Due to operational shortcomings somewhere, this is a repeat sending
of my message of 01/09/2005:
Vulnerability in hazardous climates and climates of fear.
In Bangladesh it is widely known that coastal dwellers will stay with
their property to protect it from squatters and looters and that many
die in cyclones as a result. In the USA, where those living below its
poverty line have increased yearly to 37 million / 12.7 percent now,
and likely concentrated in urban areas, the almost precise match
between income levels and ground levels in New Orleans is shown
yesterday and today in New York Times maps
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/national/2005_HURRICANEKATRINA_GRAPHIC/
Although media focus is inevitably on the most dramatic and worst
cases, it is again obvious from images that are reaching us, that
standards of building construction along this hurricane prone coast
are not what they should and need to be. The roof of the recently
built Louisiana superdome, hotel windows blown out by the hundred,
office wall panels sucked away, and action shots of the
deconstruction of flimsiest domestic roofs reveal an abject lack of
concern for the reality of hurricane power.
Most chillingly however, in these contexts, is the report of
"witch-hunting" by "the chairperson of the House of Representatives
Committee on Energy and Commerce, Joe Barton, "intimidating climate
change experts by placing them under unprecedented scrutiny". In his
sights are those whose work shows man-made carbon emissions to be at
least partially responsible for global warming. The report of this
action reads of course that in the view of this Committee, only US
scientists were involved in the reports of the consensual
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In such a national climate
of fear, international perspectives such as Ilan's Disaster Diplomacy
insights are hopefully invaluable to those responsible for city and
state-level coastal urban and environmental development.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1558780,00.html
The United Kingdom could also be on the list of countries living with
flooding, as coastal communities are physically eroded by the sea and
coastal farmland is sacrificed to "natural regression".
James
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