Hurricane Katrina overshadowed two other recent weather catastrophes. The heart of Switzerland was washed down, in the last week of August by the worst rains ever recorded. Parts of Germany and Austria were affected too. More than 200 litres per square meter in less than two days turned many mountain slopes into devastating mudslides. But in Portugal an unprecedented shortage of rain caused the spread of fires that erased 240 00 hectares of forest. Spain and France also suffered drought-related forest fires. With Katrina we experience exactly what many environmental scientists have predicted – wild weather events.
It reminds me of a brief I wrote at least 12 years back to the management of Dow about climate change. I argued that the greenhouse effect was real, that the dependence of our economy on burning fossil carbon creates a huge transfer of material from the underground to the atmosphere. 8 giga (9 zero!) tons of carbon so displaced every year cannot possibly go without impact. At that time scientists estimated the additional heat forcing effect of this carbon to be about 2.5 watts per square meters of earth surface. To my fellow engineers this seemed ridiculously small…Well, multiply by 510 065 000 000 000, the total earth surface, and you have a lot of energy. It is not evenly spread and it is more than enough to raise storms, to feed hurricanes or keep rain away for months.
The Portugal forest fires, the central Europe downpour and hurricane Katrina are the predictable face of climate change. And what we see of Katrina is almost what we saw of Jeanne that caused the murderous floods in Haïti last year. The same despair, the same paralysis in grasping the extent of the disaster and getting organized for rescue… just more TV coverage.
Americans and others wonder how this could happen to the world’s most powerful economy. But it may not be as powerful as it seems. It is surely best at projecting power in the rest of the world and has done so lately with relentless single-minded preparation. Yet, it may not be so good at caring for its people, at preparedness and crisis management. Its political and business class has fought against the precautionary principle for decades and it shows.
Economic power is counted as GDP - how much value is added by the economy. This is a superficial indicator. Anyone who travels through the US will notice, behind the prestige facades, the dire state of a good part of its infrastructure. It is an economy that adds value on generally obsolete public capital, highways, utilities, and water and power grids. It is distorted value. It gambles on risk and borrows on time. When the storm hits too hard the infrastructure collapses and reveals the disarray of the leadership. It is also a winner takes all economy with little compassion and solidarity and therefore large pockets of poverty. This is why some of the images of devastated Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama are so close to those of Haiti last year.
What will happen after tomorrow? Will we see a forceful climate protection policy at last from the most resilient, innovative society? Or will it just be adaptation, higher levees, storm proof domes and shelters?
The solutions are ready – energy efficiency, alternative energy sources, carbon sequestration. So far it’s the will to implement that has been missing, not just in the USA, but almost everywhere. But the American policy is to blame most for systematically denying the science of climate change and undermining the collective efforts to reduce its risks.
However, with the price of the suffering of all the hurricane victims this could also be a serious turning point.
