Bush Slashed Hurricane Funding for New Orleans

At the current daily spending rate of war in Iraq ($186 million), the $71 million that Bush slashed from the New Orleans Army Corps of Engineers budget would fund 9 hours of his war.

 http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N30297215.htm

This work is in the public domain

Previous evidence that global warming would result in more severe storm surges was ignored by the GW Bush administration. The result of ignoring global warming predictions is lost lives and damage in the billions. The petroleum corporations need to be held accountable for their role in bringing about global warming, and the Bush administration's criminal negligence in ignoring the warnings.

There was advanced warning about increased storm surges from future hurricanes given to coastal regions. If these warnings were heeded by the federal government there could have been life saving disaster preparations implemented ahead of time. Most of the financial support to implement these programs would need to come from the federal level. Since the Bush administration ignored these warnings about global warming, that amounts to criminal negligence..

"EXPERTS TO WARN GLOBAL WARMING LIKELY TO CONTINUE SPURRING MORE OUTBREAKS OF INTENSE HURRICANE ACTIVITY

Problem Tied to Rising Sea Temperatures From Trapped Greenhouse Gases; Trend Portends More Storm Damage Costs for FL, AL, LA, TX, NC and SC.

WASHINGTON, D.C.//October 21, 2004///With four hurricanes and tropical storms hitting the United States in a recent five-week period, 2004 already is being called "The Year of the Hurricane." But this year's unusually intense period of destructive weather activity could be a harbinger of what is to come as the effects of global warming become even more pronounced in future years, according to leading experts who participated today in a Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School briefing.

The recent onslaught of four major tropical weather disturbances - Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne - that did so much damage in the United States and nearby Haiti have spurred new questions about the relationship between hurricanes and global warming. While experts can't say that climate change will result in more hurricanes in the future, there is growing evidence and concern that the tropical storms that do happen will be more intense than in the past. Fueling concerns about the link between global warming and hurricanes is a new study on hurricane intensity published on September 28, 2004 in "The Journal of Climate." The study used extensive computer modeling to analyze 1,300 future hurricanes and projected major increase in the intensity and rainfall of hurricanes in coming decades.

"Global warming may well be causing bigger and more powerful hurricanes," said James J. McCarthy, a biological oceanographer at Harvard University and lead author of the climate change impacts portion of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) Third Assessment Report (2001). "Warmer seas fuel the large storms forming over the Atlantic and Pacific, and greater evaporation generates heavy downpours. With warmer, saltier tropical seas, the IPCC has projected larger storms, heavier rainfalls and higher peak winds."

Paul R. Epstein, M.D., associate director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School, said: "Scientists cannot say at present whether more or fewer hurricanes will occur in the future. However, even if the number of storms remained constant, more powerful hurricanes with stronger winds, higher storm surges, and heavier downpours would have an even greater potential for damage, including increased risks to human life and public health, more floods and mudslides, increased coastal erosion and damage to coastal buildings and infrastructure. This is the pattern that we already may be seeing related to the overall increase in extremes.""

above info from;

 http://www.med.harvard.edu/chge/hurricanespress.html

second opinion for global waming skeptics;

"(b) Increasing Storms and Floods
Dr. Thomas Karl, director of the National Climatic Data Center (NOAA), says that global warming has produced an increase in precipitation during the 20th century, mostly in the form of heavy rainstorms, little in moderate, beneficial rainstorms. Thomas Karl also reports that recent decades have produced a 20% increase in blizzards and heavy rainstorms in the U.S. "Hundred-year events are become more frequent now," notes Karl. In a report issued in November, 1999 the Britain's Meteorological Office warned that flooding in Asia and Southeast Asia would increase more than ninefold over the coming decades. Floods are already increasing worldwide. The year 1998 was the worst on record, with 96 floods in 55 countries.

Scientists are saying that global warming is causing early snowmelts. During the month of December 1996 and the first week of January 1997 unusually warm weather caused an early snowmelt that resulted in record flooding in parts of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, California, Nevada and Montana. These floods forced about 500,000 people to leave their homes. In California alone state officials estimated flood damage to homes and businesses at $1.6 billion. [31]

k) Coastal Flooding
Global warming is melting ice to the tune of 50 billion tons of water a year from the Greenland ice sheet. A NASA high-tech aerial survey shows that more than 11 cubic miles of ice is disappearing from the ice sheet annually. "We see a significant trend (in loss of ice mass)," said William B. Krabill, NASA scientist and lead author of a study on Greenland ice melting. "When we can go back after five years and see 10 meters of glacier gone, there is something happening." This is increasing the likelihood of coastal flooding around the world, if this meltdown trend continues. [53]

The rising sea level has led to salt water encroachment producing the "Ghost forests" of South Florida and Louisiana. Since about 1970, the invading salt water has killed hundreds of acres of southern baldcypress trees in Louisiana coastal parishes and sabal palm in Florida. [90] "

above from;

 http://www.ecobridge.org/content/g_dgr.htm

The responsibility of the damage and lost lives from the recent hurricane belongs to the petroleum corporations and their sponsored puppet government led by George Herbert Walker Bush.

There is no amount of money to bring back the dead, however the cost of repairs and clean -up belongs to the petroleum corporations for their role in bringing about global warming, not the taxpayers..

I didn't know Bush slashed funding for the levee in 2001. Just think of the destruction a terrorist could have caused. Heck, he wouldn't even need a nuclear weapon, just some average dynamite or compressed air and he could have seen the New Orleans flood as a perfect opportunity to get the most bang for the buck by blowing a hole in the levy. Except, Bush cut funds to shore up the levy. How many Americans would be wiped out if levees or damns were destroyed by terrorists? An easy hit huh? Yet Condi and Dick (remember them?) ensure us that our greatest threat is the possibility of a nuclear weapon ending up in the hands of terrorists. Yeah right! Just as much damage could be done by terrorists who fan out across the country, contaminate livestock feed with Madcow, and enjoy an inconspicuous life of vegetarianism among us. No suicide act required! When they are done, they could show up as immigrant workers willing to take minimum wage jobs in agriculture and contaminate several shipments of Wheaties with ricin.

Hopefully, if nothing else, New Orleans is God trying to tell Christians that Bush is evil.