Levee System Increased Hurricane Katrina's Wrath

Louisiana's levee system has once again made headlines. According to hurricane expert, Ivor van Heerden, the magnitude of Katrina's storm surge in Mississippi was partly the fault of the Louisiana levee system.

Van Heerden, deputy director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center, described how sea water from the storm built up against Mississippi River levees in Louisiana, and when the eye of Katrina passed over and began its migration to Mississippi, it took the wall of water with it.

Had there been no levee, he said, the water would have fanned over the wetlands, and the eye would have carried far less to local shores. Van Heerden is also a civil and environmental engineering professor at LSU.

Van Heerden is often credited with having predicted Katrina. In the years before the storm, he created computer models showing how New Orleans would flood if a category 3 storm hit. The levees were built based on outdated models, even though new ones were available. Some levee sections were built on sand, easily allowing water to breach.

"It was a man-made catastrophe with a hurricane trigger," he said. "What happens to sand castles on beaches? They don't last."

He said his research fell on deaf ears, as outlined in his book, The Storm - What Went Wrong and Why During Hurricane Katrina - the Inside Story from One Louisiana Scientist. He wants an inquest like the 9/11 commission to look into the failures that led to flooding in New Orleans and destruction along the Coast.

To protect Mississippi in the future from Katrina-like storms, he said, efforts must go toward restoring wetlands and rebuilding the barrier islands. Giant waves in the open ocean become smaller when they break over the islands.

Quiet Hurricane Season For New Orleans

New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Coast this year enjoyed a quiet hurricane season, which ends today, as dire predictions by federal and university forecasters turned out to be wrong for the second consecutive year.

That was good news to the Army Corps of Engineers, as its contractors continued to raise levees throughout the New Orleans area -- some to the heights and strengths they should have been before Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005.

The corps also completed engineering work and issued the first contracts to improve hurricane protection to match its new understanding of the storm surge caused by hurricanes with a 1 in 100 chance of hitting the area in a given year.

Of 14 named storms in 2007, only four hit the U.S. coastline, with only one reaching hurricane strength.

Climate Change Threatens Indonesia's Coral Reefs

Jakarta is a country with some of the world's richest coral reefs. But scientists fear many of Indonesia's psychedelic reefs, already significantly damaged by blast fishing and pollution, now face an even graver threat: global warming.

Over the years, rising sea temperatures have led to severe coral bleaching in some of the most spectacular reefs off the palm-fringed islands of Sulawesi and Bali that are home to exotic fish like the brightly colored clown fish and scorpion fish.

And environmentalists say if quick steps are not taken to stop the destruction, many reefs across the sprawling archipelago of about 17,000 islands could disappear in the next few decades.

The state of coral around the world will be part of the discussions at next month's UN climate talks on the Indonesian resort island Bali where about 190 countries will gather to try to hammer out a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol, a global pact aimed at fighting global warming.

When Fuel and Politics Mix

As oil prices flirt with record highs, hovering around $95 a barrel on Tuesday, the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates are offering few quick fixes but profoundly different long-term approaches to energy policy.

Over the next decade or two, the differences could have a major effect on billions of dollars in government spending, on the relative prices of gasoline versus renewable fuels and on the efficiency of American cars and trucks.

For Democrats, the goal of energy policy is largely about reducing oil consumption and has become inseparable from the goal of reducing the risk of climate change.

For the Republican candidates, energy policy is primarily about producing more energy at home — more oil and gas drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; more use of American coal to produce liquid fuel; and, as with Democrats, more renewable fuels like ethanol.

China Says Other Nations Should Do More About Climate Change

Rich countries responsible for most of the world's greenhouse gas emissions should take the lead on climate change, a commentary in China's state media said on Tuesday, a week before the opening of global talks on the issue.

China is set to surpass the United States as the world's top emitter of carbon dioxide, the main gas that traps heat in the atmosphere, but has resisted pressure to agree to caps or specific targets on its emissions.

The commentary said that from the Industrial Revolution until the 1950s, the developed world was responsible for 95 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions and accounted 77 percent of the world's total from 1950 to 2000.

Can Louisiana's Newly Elected Governor Rid The State Of Its' Ghost?

By promising an overhaul of Louisiana's ethics laws as his first act as governor, Bobby Jindal is joining a recent national trend that experts attribute to public revulsion at political scandals and a declining overall trust in government.

From Alaska to Ohio and points in between, states have been revising their ethics laws in recent years to improve transparency and put new restrictions on interactions between legislators and lobbyists.

Overall, 47 states have introduced bills or passed laws in the past two years making revisions to their ethics laws, according to the Center for Ethics in Government at the National Conference of State Legislatures. At least seven states have approved major overhauls, and reviews are under way in three others.

Jindal takes over a state government that has been relatively scandal-free in the past 12 years. Nevertheless, civic leaders say the state still suffers from the battering its image took during the Edwin Edwards years, and the guilt by association that occurs any time a New Orleans politician is brought down by legal problems.

Although Jindal often criticized the "old corrupt crowd" in Baton Rouge as a candidate, he has said that stronger ethics laws are a key to making Louisiana more attractive to outside companies and investors, who have said in recent surveys that the state's reputation for political corruption is a factor in deciding where to invest.

Businesses Leave New Orleans As A Result Of Its' Image

It is no surprise to me as well as other present and former New Orleanians that businesses are leaving New Orleans. I have given up hope that New Orleans will ever change its' image. Who wants to do business in a city where corruption runs rampant? Yes Katrina devastated New Orleans, but New Orleans had serious problems before the hurricane even struck the gulf coast. After reading the following, in the Times Picayune, yesterday, I cannot help but wonder how businesses will be recruited:

Intermarine is one in a long list of companies that -- citing concerns about infrastructure, corruption, crime, taxes and work force -- have shifted operations from the metro area. Katrina exacerbated those pre-existing issues.

Since 2005, the New Orleans area has lost nearly a dozen publicly traded companies. Among them is Ruth's Chris, which moved its headquarters to Orlando, Fla., after Hurricane Katrina devastated its Metairie headquarters and its local restaurants. Freeport-McMoRan Copper and Gold moved its headquarters to Phoenix. And International Shipholding Corp. moved its longtime Poydras Street headquarters to Mobile.

Still, business leaders are hopeful that the city will seize on what they believe is a unique opportunity to transform the way it retains and recruits businesses.

Perhaps less governmental interference is the answer as suggested by the following statement:

"Almost all major U.S. cities are controlled and directed by the business community. New Orleans is the only place I know of major size that government (officials) are the major players," Ricchiuti said. "It's a very odd town in that the business community doesn't call the shots here."

After all, it has been our elected officials who have done the most harm to New Orleans' reputation. Corruption is a crime. Who wants to do business in a City where they feel they have to grease some corrupt politician or his cronies hands in order to do business? Yes, Jim Letten has weeded out some corruption here, but I believe we will never ever really get the "big fish".