Perfect Storm

I've seen the devastation of New Orleans and I grieve with the rest of the US. Such a catastrophy to rival any other in the world in recent years. It will take months, years for a final death toll, for the city to rebuild - if it should.

New Orleans is eight feet below sea level with levees to keep the water at bay. On one side, Lake Ponchartain, on the other, the Mississippi River. Every year, the area loses an acre to submersion: the city is sinking. After this disaster, I have no doubts that the engineers will work extremely hard to make sure this sort of flooding won't happen again.

World wide, people have 'oohed' and 'ahhed' at the pictures, yet no offer of help has come. Instead, blame is being tossed at the American President for not signing the Kyoto Protocol: http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,372179,00.html

I had no idea that signing a piece of paper would protect a country from natural disasters.

Astonishing, really, that such magic exists.

What these people fail to mention is that the Earth's climate is cyclical. The episodes of drought and flood have greater seasons than yearly events.

The media, of course, deal with sensationalism, the more outrageous the claim, the more public attention, more people have access etcetera, ad nauseum. Ergo, these claims are become false facts.

The Gulf of Mexico, East Coast of the U.S. and the Caribbean are susceptible to hurricanes; Australia is known for droughts and cyclones; Bangladesh, India, China, for floods; California, Albania, Iran for earthquakes. I'm sure you can come up with more.

My point is: just because one bad hurricane hits the U.S. does not mean you can take the opportunity to kick the Americans and say "I told you so". You did not. Storms like this are a rare event. The damage was predicted, the site it hit was predicted, even the death toll was predicted. Unfortunately, telling people to leave, wasn't enough. Perhaps the hurricane warning came too late, perhaps no one believed it would, really be that bad. Whatever reasons exists, the reality is that people are in trouble. Criticizing some amorphous piece of policy that is detrimental to some countries but gives others a warm fuzzy feeling of false accomplishment leads nowhere.

They need rescue workers, they need builders, they need food, clean water, blood, emergency personnel. They need everything we did for the Acehnese after Boxing Day.

Button the lip for now and help them as they have helped other disaster areas of the world.