Showing posts with label disaster recovery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label disaster recovery. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

NOLA -- further thoughts

As noted earlier I attended the annual meeting of the National Conference of State Legislatures (www.ncsl.org -- if readers want to know more but I can tell you that these people simply want to consume more of your wealth to pay for more government programs) in New Orleans last week.

After returning home to Minnesota I reflected on the local media reports I read about the "Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts/status three years later...................." No where did I see how much money was spent -- tax dollars, private sector donations, and of course the man-hours of donated volunteer labor -- so far on the "recovery efforts" but it has to be at billions and billions of dollars by now.

So given how "green" our society has become with our focus on eating organic foods, recycling, and driving Toyota Prius cars everywhere I have to pose this question? Why didn't our nation simply pay - publicly and privately -- to turn most of New Orleans into "green space" instead of rebuilding everything?

Since we were all obligated to spend the money anyway why didn't we relocate families and businesses to "non-Hurricane" areas thereby letting nature reclaim large sections of land. So tell me former Senator John Edwards - from North Carolina who seems to be living in New Orleans given his multiple press events there -- "if you are so concerned that global warming is going to destroy our planet WHY in God's name our we rebuilding this city instead of creating more green space that would process more of the CO2 that apparently threatens our very existence?"

The answer my friends -- with a "crisis" to address politicians like John Edwards and Al Gore would be on food stamps.

Green space not levees,

Todd