Because this is a political issue, one with two sides, each wanting to advance its agenda. Using the suffering and tragedy that is still going on is repugnant. I think you will find this almost a universal sentiment.
Also, using this to make political hay and bash Bush again shows a lack of compassion. Now is the time for us to be united in helping these people, or at least keeping them in our minds and prayers.
It’s an easy way out, isn’t it? The consequences of your actions or inactions cause death and destruction, and your out is to say it’s repugnant for the other side to politicize the tragedy.
It takes a lack of intelligence and maturity to refuse to accept the connections between cause and effect. “These people” needed repairs to their dikes then, not your prayers now.
Are you stating that in the four years that Bush has been in office, he could have done anything to stop the supposed global warming events that causing Katrina to form?
If the last 100+ years have all contributed to global warming, how in the hell would 4 years have done anything? In big floods of 1993 the levee in my town broke and displaced hundered of people. We called it a natural disaster and moved on. No one blamed Bill Clinton because he was the president at the time.
I’m stating that he diverted funds from projects that would have prevented the massive flooding.
Cause n Effect. lol. The burden of proof? Is it sane to believe that Bush should bare the burden of proof? Give me a break.
How about generally agreed upon scientific evidence that would lead a reasonable person to even consider such accusations.
As it happens, I am quite capable of multi-tasking. I can simultaneously attempt to provide aid to those who have been harmed while calling on my representatives in government to stop pretending that global warming is not a concern. Whether global warming is a direct result of human action or a cyclic change over which we have no control needs to be fought out in scientific journals (which requires funding to both sides), but recognizing that we are being hit by more numerous, larger storms in areas with expanding populations seems to be self-evident and we need to choose whether we will pay for preventative or reconstructive actions, now.
Kinda. I am not saying he could have stopped the whole thing, but he could have done a lot to slow it, and to ensure that it is not a problem sometime down the road, in the far future.
Let’s not forget that Bill Clinton had eight years to stop the hurricanes, but chose to do absolutely nothing! 
There is a cause and effect in the disbursement of federal funds (through the Corps of Engineers) to fix levees and the choice to multiply the national debt to invade a country for a myriad of shifting reasons (none persuasive) or to stand in the way of the scentific studies that would have produced the the conclusive evidence that humans are or are not contributing to global warming.
Nothing Bush could have done could have changed Katrina’s path or intensity. The point of raising the issue is to note that we are six years further behind on discovering the scientific answers (and six years behind in working to reduce emissions that contribute, even if it turns out to be negligibly, to warming) than if Bush had not made point of pushing oil consumption at the expense of other projects.
I have some shocking news for you, Stephe.
You may want to sit down for this.
Are you ready? here goes:
Bill Clinton hasn’t been president for almost 5 years
If you read what Kennedy actually said, he did not directly blame Katrina on Bush. What he said was “now – Katrina is giving our nation a glimpse of the climate chaos we are bequeathing our children.” In other words, he noted that the predicted increase in intensity of hurricanes due to global warming will cause more Katrina’s to exist…and by delaying doing anything to begin to combat global warming, we are committing to more and more climate change and the resulting effects such as powerful hurricanes like Katrina.
Making all kinds of mostly unsupported assumptions…maybe he could, maybe he couldn’t. The science just isn’t here yet to be able to state as fact that this is the case…or as fact anything else really being implied in this thread. Oh, there are indications, no doubt, and maybe even a growing consensus in the scientific community…but we are pretty far still from being able to state such things as fact yet.
Its amusing to see this kind of blind faith certainty from supposedly scientificly minded people. The scientists themselves would be the first to caviot their statements and interject the proper levels of uncertainty in any course of action or conclusions being drawn. Where they fear to tread though many folks on this board boldly leap forward in the drawing of conclusions and the certainty of action.
I certainly agree with this…the problem needs funding and focus. Afaik though we ARE funding the science to look into this pressing problem, both privately and via government funding. Perhaps we should fund it more, but there are a lot of pressing needs for our funds as always…and the elected government kind of sets what the priorities are for spending those funds. It’s kind of wrong to blame the president for basically prioritizing things as he has, since he made no secret as to where he thought those priorities should be. Now, had he said he was going to prioritize scientific research on Global Warming to the highest levels then switched up after he was re-elected…that would be another story.
And of course, there is nothing that says it has to be America that does the heavy lifting on this kind of research anyway. Other nations should be (and ARE) funding research heavily on this subject…as their own priorities dictate.
I find the criticism of Bush et al over this disaster to be pretty shallow and petty to be honest. There is a pit thead right now about how Bush hasn’t done anything (or ‘enough’ whatever that means) to help the victims. There are a lot of folks taking it for granted that Global Warming is the culperate in increased hurricane intensity (a distinct possibility, but by no means proved afaik…what data do we really have on hurricane frequency and strength going back for more than a few hundred years at most?)…with the further complication that there is an implicit assumption there that Global Warming itself is directly caused by humans (and the implication that the US is at the heart of this problem too it seems). None of this stuff has been proved yet…its all theory and conjecture, though again there seems to be mounting evidence.
With that in mind and knowing Bush’s stance on this (and knowing it BEFORE the election) it seems kind of stupid to attempt to drop the blame for Global Warming, Katrarina, increased severity or frequency of hurricanes, or the price of tea in China on Bush. Even if Bush came in to office (or after his re-election) and did a complete about face to his stated positions DURING the election and attempted to force the US to become Green, even had he adopted Kyoto and actually got the US to meet the protocol (something not even all the vaunted Europeans have been about to completely bring off as yet), it would have made exactly zero difference in this disaster. If humans ARE the cause, then its been a gradual build up over the last few centuries…and its going to take geological time to ‘fix’ it. If it even can be ‘fixed’, which I tend to doubt (i.e. the system will self correct on its own IMHO…man dicking with it, especially without a perfect understanding of what he’s doing, is more likely to cause harm or no effect than it is to make things ‘better’, whatever that means. Sort of like throwing a random hammer at a car engine that is pinging in the hopes this will somehow have a benificial result).
There are any number of things that certainly CAN (and SHOULD) be dropped squarely on Bush’s lap…or preferable on his stupid head…but this isn’t one of them.
-XT
WAAAAAY back in the 70s all them hippie leftie enviro-pink-mentalists were saying that we had to protect the environment, including the air and the water. And we needed to cut down on the use of gas in our cars. And thanks to 3 mile island, the oil shock of the 70s when OPEC first put the brakes on, and things like the Cuyahoga River actually catching fire from all the crap dumped on it, some people listened. But in the 80s and 90s it became popular to ignore all that stuff. Now I am going to say something I have been waiting 30 years to say, and it’s beautiful and wonderful to say it, and I’m going to say it a lot even though it will piss people off …
We TOLD you so!!!
I am, simply making the assumption that the following:
need not have happened. Instead, he could have looked over the evidence and decided not to ask for exemptions. I am simply asking him to go along with the ways we know to solve the problem, not whip up some sort of miracle cure.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/11/11/tech/main582969.shtml
Um…read the bold part. THATS the ‘unsupported assumption’ bit I was getting at. We don’t ‘know’ that these ways will or can solve ‘the problem’. Scientists THINK they might, they theorize that they might, they speculate that they might…but no one ‘knows’ that they ‘will’. See?
-XT
Sorry, you can’t make that prediction. New Orleans sits UNDER sea level. Therefore it is susceptible to flooding if it gets an inch of rain. Very clearly in the cite given abve it states:
Local officials are now saying, the article reported, that had Washington heeded their warnings about the dire need for hurricane protection, including building up levees and repairing barrier islands, "the damage might not have been nearly as bad as it turned out to be." ~Bolding Mine
So it was going to get hit regardless. Only the level of destruction is debatable at this time. This levee reconstruction has been going on for 30 years, not for four. Now the lack of funds certainly is a cause, but not the sole reason for the town to be under water this afternoon. The sole reason is that nature is a bitch and ultimately wins every time we try to fight back.
I’m not a Bush apologist, but to blame the guy in DC is pointless at this moment.
And, if you read what the German environmental minister said, I think you’ll see that his point is to illustrate that natural disasters can be very costly to the economy…and thus that it is not wise to do as Bush does and say that any measures to prevent climate change that in his (distorted) view may harm the economy should not be implemented. I.e., this guy is saying that you have to look at the economic costs of climate change too.
I’ll admit that if I was the one being asked, I would be clearer than these guys were to directly state that I am not blaming this particular event on Bush’s policies. (And, of course, maybe they did say that but that part of the quote didn’t make it into the article.) But, I think we are quibbling and what these guys are saying is pretty clear from their quotes. Saying, “They are blaming this disaster on Bush” is itself a knee-jerk reaction.
No one knows that invisible elves don’t cause what we think of as gravity. Scientists THINK they don’t, they theorize that they don’t, they speculate that they don’t,…but no one ‘knows’ that they 'don’t. See?
No Scott…I really don’t. But hey, if that makes sense to you, thats what really counts, ehe?
-XT
Forget about prioritizing scientific research, Bush reneged on a specific policy pledge made in the 2000 campaign when he specifically said that he would regulate CO2 from power plants, and then reversed his decision (basically hanging Whitman out to dry) once elected: