Katrina's climate chaos

The Red Cross is describing the devastation left by Hurricane Katrina as the largest U.S. natural disaster in the organization's history. We still don't know the full impact of the storm, which is continuing to cause damage as it sweeps inland and as waters rise in New Orleans. But we do know that dozens are dead and one insurance industry estimate puts the cost at $26 billion.

Climate chaos comes in many forms. Sometimes it moves slowly and escapes attention in the news -- droughts, receding glaciers, melting permafrost. Sometimes it is with devastating speed and destructiveness, as we've seen with Katrina. Ross Gelbspan, an award-winning journalist and author of "The Heat is On" warned about the impacts of climate change the winter 1999/2000 issue of YES! magazine entitled Changing the Climate.

To those who deny the link between devastating storms and human-caused global warming, Gelbspan says you can not prove one hurricane is the result of global warming any more than you can prove one case of lung cancer is the result of a smoking habit. But we know the pattern associated with climate change, and the pattern of increasingly large catastrophic storms is exactly what scientists predict.

In an op-ed in today's Boston Globe, Gelbspan points out that Katrina started out as a relatively moderate hurricane, until it hit the overly warm waters of the Gulf, where it built up the enormous energy that slammed 20-foot-plus walls of water into towns along the Gulf coast and swept a 460-mile wide swath of devastation across the south. Warmer ocean temperatures, more devastating hurricanes.

Gelbspan does not just predict disaster, though. He points out that the future we live with is the future we are creating today. He proposes a plan to combat climate change in an article in the climate change issue of YES! These are not small changes, but they are ones that could revitalize our economy by developing new green technologies and increasing efficiencies of automobiles and industry.

The leadership at a federal level has failed miserably -- particularly the current administration, but also the disappointing Clinton administration. But there is visionary leadership coming from elsewhere:

• The Conference of Mayors in June unanimously adopted a climate protection agreement; see the current issue of YES!

• In the Northeast, eight states plus the city of New York have sued five utility companies to get them to clean up their global warming pollution, which they blame for 10 percent of the nation's contribution to climate change. See "States Sue Over Climate Change."

• In the Pacific Northwest, farmers, business leaders, and government officials are collaborating on technical advances that could make the region a leader in renewable energy technology and efficiency improvements. See "The Climate-friendly Northwest."

Probably the most exciting and comprehensive proposal comes in the form of the Apollo Project, a ten-year, multi-billion dollar proposal to revitalize the U.S. economy through massive investment in new green energy technology and energy efficiency. The initiative is backed by labor, environmentalists, and government leaders.

The power of this idea is that it taps the great American capacity to rally together to solve big problems, not through building an empire to make sure we get access to every last barrel of oil no matter at what cost to human life and human rights. Not through developing another unsafe, expensive, and dirty technology like nuclear power. But through going for the best solutions for our children and grandchildren, and solutions that will create thousands, perhaps millions of long-term, family wage jobs.

The YES! Fall 2004 issue, Can we live without oil? includes lots of avenues for transforming our transportation system, developing clean bio-fuels, and increasing efficiency, maybe even living a better life. We could either do something like what these authors propose, or we could continue to follow the lead of the Bush administration, and just sit back and wait for the next disaster. As Gelbspan has pointed out, it's our choice.