Eco Corner - The Unnatural Disaster
Hurricane Katrina was an unnatural disaster. Oh, part of it was natural; there are hurricanes in that area, of course, some of them reach category five, as did Katrina, and some occur in August. But that’s about it.
Impetuous blasts
Hurricane activity varies, with some decades showing high activity and some low. We are now in a decade of high activity, but even so the statistics are grim. Storms are lasting longer and are more powerful, the number of North Atlantic storms is increasing, and this year has already seen the most storms on record to happen in August, the earliest Caribbean storm on record to reach category four and the most active start to the hurricane season on record. All this can be traced back to increasing surface water temperatures. As more and more scientists now agree, these are the result of global warming, caused chiefly by the burning of fossil fuels. It is an ironic closing of the circle that the storm put oil refineries all along the coast out of commission.
"Bye, bye bayou"*
A map comparing the Gulf coastline 100 years ago and at present is horrifying – one cannot believe that that much land has been washed away. It is said that an area the size of a football field disappears from this coast every 15 minutes. Acres of marshland and bayous have been dredged, while natural water flows have been diverted, thus preventing silt buildup in the marshes. When Katrina hit the coast, wetlands that could have impeded the storm surge and protected the towns along the coast no longer existed. In addition, the coastline and New Orleans itself are sinking, as a result of the diversion of natural water flow.
Storming the ramparts
It is not intelligent or natural to build a city partly below sea level and surrounded on three sides by water in a hurricane area. The residents of New Orleans have always known that, of course, and have established an elaborate system of levees to protect the city. And here we come to a different definition of natural vs. unnatural. Not man vs. nature, but destructive man vs. constructive Homo sapiens working with nature. We’re a part of nature; when we act in accordance with that fact what we do is natural. It is natural to man to be imaginative, creative and technologically savvy. If you are a present-day resident of New Orleans it is natural to try to counteract the unnatural siting of the city by maintaining and upgrading those levees. That was exactly what projects begun in the early years of this millennium sought to do. Their funding was cut drastically, however, and we now see the result.
“You can’t change what’s over, but only where you go”**
We haven’t talked about the many other aspects of the human toll of this unnatural disaster, as they go beyond the scope of this article. But when we talk about the lessons of Katrina and what will happen in the future, we can hardly omit the people of this region. There will be more destructive hurricanes and it will take a long time to restore the marshes that could reduce their impact. Most of the effective measures to protect the people of the region are either very short term – strengthening those levees, for instance – or, like restoring the wetlands, very long term. Longest term of all, and most basic, will be a decrease in carbon dioxide output so as to slow global warming.
There is no question that this is possible. Fuel-efficient cars for a start, as 40% of America’s contribution to the carbon dioxide load in the atmosphere comes from automobiles. Development of alternative energy producers that cooperate with nature and reduce our dependence on oil is another must. If Katrina has shocked the US and the rest of the world into this realization it will not have been just an unnatural disaster, it will have been a hard lesson that what is good for the environment is good for that part of it that is known as Homo sapiens.Natural man
Being a conscious part of nature is a lot more complex than being, let’s say, a lion or a leaf. As we’ve seen in the case of present day New Orleans, we are frequently faced with doing the best we can with a situation not of our own making. This very complexity, however, makes being us exciting and challenging. We get to use our special gifts of imagination, consciousness and technological competence to weave our particular section of the web of life. What could be more worthwhile?
–Karen Rudin
* Jim Stringer, Little Book Music, BMI
** Roma Ryan, sung by Enya, EMI Music Publishing Ltd.
