IRAQI PRESS MONITOR, 11 Aug 05
Nazi-Zionist Collaboration: Foreword
After Katrina, another putrid deluge
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Some of the commentary almost seems to be rubbing its hands in ‘we-told-you-so’ glee.
| by Mick Hume |
| The
sea of effluent running through the streets of New Orleans this week
has been accompanied by some equally putrid propaganda from those who
try to seize on any disaster as proof of the rotten state of humanity -
and of its American branch in particular Those who insist that Hurricane Katrina was caused by man-made global warming rushed on to the scene almost faster than the flood waters. Sir David King, the UK government's chief scientific adviser, said that 'it is easy to conclude that the increased intensity of hurricanes is associated with global warming'. Others were blunter. 'The hurricane that struck Louisiana yesterday was nicknamed Katrina by the National Weather Servic', opined one writer in the Boston Globe. 'It's real name is global warming.' (1) |
| Even
if this argument were as 'easy' and straightforward as they suggest,
there would still be something ugly and parasitic about these
interventions, leeching off a natural disaster to score political
points. But of course the case is far less open-and-shut. Some leading
hurricane scientists have sharply criticised the rush to blame man-made
global warming, pointing out that there is nothing unique about a storm
of Katrina's strength, that the historical data is inadequate to draw
any such conclusions, and that what records there are show hurricanes
tend to come in cycles regardless of anything humanity might do (2). |
| The
'it's man-made global warming' argument is not driven by scientific
data, but by political prejudice - not only about the allegedly
destructive character of human development in general, but by hatred of
Bush's America as the supposed symbol of all that is wrong with the
world. I mean, they were asking for it, weren't they? |
| One
Green German government minister was quick to claim that, 'The American
president has closed his eyes to the economic and human damage that
natural catastrophes such as Katrina - in other words, disasters caused
by a lack of climate protection measures - can visit on his country'
(3). If only that fool Bush had signed the Kyoto Treaty, the message
seemed to be, it could have turned back the tide. The British
newsreader Jon Snow, bicycling conscience of the liberal
intelligentsia, went further in his daily email trailing Channel 4
news. 'How ironic', it said on Tuesday, 'that the world's number one
polluter is now reaping the "rewards" that so many have warned would
flow....'. It seems that some who would mock the religious right or
Islamic fundamentalists for claiming Katrina as God's vengeance on
sinful New Orleans are happy to indulge the equally misanthropic
superstitious notion that it is nature's revenge on greedy, fat
Americans. How ironic, as a smug git in a cycle helmet might say. |
| Some
of the commentary on New Orleans almost seems to be rubbing its hands
in 'we-told-you-so' glee at the terrible events afflicting Americans,
in contrast to the universal outpouring of compassion for the Asian
victims of December's tsunami. We used to complain that the media was
far less sympathetic to victims of disasters in the third world than in
the West. Here, however, it seems that things have gone into reverse.
The impoverished black Americans caught up in Katrina have attracted
sympathetic coverage, treated almost as proxy third world victims of
America. Yet even then, many media outlets have tended to headline
reports (not always substantiated) of anarchy, looting, rape and
murder, looking for horror stories amid the suffering as if no human
situation could ever be bad enough for them. |
| In
another sense, some reports from New Orleans and Louisiana have
appeared to be reading from embellished versions of the script they
used during the tsunami. Then, many commentators said it was 'humbling'
to see how our pretentious human society could still be devastated by
Mother Nature. Now, there has been much talk of the even more humbling
effect of seeing rich and powerful America brought to its knees by 'the
wrath' of Hurricane Katrina. |
| On spiked
we argued that, while the tsunami was certainly horrifying, it should
not be humbling. On the contrary, while natural disasters could not be
avoided, their destructive impact could be limited by further economic
and social development - the same development that many now want to
blame for causing hurricanes. And we suggested that the developed
nations of the West would be far better equipped to cope than the
impoverished coastal villages and islands of the tsunami area (see After the tsunami: horrifying, but not 'humbling', by Mick Hume). |
| How
does that square with the stories of death and devastation, failed
planning and inadequate emergency services now coming out of America?
Perfectly well, as it happens. The impact of Katrina shows the need for
more investment in human and urban development, even in the Western
heartlands. It also, incidentally, points to the dangers of over-using
the 'precautionary principle', and the idiocy of demanding that life
should somehow be rendered risk-free. |
| New
Orleans is nobody's idea of a developed modern city. Effectively
sitting on a swamp in a bowl below sea level, with a 'quaint character'
beloved by tourists that is largely dependent on fragile wooden
buildings, and districts that are close to shanty-town conditions, it
was always going to be vulnerable to a large-scale hurricane. Yet, as
one American writer points out, 'This week's cruellest irony is that
New Orleans survived something like the Big One [Hurricane Katrina]
only to succumb to shoddy engineering. The city was soused the day after
the storm, when levee collapses dumped 20 feet of water into the city.
It met its demise by an act of man, not an act of God.' (4) Better
investment in developing the city's flood defences would have been a
far better defence than signing any treaty on cutting emissions. (And
by the way, contrary to what some seem to suggest, such
under-investment in important infrastructure projects did not start
with President Bush and the expensive folly of his Iraq war.) |
| Warned
by the authorities to leave the New Orleans area before Hurricane
Katrina arrived, a million people reportedly evacuated - a remarkable
exodus that would have been impossible in the tsunami region even if
they could have seen the disaster coming. However high the death toll
climbs, it seems certain it could have been far higher. |
| Attention
has focused on the fact that many of those left behind in the flooded
city were the poor, the elderly and the sick. There was, however,
another reason why some ignored the call to evacuate, or left it too
late. They had heard the official hurricane forecasters cry wolf once
too often. At a time when the authorities would rather apply the
precautionary principle than take a chance of being caught out, there
have been several similar 'get out' warnings in the American south at
the sign of an approaching hurricane. Many have evacuated their homes
before, only to find that the predicted devastation never arrived. 'I
worry that we had a little hurricane fatigue', says the governor of
Mississippi. 'People boarded up for [last September's Hurricane] Ivan,
evacuated and nothing happened. Then they boarded up for [last month's
Hurricane] Dennis, evacuated and nothing happened. I think until very,
very late a lot of people thought "Ah, I'm not going to do that
again".' (5) |
| Yet
a theme underlying much of the criticism of the Bush administration is
that it should have been even more precautionary in relation to the
possibility of such disasters, planning for and warning about every
possible eventuality. There certainly seems to have been the usual
quota of cock-ups and incompetence in the preparations and emergency
response to the hurricane. But it surely should not come as a shock to
anybody to discover that the poor are always the most exposed to such
dangers, and that the machinery of state does not always act in the
best interests of the citizenry. There are many things for which the
Bush administration should be held to account. However, too much of the
criticism over its handling of the latest disaster seems to be saying
not just 'you should have stopped the water' but 'you should have
stopped the world so that we could get off'. |
| No
matter how many precautions we take, it is neither possible nor
desirable entirely to eliminate risk from life even in the richest
nation on Earth. That New Orleans has stood and thrived for so long as
'an inevitable city on an impossible site' is testimony to the strength
of human resilience and determination to get on with life come what
may. That spirit will be needed again now as America sets about
rebuilding and repairing the damage. The cause will not be helped by
those who seem determined to wash away our defences in a deluge of
misanthropic doom-mongering. |
| Mick Hume is editor of spiked. |
| (1) Katrina's real name, Boston Globe, 30 August 2005 (2) See Storm turns focus to global warming, Los Angeles Times, 30 August 2005 ; 'Extreme weather? It's the norm', by Brendan O'Neill (3) German environmental chief blames US climate policy for Katrina, Boston Globe, 2 September 2005 (4) 'After the flood', Adam B Kushner, New Republic, 1 September 2005 (5) Some faced Katrina with 'hurricane fatigue', Los Angeles Times, 31 August 2005 |
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