Before Katrina

A few years ago I read a book about the effect of climate changes on history. Scientists are able to tell, for instance, based on tree fossils and soil sediment when Mesopotamia had cyclic periods of drought. These droughts caused famines which mostly happened at the same time as the fall of major civilizations, such as Babylon, Sumer, and others. The main modern example that the author used in the book was the growth of New Orleans since the French used it as a small port to move fur back in the 1700’s. The author, like many others was well aware of the danger of a flood on New Orleans, the weakness of the levee system, and the effect of offshore oil drilling and the draining of the swamps on the degradation of the natural protection the swamps provided to the city.

I remember reading this at the time, and thinking, “Yep, that all makes perfect sense.” Yet, I also remember being relatively unconcerned about the problem. Not because I didn’t care, but because I figured “Whatever, this country is rich and smart, we’ll figure it out, and fix whatever weak points there are before something really bad happens.” I think there was a lot of this going on for a long, long time before Katrina.

An obvious and widespread awareness of the problem existed, but there was a lackadaisical, somewhat Groupthink mentality towards solving it. After all, everything had been okay in the past when hurricanes had hit Louisiana, so there wasn’t any acute pressure for improving the infrastructure or re-growing the swamps that are now open ocean. This lack of acute pressure combined with the extreme expense of a solution pretty much prevented any serious improvements.

But nature doesn’t wait, I guess.

Maybe other time bombs get more attention in the future.