New Orleans

[Yo_Yo]

I was talking to a weather buddy, and He said that most likely i'll be spending my time in a boat ridding around the city. Something about the five foot or so below sea level really messing them up.

Hope not. I lived by the ocean for a good year or so of my life, I know how dangerous water can be to a weak swimmer.

And BTW, since when did it switch and I do your work HF? Lol, normaly I am wanting to destroy life, not save it :p

[rklenseth]

Maybe, just maybe, this might make people awaken to the dangers of climate change?

(Oh, by the ay Jon, I think the song you were looking for is 'House of the Rising Sun' by the Animals)

This really has nothing to do with climate changes. A Category 5 happens every decade or so. Last Category 5 was Andrew in 1990. Most Category 5's don't hit the US but either one of the many islands like the Bahamas or Cuba or Mexico. So that is 13 years since the last time so we are a little overdue here but the reason why this is a very bad situation is that it is hitting the worse area in all that region.

New Orleans is below sea level and is the most poverty stricken area in the US.

[Augery]

I was just talking to a guy on another Forum, Hes stuck on an Island of the coast of New Orleans, and its too rough for a boat or helicopter to get to him. He tucked away in a bomb shelter with his laptop hoping the Hurricane turns away.

[nitefyre]

Yeah, my thoughts and typing were at different places.

[Augery]

The guy I was talking about above is fine, it turned out his bomb shelter wasn't entirely waterproof though and it ended up half filled with water. His house has been flattened though.

[rklenseth]

Here are some photos on Yahoo! concerning what is currently happening in New Orleans.

http://news.yahoo.com/photos/sm/events/ ... weathe/p:1

[formerly known as hf]

that image of the hardrock cafe guitar standing alone admist rubble...
seemed strangely poignant to me - but I can't make out why...

[rklenseth]

Don't know if you guys heard but it is now being reported on the news that New Orleans is to be abandoned. Everyone is going to be evacuated as soon as possible. 25,000 people in the Superdome are going to be moved to Houston and sheltered in the Astrodome. No city in American history since the American Civil War has ever been abandoned.

They are reporting that in one county alone in Mississippi there are hundreds dead and that rescuers have been told to leave the bodies so that they can concentrate on rescuing the living.

A guy who just got rescued from Jefferson Parish in New Orleans says that there are hundreds of bodies floating in the water.

Officials are reporting that New Orleans may be left uninhabitable for perhaps as long as a year since they cannot fix the levees breaches and the pumps are underwater. The water is now mixing in with oil (New Orleans is an oil refinery city), chemicals from cars and homes, and raw sewage so the whole of New Orleans is becoming a toxic lake.

It seems this situation is getting worse and worse. Now there are literally millions of people without homes and jobs and things will only get worse as the weeks continue.

And this is going to have a huge effect on all American and perhaps other people throughout the world as with America's oil refinining industry is partly destroyed meaning that gas prices with sky rocket which means in general all prices will sky rocket. Already, the local Stewarts in my town is charging $3.39 for a gallon of regular unleaded fuel. It is over $4.00 for the premium gas.

[jeslange]

GA is running out of gas. No town at least in the metro Atlanta area that I know of has any currently, and people are driving around in a panic. We're staying in our house before any guns come out. I don't have gas in my car, so there goes my income until it's fixed. The company my husband works for might shut down for a bit also.

[rklenseth]

Saw that on the news, Jes. They said that they had lifted EPA (Enviromental Protection Agency) regulations to get cheap gas into the country.

They are also saying this is going to affect the whole Northeast (where I live) especially with Labor Day Weekend coming and that this might dwarf the 1970s Oil Crisis.

But our problems with gas are nothing compared to what people are facing down on the Gulf. They're saying that thousands of people are alone dead in New Orleans.

[Junesun]

This morning, gas prices in Germany were increased by 8 cents per litre at once. Currently they're around 1,32 Euro per litre of regular gas. That converts to approximately 6,15 US-$ per gallon. Crazy, isn't it?

Germany has offered to send aid workers to the area. So far, Bush hasn't accepted.

[Junesun]

And I do believe that this is related to the climate change. Even if you say that a Category 5 per decade is normal, Earth has never seen as many weather-related disasters in such a short time as in the past few years. Hurricanes in Britain, gigantic forest fires around the Mediterraneum, gigantic floods in East Germany, South-East Asia and now Austria/Bavaria and the Gulf area, not to mention the extreme heat in Northern Europe last summer, the extreme cold around the Mediterraneum last winter (Greece drowned in snow for the first time in its history!) and the current cold summer in Northern Europe - and these are only the big headlines from the past 2 years!

[Jur Schagen]

I'm still not sure about that, Judith, not sure it ain't either... this may have to do with the way news is brought to us. Things like this simply get more attention these days... very similar to the crime news. Over the last 15 years or so, there are increasing numbers of crime programs on TV, newspaper articles, etc, about murders, robberies, et cetera. There's a general unsecure feeling developing, people afraid to get out on the streets and all that... yet at the same time actual crime figures are more or less stable or even dropping a bit. It's the focus of the media... the people listen to that... Something similar may be going on with this issue as well. I'm not saying it's *NOT* the climate change, but I'm not sure it *IS* either...

Actually I wouldn't mind if the climate change was blamed for this though... might make the American government reconsider signing the Kyoto treaty...

Jur.

[Schme]

New Orleans is sinking, and I don't wanna swim....



So much looting to be done, yet so very little time, and so many national guards.

I feel for you, New Orleans.



Never saw that coming.

[ephiroll]

And I do believe that this is related to the climate change. Even if you say that a Category 5 per decade is normal, Earth has never seen as many weather-related disasters in such a short time as in the past few years. Hurricanes in Britain, gigantic forest fires around the Mediterraneum, gigantic floods in East Germany, South-East Asia and now Austria/Bavaria and the Gulf area, not to mention the extreme heat in Northern Europe last summer, the extreme cold around the Mediterraneum last winter (Greece drowned in snow for the first time in its history!) and the current cold summer in Northern Europe - and these are only the big headlines from the past 2 years!

And don't forget the miles long iceburgs breaking off of Antartica, the increasing glacier melt on all the worlds mountains, permafrost melting in Alaska, Canada, and Siberia, warm water fish and other marine animals pushing their habitat further and further north and south, coral reefs dieing from the increased ocean temps, Inuit and other natives in the frozen norths are suffering from food shortages because the ice they hunt from isn't as plentiful or as thick as in recent years, the oceanic conveyor has decreased it's flow as much as 20% (and dropping) in recent years because of the influx of freash water and warmer currents disrupting the system, coastlines all over the world are slowly being inudated a few inches at a time and some islands are at risk of have salt water enter there underground freash water supplies, and so much more that I could keep going for a few hours...

...global warming is real and with us right now...

...only thing I can't figure out is why people haven't realized that it's already too late to stop it, these treaties aren't worth the paper they're writen on, the damage is done and has been done for years. All we can do now is hold onto our butts and see where the ride takes us while doing what we can to contain the damage and just maybe hold society together in the process.

There is a race between global warming and the energy crisis, and no matter which one wins we'll all lose, because unless half the worlds population dies off there isn't a damn thing we can do about it. And this points out the source of all our problems today: too many people.