News Forum Archives: September 2005
In Marshlands South of New Orleans, Katrina’s Destruction Threatens Already Tenuous Existence
By Allen G. Breed
Associated Press
September 22, 2005
EMPIRE, La. Plaquemines Parish is about 65 percent water, like the human body. It is hard to imagine that something made up of such a fluid element can be so broken, and yet it is.
Hurricane Katrina ripped through this narrow toe of land at the easternmost edge of the Louisiana boot, where oystermen, shrimpers, river pilots and oil-rig workers cling to existence like snails to the marsh grass. It is a place that lives or dies by the water.
Drowning New Orleans
By Mark Fischetti
ScientificAmerican.com
October 01, 2001
A major hurricane could swamp New Orleans under 20 feet of water, killing thousands. Human activities along the Mississippi River have dramatically increased the risk, and now only massive reengineering of southeastern Louisiana can save the city
The boxes are stacked eight feet high and line the walls of the large, windowless room. Inside them are new body bags, 10,000 in all. If a big, slow-moving hurricane crossed the Gulf of Mexico on the right track, it would drive a sea surge that would drown New Orleans under 20 feet of water. “As the water recedes,” says Walter Maestri, a local emergency management director, “we expect to find a lot of dead bodies.”
Continue Reading Drowning New Orleans
Local actions have global consequences
By David Suzuki
September 02, 2005
Recently I wrote about new software called Google Earth that lets users explore the entire planet using a series of maps. For me, the software provided a real sense of how dependent we are on each other and on the health of this relatively small planet for our survival and well-being.
Continue Reading Local actions have global consequences
The New Prize: Alternative Fuels
By Danny Hakim
The New York Times
September 10, 2005
DETROIT, Sept. 9 – A week ago, Benjamin Kleber was spending $3.39 a gallon at a gasoline station in Maryland when he noticed an obscure decal on his minivan.
“It’s this sticker about the size of a business card that’s stuck on the side of the gas flap that I never really paid attention to,” said Mr. Kleber, a 25-year-old electrical engineer for a government contractor. The decal said he could be using E85, a fuel cocktail that consists mostly of grain alcohol, or corn-based ethanol, with a splash of gasoline.
Continue Reading The New Prize: Alternative Fuels
Meet the New Loss
Hurricane Katrina brings a foretaste of environmental disasters to come
By Bill McKibben
07 Sep 2005
If the images of skyscrapers collapsed in heaps of ash were the end of one story—the U.S. safe on its isolated continent from the turmoil of the world—then the picture of the sodden Superdome with its peeling roof marks the beginning of the next story, the one that will dominate our politics in the coming decades: America befuddled about how to cope with a planet suddenly turned unstable and unpredictable.
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Models predicted New Orleans disaster, experts say
By Alan Elsner
Fri 2 Sep 2005 11:49 AM ET
WASHINGTON, Sept 2 (Reuters) – Virtually everything that has happened in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina struck was predicted by experts and in computer models, so emergency management specialists wonder why authorities were so unprepared.
“The scenario of a major hurricane hitting New Orleans was well anticipated, predicted and drilled around,” said Clare Rubin, an emergency management consultant who also teaches at the Institute for Crisis, Disaster, and Risk Management at George Washington University.
Continue Reading Models predicted New Orleans disaster, experts say
If Your Home Utility Bill Is Zero, Is It Still a Bill?
By Barry Rehfeld
The New York TimesAugust 28, 2005
Cooking with Larry Schlussler at his home in Arcata, Calif., is, if not quite cool, at least incredibly efficient in its use of energy.
He takes fresh ingredients out of his Sun Frost, the refrigerator he developed and manufactures, which uses far less electricity than any other brand on the market. (Its largest model costs $2,500.) He fills an electric pot, with an insulated top he made, with tap water heated to 180 degrees by thermal solar panels outside the kitchen wall. After his mix comes to a boil, he turns off the electricity to let the trapped heat in the covered pot do its work.
Continue Reading If Your Home Utility Bill Is Zero, Is It Still a Bill?