians who believe we were all made on one day 6,000 years ago, best not to read the link.

THE REALISTS STRIKE BACK: The conservative debate on Iraq intensifies. Gary Rosen reviews some realist critiques.

“VERY FIRST TERM”: One of Condi’s key aides takes a sideswipe at Rumsfeld in this piece.

Josh Marshall posts the entire Times-Picayune piece about Bush administration cuts to protecting New Orleans’ levees last year. Money quote:

“I guess people look around and think there’s a complete system in place, that we’re just out here trying to put icing on the cake,” said Mervin Morehiser, who manages the “Lake Pontchartrain and vicinity” levee project for the Army Corps of Engineers. “And we aren’t saying that the sky is falling, but people should know that this is a work in progress, and there’s more important work yet to do before there is a complete system in place.”

I agree with a commenter on Josh’s site: “There’s of course no way to know whether this would have made any difference.” But it’s not a plus for the president right now.

“Although the loss of lives is deeply saddening, this act of God destroyed a wicked city. From ‘Girls Gone Wild’ to ‘Southern Decadence’, New Orleans was a city that had its doors wide open to the public celebration of sin. May it never be the same. Let us pray for those ravaged by this disaster. However, we must not forget that the citizens of New Orleans tolerated and welcomed the wickedness in their city for so long,” – Michael Marcavage, in a statement from the evangelical Christian group, “Repent America,” issued today.

If what this article says is true, the Bush administration has a major political problem on its hands. Money quote:

On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; told the Times-Picayune: “It appears that the money has been moved in the president’s budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that’s the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can’t be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us.”

Also that June, with the 2004 hurricane season starting, the Corps’ project manager Al Naomi went before a local agency, the East Jefferson Levee Authority, and essentially begged for $2 million for urgent work that Washington was now unable to pay for. From the June 18, 2004 Times-Picayune:

“The system is in great shape, but the levees are sinking. Everything is sinking, and if we don’t get the money fast enough to raise them, then we can’t stay ahead of the settlement,” he said. “The problem that we have isn’t that the levee is low, but that the federal funds have dried up so that we can’t raise them.”

Yes, some would even blame Bush and the war for a hurricane. But blaming Bush and the war for the poor state of New Orleans’ levees is a legitimate argument. And it could be a crushing one.

“So while children are drowning and others are floating around, dead in the water, the wannabe Yale cowboy struts around the set of his faux town hall meetings, has a bit of cake with John McCain, and takes in some fresh air in Colorado.

Congress? Anyone?

Dick? Where is Dick? Anyone?

Condi? Rummy? Any other Iran-Contra Folks?

Bueller? Bueller? Anyone?

Hello?

So where does that leave us, the citizens of this raped, pillaged, terrorized, demoralized, freedom loving nation?

Floating face down, eyes affixed on a once great New Orleans!” – Larisa Alexandrovna, on HuffPuff. No, it apparently isn’t a Gutfeld parody. And there’s a lot more. Go read.

“Dear Friends and Colleagues,

I regret to tell you that I am leaving the FDA, and will no longer be serving as the Assistant Commissioner for Women’s Health and Director of the FDA Office of Women’s Health. The recent decision announced by the Commissioner about emergency contraception, which continues to limit women’s access to a product that would reduce unintended pregnancies and reduce abortions is contrary to my core commitment to improving and advancing women’s health. I have spent the last 15 years working to ensure that science informs good health policy decisions. I can no longer serve as staff when scientific and clinical evidence, fully evaluated and recommended for approval by the professional staff here, has been overruled. I therefore have submitted my resignation effective today.

I will greatly miss working with such an outstanding group of scientists, clinicians and support staff. FDA’s staff is of the highest caliber and it has been a privilege to work with you all. I hope to have future opportunities to work with you in a different capacity.” – Susan F. Wood.

That’s how many Americans believe that the earth and all its creatures have always been the same since they were created by God in Genesis. Fully “70 percent of white evangelical Protestants say that life has existed in its present form since the beginning of time.” 63 percent of them are “very certain” that this is true. I must say that there are times when one is rendered speechless. No educated intelligent person could possibly look at the evidence of science and say such a thing. And yet we are supposed to have a reasoned debate with these people on the matter. How is that even possible?

130 CHURCHES SOLD: One more effect of the Catholic Church’s sex abuse scandal in Canada. In one diocese.

Many emailers have harrumphed that there might too be a connection. In the abstract, you could make a case that warmer waters can increase hurricane ferocity. But every major article I have read on the story says that the pattern of hurricanes is independent of such shifts; that there was a lull in the recent past; and that the worst came in the 1930s and 1940s. When the New York Times is debunking the idea, partisan liberals might want to reassess it. Jim Glassman has futher thoughts here.

“Thanks for your comments about Krepinevich and Rumsfeld today. What has always horrified me about Bush’s approach to the war on terrorism, and the invasion and occupation of Iraq in particular, has been that his stated goals and motivations have not been supported — even contradicted — by the actions he has chosen to take.

WMD? Why didn’t we attempt to prevent weapons from leaving or coming into Iraq, when we were concerned they might get into the hands of terrorists from outside Iraq’s borders?

Yellowcake uranium? We didn’t even bother to secure the known Al Tuwaitha yellowcake storage site, so it was looted.

Protecting Iraqis from the insurgency? How can they trust that we’re serious about that when we did it Rumsfeld’s way (on the cheap) and still haven’t even stabilized the key areas (including the road near the Baghdad airport) after 2 1/2 years?

Bringing freedom and democracy to the Iraqis? Why should anyone believe that — just because we say we mean well? What do those concepts mean to Iraqis when lawlessness and fear and destruction are still so widespread? Are we just going to pay lip service to the idea of a “constitution” and an “election,” declare victory and then “turn it over to the Iraqis” and run like GHW Bush did in 1991?

Why won’t Bush reassure Americans and Iraqis with a concrete set of initiatives and steps to achieving them? Apparently, according to Krepinevich, it’s because the Bushies still don’t HAVE any plan, any strategy, or any serious desire to achieve success. If they think they are serious about achieving a recognizable democracy in the Middle East, then why aren’t they doing the things necessary to achieving it? It blows my mind that people like Christopher Hitchens can rip apart a symbolic mom like Cindy Sheehan and not see that the greater threat to the success of the Iraqi invasion comes from the ignorance, ineptitude (and, perhaps, political cowardice) WITHIN the Bush administration itself.

Are they serious? Where’s the evidence since March, 2003?”

“For human pride is more powerful than any instruments of which it avails itself. It must be regarded as inevitable that a religion which apprehends the truth about man and God by faith alone should be used as the instrument of human arrogance. This is done whenever the truth which is held by faith, because it is beyond all human attainment, comes to be regarded as a secure possesion. In this form it is no longer a threat to man. It does not mediate judgment upon the false and imperial completions of human life. It becomes, rather, the vehicle of the pretentions that the finiteness and sin of life have been overcome.” – Reinhold Niebuhr, “The Nature and Destiny of Man: Vol. 2; Human Destiny.”