August 13, 2008
Here's the drill
by Sylvia S Tognetti
I was a bit miffed that anyone would make a campaign issue out of opening up California and Florida to offshore drilling. As I recall*, drilling was suspended in those areas by Ronald Reagan, when Bush Sr. was running for president. The only credible explanation for stopping it in those places, and not in Alaska, which is much more critical from an ecological perspective than most of California – as beautiful as it's coast is, was because California and Florida have more electoral votes. Property values probably also had something to do with it.
I'm not a budget wonk but, allow me to suggest another motive, besides satisfying the desires of the oil companies. Revenue from offshore oil and gas is the largest source of non-tax government revenue. Not that today's disenchanted so-called “principled” conservatives have ever been concerned with government revenue.** However, once a Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) lease sale is included in the 5 year plan that MMS is required to develop, the projected revenue can be included in the federal budget. If this process is expedited, as MMS is clearly seeking to do, Bush – and the Republicans could present a “balanced budget” for the coming years, in time for the November election, even if the figures are wishful thinking. Even if they don't get elected, the wrecking ball will have been set in motion to paralyze the next administration when the projections aren't realized.
This kind of maneuvering is not without precedent. A bit of googling turned up this Sierra Club press release from October 2005 which states:
In addition, there will be a major vote, likely following the Columbus Day recess, on the fate of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and possibly on lifting the moratorium on off-shore oil drilling. Drilling proponents in Congress are trying to use the Budget process to advance these controversial issues. Congress has included anticipated revenues from lease sales in the Arctic in the Federal Budget Resolution, even though the revenue projections are inflated to 80 times the current average.
Google also turned up this bit of analysis by Richard Fineberg (pdf), pointing out that “If the entire $5.0 billion in [projected] lease bonus revenue is not realized, the federal portion of that shortfall must be added to the increase in the federal deficit caused by the reconciliation package.”
And MMS has already started preparing a new 5-year plan – for which it has requested comments by September 15, specifically asking:
Although OCS oil and gas leasing is typically conducted through an extensive, long-established process, are there alternative ways to ensure appropriate consultation and to streamline our leasing procedures? Should the OCS Lands Act be amended to allow changes in the 5-year plan without starting the process all over again in cases of acute supply or demand shift affecting national security?
In other words, expect an amendment to the OCS Lands Act to be attached to something Congress will have to vote on, in September or October, to legitimize amendments to the existing 5 year plan, that MMS is already hard at work on.
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*Disclosure: at that time, I was the research assistant for a committee and three panels at the National Academy of Sciences, that were engaged in a review of the Minerals Management Service Environmental Studies Program. After Bush Sr. was elected, that same committee was asked to determine whether the scientific information was adequate to support leasing decisions in California and Florida. It was not, and California and Florida have been off limits to new lease sales ever since. I have no idea whether there has been any change in the quality and relevance of studies undertaken since then but note that, at the time, the committee also made a point of highlighting numerous studies conducted by previous NAS committees, which had had little if any effect on program decisions. To its credit, MMS did actually sponsor some of the first studies regarding the contribution of onshore OCS facilities to the loss of Louisiana's wetlands. Those were among the exceptions.
Now, if I could only remember the name of the MMS official who, in an offhanded comment, said that, if only there were another gas crisis, there would be no need to produce environmental studies because people would just want the gas... Which would back up what Naomi Klein is saying.
**For more on the ideology of “starving the beast”, there is an excellent discussion this week at the TPM book club regarding The Predator State
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May 4, 2008
More on the gas tax
by Sylvia S Tognetti
Given the talent that mainstream journalists always seem to have for finding "experts" on both sides of an issue even when there is a solid of a consensus as one can ever expect to get from science, and from anyone who has done an honest review of the evidence (e.g., on human induced climate change), I was shocked to learn that, at least on the NewsHour, they weren't able find a single expert to argue for a gas tax holiday. Gregory Mankiw cites an e-mail from Len Burman:
Yesterday I was on the NewsHour to talk about the gas tax holiday. I asked if there was another guest and the producer said, "We tried, but we couldn't find anyone to argue the other side (that the gas tax holiday made sense)."
Mankiw is the economist who founded the Pigou Club, which advocates raising the gas tax. In light of the current uproar, the manifesto is worth revisiting.
McCain's proposal is as predictable as Republican proposals to solve the crisis by opening ANWR to drilling, but, has Hillary Clinton really joined the assault on reason? Did she really ask members of Congress whether they are "with her or against her" on her gas tax proposal? Pressed on this by George Stephanopoulos this morning, did she really just dismiss the arguments against her proposal as "elite opinion" as she sidestepped the question? TPM Election Central has the direct quotes:
"I think we've been for the last seven years seeing a tremendous amount of government power and elite opinion behind policies that haven't worked well for hard working Americans," she said.
A bit later she added: "It's really odd to me that arguing to give relief to a vast majority of Americans creates this incredible pushback...Elite opinion is always on the side of doing things that don't benefit" the vast majority of the American people.
An ordinary voter begged to differ, however. Stephanopoulos turned the mike over to a woman who said she supported Obama and said she makes less than $25,000 a year.
"I do feel pandered to when you talk about suspending the gas tax," the woman said, adding: "Call me crazy but I actually listen to economists because I think they know what they've studied."
I don't always listen to economists either - I grew up arguing environment vs economics with my economist father, at the family dinner table, Italian style. But that was a long time ago, and sometimes, on some things, they are actually right. Since then, I even studied a bit of it myself....
Meanwhile, Obama on Meet the Press, speaking from experience, confirmed that suspending the gas tax won't actually lower prices. Which is what happened in Illinois after he supported doing this at the state level. Hopefully, some enterprising journalist will ask both McCain and Clinton to explain how their gas tax proposals are consistent with their positions on addressing climate change, or whether they will shelve those at the first sign of a deepening energy crisis. I have generally refrained from taking sides since we need both of them not just to win in November, but to get anything done. But Hillary is really starting to sound desperate and is digging herself into a big hole with this one. Its sad.
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April 29, 2008
Endless gas tax holiday?
by Sylvia S Tognetti
When McCain, and then Clinton, started to call for a summer holiday on the gas tax, my first thought was, if it was actually suspended for the summer, good luck to whoever tries to reinstate it in the fall. That is because prices hover around the breaking point and therefore would just rise to fill the gap. Krugman has a concise textbook explanation, worth searing into the brain:
Why doesn’t cutting the gas tax this summer make sense? It’s Econ 101 tax incidence theory: if the supply of a good is more or less unresponsive to the price, the price to consumers will always rise until the quantity demanded falls to match the quantity supplied. Cut taxes, and all that happens is that the pretax price rises by the same amount. The McCain gas tax plan is a giveaway to oil companies, disguised as a gift to consumers....
...The Clinton twist is that she proposes paying for the revenue loss with an excess profits tax on oil companies. In one pocket, out the other. So it’s pointless, not evil. But it is pointless, and disappointing.
Kudos to Obama for not pandering on this one, and for turning it into a teachable moment. If he sticks to it and still manages to get the nomination, he will have demonstrated his ability to not just tell voters what they want to hear. Still probably easy compared to any attempt to reinstate it later. I know this is pushing it but, by that logic, it is conceivable that the price would stay the same even if the tax were raised....
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April 27, 2008
Transcend this!
by Sylvia S Tognetti
I caught a few snips of Sen. Obama being interviewed on Fox News this morning (transcript here) and am disappointed to say that both of our leading contenders for the Democratic nomination are still falling into the trap of reinforcing caricatures of Democrats that are inherent in the talking points of what has become the mainstream lunatic fringe. Sen. Clinton fell into that trap most notably and recently when she felt compelled to "disagree" with MoveOn, on a position they never took. So lets just say they are both allowing themselves to get framed, but since I try to stick to environmental science and policy here, for now I'll just respond to Obama's remarks about regulations vs markets.
If Obama wants to transcend partisanship, instead proliferating the image of Democrats as advocates of top down regulation vs Republicans as advocates of market solutions for environmental problems, when asked set up with the question about where he might have differences with his own party, he could have, instead, taken the opportunity to say something more interesting, which is that the markets vs regulations debate is just an old tape that keeps getting replayed, and that there are legitimate debates, even among Democrats, over how best to confront complex environmental problems for which regulations alone are clearly inadequate. And that many Republicans, less bound by caricatures and ideological convictions, are already part of that conversation.
Although it doesn't fit so neatly into soundbites, most of those engaged in environmental issues have, for quite some time now, known and acknowledged that end-of-the-pipe command-and-control regulatory solutions were only useful for going after the low-hanging fruit. From non-point source pollution such as stormwater and agricultural runoff, to global warming, we have had had to contend with a more complex breed of problems that requires a wide range of complementary approaches, including but not limited to market-based incentives. Secondly, regulations and markets are not an either or proposition - for example, for a cap and trade policy to work, you need regulations or policies to set a cap, and also to determine how permits are allocated and how revenues are used - which is the actual crux of the debate. Without that, markets will just stay the course that is inherent in the status quo and in existing policies.
Presidential candidates aren't the only ones guilty of this of course. Given that the MSM feeds on it, disagreeing with one's own side, while a pitfall for political candidates, is becoming a well worn path to fame and fortune for others. Another notable example being Nordhaus and Shellenberger who are making similar arguments in which they paint environmentalists with a similar broad brush. There is an interview of Michael Shellenberger by John Horgan over on bloggingheads.tv, much of which had me thinking "well duh" - to the extent I listened to it. More interesting commentary is this op-ed by Elizabeth Edwards, noting the shallowness of general news coverage of the presidential campaigns, in which "issues that could make a difference in the lives of Americans didn’t fit into the narrative template" which is, of course, why the PNT aims to cover at least some of the news that doesn't fit.
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October 26, 2007
What if... Gore had been president on 9/11?
by Sylvia S Tognetti
One post I never wrote ponders how things might have been different had Gore been president on 9/11. In this youtube video, he was asked that very question, and answers it himself, adding some perspective on subsequent crises, e.g., Katrina, and stronger warnings now being received about changes in the climate. What is only too clear is that clear warnings were and continue to be ignored.
By definition, disasters are not events themselves, but the lack of capacity to respond to them. What we have now is a fuller picture of a more complex disaster of which 9/11 was only a part - which reveals not only the incapacity but also the unwillingness of the Bush administration to respond, not just to 9-11 but to a whole series of events, meanwhile continuing to be in denial of science, even as the wildfires burn. Cheney can't even stay awake. Actually it is worse than that - by suppressing science and giving higher priority to missions to mars than to observations of the earth, this administration is actively trying to reduce the capacity to respond to profound changes in our global environment. Had Bush run for office on a platform of privatizing disaster response, he would not have even come close to being elected. Can somebody please tell me why we even have a government, and how it is that Bush came to be perceived as stronger on national security? I don't know about you but the news this week makes me want to go start a pumpkin riot or something (see next post).
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July 12, 2007
NRC: Nobody Really Cares, and history repeats
by Sylvia S Tognetti
A lesson I learned from working on nuclear health and safety issues in the 1980s is that the regulatory process is a sham and that NRC really stands for "Nobody Really Cares" - the GAO finally proved it. Today a Reuters article reports that the so-called Nuclear Regulatory Commission was caught in a GAO sting operation, when they issued a license to a dummy company, to buy enough radioactive material to make a dirty bomb. The GAO investigators never even left their desks. Hat Tip: TPM Muckraker.com
A bit of history: Since my work on the subject was in the pre-internet era, I can't link to any online documents but this sure brings back memories - of when they issued a license to company that had a criminal conviction, for the restart of TMI Unit 1, which was shut down for maintenance at the time of the accident in Unit 2, i.e., at the time that They Melted It. Subsequent investigation demonstrated that Unit 2 should have also been shut down for maintenance because of radiation leaks from the steam tubes that exceeded the permitted levels. I was an assistant to a couple of attorneys - one of whom, Joanne Doroshaw, intervened in that license proceeding, unsuccessfully, on grounds that character should be a criteria for being licensed to operate a nuclear facility. The other one, Rob Hager, was responsible for writing an Amicus Brief that was signed by 20 State Attorney Generals, who supported Karen Silkwood in the Supreme Court case against Kerr-McGee, on grounds that the appeals court ruling, interfered with their duty to protect the health and safety of their citizens. The appeals court had ruled against Silkwood on grounds that the punitive damages for plutonium contamination found in Silkwood's house, awarded by a jury acting under state law, was preempted by federal law. Her house wasn't the only place plutonium was found and the jury didn't buy it. The Supreme Court sided with the jury. So the NRC then sought to overturn the Silkwood case through legislation. In a memo I dug up at the time via the Freedom of Information Act, the then NRC Commissioner Frederick Bernthal complained that the decision "makes every jury a local NRC." Exactly! As far as I know, it still stands... We were unable to obtain a memo sent from the NRC to the then Vice-President, George H. Bush, on grounds that it was privileged since it was sent to the executive branch, and pertained in some way to decision-making. So we appealed on grounds that the Vice-President is not a decision-maker, unless it was sent to him as President of the Senate. They didn't go on record but I received a phone call assuring me that it had been sent to him as President of the Senate...
Then I started organizing the Silkwood Awards, which went to quality control inspectors who had been fired for doing their jobs, and to some local union leaders who had been fighting for participation in decisions about health and safety conditions in their places of work.
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June 21, 2007
What would you trade for some cypress mulch?
by Sylvia S Tognetti
I find it hard to believe that, post-Katrina, it is still possible to peddle cypress from the Gulf coast as cheap garden mulch. If you are equally incredulous, go see the video currently posted on the front page at the Gulf Restoration Network and sign a letter to those responsible. And read this op-ed by John Barry about other trade-offs being made in the Gulf, i.e., national economic benefits we all get at the expense of Louisiana and why coastal restoration efforts should be funded.
But there is another reason I am calling attention to the video. Eric Eckl, a communications consultant who writes a very helpful blog about Water Words that Work, points to this video as exemplary of a good communications strategy. I agree but have an additional reason why. Although the video doesn't use the term "ecosystem services", by emphasizing trade-offs between the use of cypress for garden mulch or for protection of the coast - and human lives, and by asking whether one would shred the Constitution for post-it notes, or melt the Liberty Bell for paper clips, it frames the issue in a way that is consistent with that concept. One comment: a mulch boycott is all well and good for those who garden but, what the video doesn't tell me is why cutting these cypress trees for mulch is even legal, i.e., who has the rights to control how the wetlands are used and why and what laws need to be changed.
Ecosystem Services is essentially a frame that allows better connections to be made between ecosystems and human well-being, which was also the mission of the Millennium Ecosystem Asssessment (MA). But it was a laborious case to make because it requires a lot of site specific information to demonstrate the economic significance of what ecosystems produce, the trade-offs being made, and most importantly, what choices and response options are available. So the result was a bit messy, and most of what was publicly conveyed were scary numbers about ecosystem degradation that didn't come across as anything new, and was short on specific response options - and other valuable information that was buried in four thick technical reports (and since I was a lead author for a chapter in the report on policy responses, I know where it is all buried). So, so far, the MA has provided more of a framework for research and synthesis of scientific information than it has for communication. But as this framework begins to be used in the context of threats to real people and places, as is done in this video, I expect it will become stickier.
I have also been working with Island Press and the Sonoran Institute on a case study of the Colorado River Delta that uses the MA framework to develop future scenarios for the Delta that highlight trade-offs, and make a case for insuring the continued flow of water to the Delta, which I will say more about when the report is released. So stay tuned. In the meantime, for a fascinating read about the challenge of restoration in the entire Colorado River Basin, and the trade-offs involved,I strongly recommend a new book by Bob Adler, Restoring Colorado River Ecosystems: A Troubled Sense of Immensity
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If you decide to move then looking online for Colorado homes may be of interest to you, since by browsing Colorado Springs homes online before visiting them you can often learn more about the
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In a measure designed to make government agencies more open and accountable to those they regulate, yesterday Bush signed an executive order that requires federal agencies to identify the "specific market failure" or problem that justifies government intervention, and to get approval from a politically appointed regulatory policy officer before even planning any kind of regulatory intervention or even just preparing regulatory guidance documents. But for anyone who professes Social Darwinism, the market has been wildly successful. And by creating ever more uncertainty regarding the impacts of all of the novelty it generates, and failing to fund scientific research and monitoring that detects any such impacts, as Bush demands scientific certainty, this invisible hand assures that there will never be enough scientific information to justify government intervention to protect public health, safety and general well-being. A few examples of reduced capacity for scientific research under this administration - according to a recent NAS report, the capacity of all of our earth observing systems is expected to decrease by 40% by the end of the decade and many critical measurements are expected to cease altogether, jeopardizing the ability to forecast weather, hurricanes and El Ninos at a time when changes in climate are affecting global precipitation patterns, and land use patterns changing rapidly as well. Among the earth observing missions threatened with discontinuity is Landsat, which has provided continuous images of the earth for over 30 years - although some steps are now being taken to reduce this risk. Among the reasons is that, "Early plans called for NASA to purchase data meeting LDCM specifications from a privately owned and commercially operated satellite system. However, after an evaluation of proposals received from private industry, NASA cancelled the Request-for-Proposals (RFP) in Sept. 2003." (link) According to one of my former professors, John Townshend, who chairs the geography department at the University of Maryland - where I watched the launch of Landsat 7 in 1999 - only one bid came in and was rejected because it was deemed too expensive, and because there was not enough cost sharing by the private sector. But he said part of the failure can be attributed to the scientific community, which assumed continuity and did not speak loudly enough when the program was delayed. He referred to it as "going blind." And then there are the closures of EPA science libraries . Although I regard this discourse of market failure to be a distraction from the more important problem, of finding agreement on policy goals and how they can best be achieved, whether through public or private means, perhaps it should be welcomed as an opportunity to put aside the games with cost-benefit analysis and get this administration and its supporters to be explicit about what they believe the purpose of government to be. Although placement of politically appointed regulatory policy officers in each agency practically guarantees political interference in science, he could no longer blame the bureaucracy and would have to take responsibility for his policy decisions. In other words, if Bush doesn't believe that health and safety or disaster response is a government responsibility, he should just say so!
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For awhile I wondered if I was going to have to wipe egg off of my face for the casual remark with which I started off a recent post, about the coincidence between falling gas prices and election season. There are apparently other reasons gas prices go down at this time of year, for example, driving
less. My main concern was the lack of incentives to get serious about making a transition, not only to renewable energy sources, but also to more public transportation and smarter development patterns, which won't happen if prices hover below the breaking point, regardless of whether it is because prices drive down consumption or are manipulated to drive up consumption, or both. But apparently Bush believed there was a relationship between falling gas prices and elections in 2004. According to Bob
Woodward's book, he personally thanked Prince Bandar, the former Saudi Ambassador to the United States, "because the Saudis had flooded the world oil market and kept prices down in the run-up to the 2004 election." But click the link and read the rest of the review - I might have to actually read the book. There is also some good discussion going on in the blogosphere about the merits of a gas tax. There is even a Pigou Club of those who advocate it. I haven't asked to join the club because my support for it is contingent on having the trust and confidence that it would be spent to support a transition to alternatives instead of more highways that connect nowhere to nowhere. Funds earmarked for conservation have a
way of getting diverted to resolve more immediate budget crises. I'll probablay come back to this after I read the history of the gas tax that Kevin Vranes provided a link to. But right now I have to pack for another trip. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Getting a bad credit business loan isn't right for everyone, but sometimes a small business loan can be a way to help a business stay afloat. The more you know about loans the better prepared you'll be to deal with paying back a business cash advance on time.
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In rocket science, at least there is a right answer. You either reach the target or you don't. Apparently, the Bush administration can't even get that right. In science for policy, disagreements about science are often a disguise for disagreements about what the target should be in the first place, which brings us back to the subject of framing. (For some basics about the concept, Revere at Effect Measure wrote an excellent series of posts that summarize and comment on the ideas of George Lakoff - or you can directly visit the website of the Rockridge Institute that he founded.) A post by Josh Trevino at Swords Crossed, that has sparked discussion in the blogosphere, and that was brought to my attention by Coturnix, describes the Overton Window, and how it is very systematically and deliberately used by right-wing think tanks to introduce unthinkable and radical ideas into the public discourse, which makes them begin to sound acceptable and sensible, while moving those already so normalized to becoming popular and finally, actual policy. The shift can occur by accident or by design - to which I would add, that strategies can also be designed to take advantage of accidents or crises, like using 9/11 for example, as a pretext for invading Iraq. This isn't really a new idea - just a formal presentation of the rules of a game that has been played by both sides. Whatever you think of Greenpeace, they have always played an important role in making the more mainstream environmentalists sound reasonable, and they probably deserve much more credit for muckraking than they normally get, given a tendency by the news media and others to only cite authoritative sources. Another point I would add is that this process also works the other way, to make currently mainstream ideas sound radical and unacceptable, e.g., equating Democrats with socialism or adopting what John Conyers calls "the strawman strategy of identifying a parade of horrors to come if Democrats gain the majority," in which the Republicans project, for example, what it would be like if he actually became chairman of the Judiciary Committee. In this op-ed, Conyers speaks for himself about what he would do. Lets hear it for oversight hearings - which should be cause enough for all reasonable people of either party to band together. A few weeks ago I heard some pundits from a right-wing think tank on CSPAN radio who conceded that the Bush administration has been a failure but then, without missing a beat, went on to bemoan that the Democratic party could not be trusted with power and with national security, because they had been taken over by the radical elements of it, i.e., Howard Dean. That anyone could believe that, after knowing how Bush reacted when informed about the 9/11 attacks - by continuing to read My Pet Goat, and how he responded to Katrina - by playing guitar, suggests something is seriously lacking in our educational system. But make no mistake - the failure is not just of the Bush administration. The prospect of "peak oil" would not have us facing as dire of an energy crisis had Reagan not slashed budgets for research on alternative energy sources that were initiated by the Carter administration after the energy crisis of the 1970s, and which forced many smart people to change careers. Most Republicans are probably not science-bashing fundamentalists, but the alliance serves them well. And some even care about the environment, but so far, not enough to take a stand and risk a hold on power made possible by shady alliances. The Trevino post has sparked discussion in the blogosphere about the fallacy of the democratic strategy of playing to the middle for fear that they will alienate the middle if they play to their base... as Republicans, meanwhile, play to their base and shift the definition of the middle - thereby moving it to the right. In other words, according to thereisnospoon, "You win policy debates by crafting arguments for extreme positions--and then shifting the entire window of debate. You do not win by trying to figure out which position is most popular among Americans right now." However, an important point made by Trevino in a follow-up comment posted on Daily Kos is that this is a role played by the right-wing think-tanks rather than by the Republican party itself. What I think is often forgotten when blaming the Democratic Party for playing to the middle is the difference between the roles played by advocates and politicians. I'm not convinced that candidates for office can both frame the debate and get elected, although once elected, they can make good use of the bully pulpit. Which is what Gore is doing, now that he is not planning to run for office, and is not obligated to somebody else's agenda, which might just make him the best candidate ever. Even if he isn't ultimately persuaded to run, he could continue to play a critical role in shaping public discourse, and make it safe for those who are candidates to take a stand on controversial issues. Though I still think he would make the best president ever, and, given that we are at a turning point, is exactly who we really need in office - more on that later. Apart from Gore, shaping public discourse and framing debate is an important role played by advocates and real journalists, and now the blogosphere, where we can find the voices of individuals who, like Gore, are unencumbered by the positions of the organizations they work for. What concerns me even more is the use of familiar frames and nice-sounding concepts, like sound science, data quality, CO2 is life or intelligent design to manipulate and deceive. (For more commentary on the CO2 is life ads put out by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, see posts by the usual suspects: RealClimate, Tim Lambert, Chris Mooney.) This can make it difficult or impossible to talk about some important ideas that fit almost too well into a grossly distorted and misleading narrative. For example, any talk about uncertainties in climate science inevitably gets distorted by the likes of Benny Peiser who January 30, 2007
Market failure?
by Sylvia S TognettiOctober 5, 2006
gas tax
by Sylvia S Tognetti
May 22, 2006
Windows
by Sylvia S Tognetti
doesn't pretends not to know the difference between uncertainty of the magnitude and significance of climate change, and uncertainty regarding policies to address climate change, and whose debunked study nevertheless continues to be cited by denialists of human-induced global warming. And then we wind up with confused scientists blaming social theory altogether, rather than the misuse of it by those who seek to discredit the science that provides justification for environmental and other policies that protect public safety and health, and that have broad public support. Odd that they don't blame Einstein for the atomic bomb, or Darwin for policies of Social Darwinism. Nor was Machiavelli a Machiavellian. More constructive than attacking social theory would be to provide some transparency to its misuse for purposes of social manipulation. So I'll wrap this up with a quote from Erving Goffman's book on Frame Analysis (1974) where he refers to the work of Gregory Bateson, who began to talk about framing in a paper first presented in 1954:
The very useful paper by Gregory Bateson, "A Theory of Play and Phantasy," in which he directly raised the question of unseriousness and seriousness, allowing us to see what a startling thing experience is, such that a bit of serious activity can be used as a model for putting together unserious versions of the same activity, and that, on occasion, we may not know whether it is play or the real thing that is occurring. (Bateson introduced... also the argument that individuals can intentionally produce framing confusion in those with whom they are dealing...
More to come on the subject of Bateson - last week I had the opportunity to have some long conversations about him with Stephen Nachmanovich, who was once his student, and with several others, at a symposium held in honor of the Bateson Centennial (which was officially in 2004) at Concordia University in Montreal.
Then there is Roberto Benigni who, in the film Down by Law, draws a window on the jailhouse wall, and then, by looking at his predicament in a different way, finds a way to climb out. Then he has to find his way out of a swamp, but that is a different problem.
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May 1, 2006
Required reading
by Sylvia S Tognetti
If you are one of those visitors from outside the US who is still wondering what is going on in the US (or don't get cable tv and haven't read any other blogs yet in the past 2 days) look no further than the video and transcript of Steven Colbert, speaking "straight from the gut... [giving] people the truth, unfiltered by rational argument" - Saturday evening at the annual White House Correspondent's Dinner, also reported on here. You may also want to see the transcript of his appearance on 60 minutes the next day. But watch the video - you have to see it to believe that he said all this with Bush sitting nearby, and in the presence of "the mainstream media" while being broadcast live on CSPAN. Is this a great country or what? A few excerpts, that explain how science and policy decisions are actually made, and provide some context:
...let's review the rules. Here's how it works. The President makes decisions, he's the decider. The Press Secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Put them through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know, fiction.
...Because really, what incentive do these people have to answer your questions, after all? I mean, nothing satisfies you. Everybody asks for personnel changes. So the White House has personnel changes. Then you write they're just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
First of all, that is a terrible metaphor. This administration is not sinking. This administration is soaring. If anything, they are rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg.
...The greatest thing about this man is he's steady. You know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday, that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday. Events can change, this man's beliefs never will.
...I stand by this man. I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things. Things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message, that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world.
...Fox News gives you both sides of every story, the President's side and the Vice President's side.
And just to show that he didn't let anyone off the hook:
Jesse Jackson is here. I had him on the show. Very interesting and challenging interview. You can ask him anything, but he's going to say what he wants at the pace that he wants. It's like boxing a glacier. Enjoy that metaphor, because your grandchildren will have no idea what a glacier is.
He ended by expressing disappointment that the job of the White House Press Secretary had already been filled, and presented an audition tape of him conducting a White House Press conference - don't miss this one.
On a more serious note, in case you think it was in any way "over the top," another bit of required reading is this article which shows that Bush's claim to be above the law goes far beyond domestic surveillance:
President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.
Among the laws Bush said he can ignore are military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, "whistle-blower" protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research.
I was going to write a longer post last night in answer to Roger Pielke's latest post about linking hurricanes and climate policy - and Gore's new film on global warming, but was out enjoying the beautiful weather and dinner with my neighbors. And there is this bigger elephant in the room. But I will, soon enough - and hurricane season is almost back so I don't think that thread is going anywhere. I have a few things to say about Gore too.
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March 6, 2006
Ode to a swamp
by Sylvia S Tognetti
Recommended reading is an interview by Darksyde (at Daily Kos) with Michael Grunwald, regarding the Florida Everglades (hat tip Chris Mooney of course, who has additional comments on Grunwald's book here). But what I most enjoyed was Darksydes introduction, where he describes the Everglades as "the only place on earth where salt-water crocodiles live side by side with fresh-water alligators." I'm fascinated by swamps because they bring attention to those things we miss when we compartmentalize ecosystems or anything else into their individual components like land and water, or freshwater and marine systems, or even humans and nature, or ecology and economics.... What we miss are the relationships between them, and the diversity that arises just because of this - which is suppose to be the whole point of ecology, and why, for example, when writing material for a chapter of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, on responses to freshwater degradation, I had a hard time staying within the confines of my chapter and was told to "think inside the box," which nearly drove me to despair.
I also once wrote a series of descriptions of mangrove ecoregions for the World Wildlife Fund. The task probably came to me, as a consultant, because their staff was compartmentalized into those working on terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecoregions. Although marine, mangroves depend on the regular flows of freshwater and sediment, and although they don't rank very high for biodiversity, they have many visitors from diverse nearby areas who come there to feed, including turtles who dwell in nearby seagrass beds, migratory birds, and fish from nearby coral reefs. Without mangroves, some coral reefs would not even exist because they would be smothered by the sediment trapped by the mangroves. Closer to home, in the Chesapeake Bay, is the Terrapin turtle (better known as the mascot of my alma mater), which uses all of the different habitats of the Bay in different stages of its lifecycle - so to save the Terrapin, we have to save the whole Bay, beaches as well as underwater grasses, and the balance of fresh and saline waters. My next project may be to learn to construct rain gardens to catch stormwater runoff in places like "Muddy Spring." Consider also, that 70-80% of watershed areas are in these upstream hillslope areas that are dominated by extreme and randomly timed storm events. The last major modificaton to the shape of the stream behind my house was made a few years ago by hurricane Isabel, and I expect that the next hurricane that comes this way will mobilize a big pile of dirt up the street. Then consider that a case heard by the Supreme Court on February 21st will decide whether any of this will continue to come under the purview of the Clean Water Act. Ironic, since filtration through the landscape is how we get clean water without building expensive filtration plants - as New York City has recognized. For now, the city has been able to avoid the expense of a filtration plant by investing a much lower amount in financing upstream conservation activities.
It is no coincidence that living things are disrpoportionately concentrated along riverbanks and nearshore areas where they have access to the best of both worlds. I also once studied "ecological economics" and was always asked, "but are you an economist or an ecologist" to which I could only reply "yes." I'm much happier calling myself a geographer, but, when I switched programs, I also had to leave behind plans I had for doing research in the world's biggest swamp, i.e., the Pantanal - a seasonally flooded place that straddles the borders of 3 countries (Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay) and 4 major South American ecosystems that contribute to its vegetational composition - the Amazon tropical rainforest, the cerrado or scrub forests of central Brazil, the chaco - or semi-arid scrub forests, and the sub-tropical Atlantic humid forest. Within this, are 10 ecological subregions, depending on elevation and water levels. The difference between the first and the second picture below, taken at the beginning of the rainy season in 1995, is probably less than a foot in elevation, and less than a few kilometers of distance. At the bottom are pictures of the Tuiuiu - a bird that has come to symbolize the Pantanal and that is only the most well known of the 650 species of birds that can be found there, along with 90 species of mammals (including humans) and 50 species of reptiles, who feed on the 250 species of fish and other things that can also be found there - the fish make for easy pickings when the yearly floodwaters recede. The second picture is also what the area in the first might look like, if water levels dropped as a result of climate change, and/or of expanding the waterway for navigation - which would bring industralization along with it. Scientists in the region often point to the restoration of the Florida Everglades , and its cost, as a lesson to be learned from, and to make a case why they really shouldn't be chaneling and straightening the upper Paraguay river for a waterway.
Asked "Why is the Everglades so important?" Grunwald says:
The Everglades is the ultimate test of sustainable development, of man's ability to live in harmony with nature. It's always been at the cutting edge of conservation--first when a hunting ban prevented the extinction of Everglades wading birds, then when Everglades National Park was the first park established for biology rather than scenery, then when an Everglades pollution lawsuit led to the largest nutrient cleanup in history, and now with the largest restoration project in history. Everglades restoration is already a national blueprint for multi-billion-dollar efforts to revive ailing ecosystems like the Chesapeake Bay, the Great Lakes, and Louisiana's vanishing coastal marshes. It's becoming a model for the world; the Corps is helping Iraqis try to restore the "Garden of Eden" marshes destroyed by Saddam Hussein. But it's not clear whether the Corps knows what it's doing. After all, it's not a Corps of Biologists. And if man can't figure out a way to revive the Everglades--the world's most beloved and most studied wetland, in a region with plenty of rain and plenty of money--it's hard to imagine which ecosystem he's going to be able to revive.
I might add that it also challenges the way we think, which needs to change before we can act effectively to restore the Everglades or anyplace else. This is a topic I will probably be coming back to over the next few months, as I prepare for a panel I was invited to participate in in May, which will revisit the work of Gregory Bateson. One of Bateson's great frustrations was that there was "no conventional way of explaining or even describing the phenomena of biological organization and human interaction,” and that he was unable to convey concepts of evolution in light of cybernetics and information theory for lack of a base of common understanding. This is what led him to develop a set of principles for a new as yet unnamed science, which to him were obvious and self-evident, and “that every schoolboy should know”. These seemingly elementary ideas became epistemological principles regarding how we can know or learn anything, which merged with his ideas about evolution and “the wider knowing that holds together the starfishes and sea anemones and redwood forests and human communities.”
References after the jump
Bateson, G., Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity. Bantam Books, New York, 1979.
Kawakami de Resende E., and Tognetti, S.S. (2002) Ecological and Economic Context of the Proposed Paraguay-Paraná Hidrovia and Implications for Decision-Making. Abaza, H. and Baranzini, A. eds. Implementing Sustainable Development: Integrated Assessment and Participatory Decision-Making Processes. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham UK. [prepublication version here]
For more information about current threats to the Pantanal, see Rios Vivos
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March 2, 2006
The big one
by Sylvia S Tognetti
I don't think this comes as any surprise to readers of this blog but, if you actually believed Bush when he said "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees," or just want to see another smoking gun, go visit CrooksandLiars to see the AP video of him being briefed on Sunday the 29th at noon, 19 hours in advance of the storm. Even Brownie knew it would be "the big one." Then, for a list of other things that the administration did not anticipate, see liberaloasis. Right. Then see Firedoglake for more lies and some context. The bottomline is, this administration is a threat to national security. Even if, for once, Bush actually told the truth, how could anyone in their right mind believe him? His lies are as anticipatable as was the damage of Katrina - to many of us, years in advance.
Lets also not forget that the Bush administration and a Republican dominated Congress had earlier blocked funds for restoration of the Gulf Coast, that has been ravaged by onshore facilities built to support offshore oil development, the revenue from which does not go into the coffers of Gulf states. The $30 billion that had been requested to fund a comprehensive restoration plan is probably less than the cost of a new weapons system.
Then, if you are wondering why the White House is still occupied by these people, visit ReconstructionWatch for information about a march in Washington planned for the eve of the day Katrina victims are scheduled to be evicted from hotels with no place to go, March 14th.
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February 8, 2006
Infested swamp
by Sylvia S Tognetti
Digby raises the issue that scientific agencies are undoubtedly infested with pests like George Deutsch, "not only in pr but in positions that require serious decision-making." He calls them mosquitos. I think of it more as a hydra-infested swamp - that will require a Herculean effort to eradicate (DC was built on a wetland...) Just a hunch but, somebody who has time or gets paid to investigate such things might take start by taking a look at the qualifications of political appointees at the Office of Management and Budget - which has an awful lot of power over what the science agencies do. As Digby also says:
Let's be clear about this. This is the kind of incompetent behavior that right wing ideologues, obsessed with ideology and appearance over reality, repeat again and again and again. And it has consequences.... Bush's wholesale trashing of US science policy -climate change research is just one area- has the potential to lead to serious threats to our national security.Addendum: On second thought - lest we forget New Orleans, it already has. As I have blogged in earlier posts - both before and after Katrina, there was no lack of scientific early warnings - or even plans for coastal restoration or proposals for funding mechanisms - years in advance. I saw Mary Landrieu on CSPAN last week - still asking for a share of revenue from offshore oil and gas receipts to fund the restoration plan - as she did long before Katrina. How about we hear it from some non-Louisiana senators and representatives? Maybe we need a Mardi Gras parade through the halls of congress or something....
[Correction: I think the above was not from Digby but from "Tristero" posting on Digby's blog, Hullabaloo.]
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December 11, 2005
COP/MOP produces a MAP
by Sylvia S Tognetti
[updated, 12-12-05, 10 pm]
It is not clear why the Bush administration even bothered to send a delegation to the climate talks in Montreal. I actually made a list of what the US delegation did do, compiled from various sources:
Prime Minister Martin had received a standing ovation for a speech in which he said "To the reticent nations, including the United States, I say there is such a thing as a global conscience, and now is the time to listen to it. Now is the time ... for action." I guess next they will blame Clinton? Oh, wait - anonymous Bush-Administration officials are also reported to have told conference organizers that "any chance for the United States to sign on to the Kyoto global-warming protocol would be scuttled if they allowed Bill Clinton to speak" - as if that were ever a remote possibility. But they backed off, Clinton spoke, and they walked out anyway. The US was not the only country to receive Fossil of the Day Awards but you can read about the rest of them here. In the end, the US agreed to "exploratory global dialogue on future steps to combat climate change" still ruling out any "negotiations leading to new commitments."
In spite of all of the above, there were some accomplishments:
We also now have more certainty on an area of uncertainty I pointed out in the initial blog post - whether science and public opinion has any effect whatsoever on Bush administration decisions, and therefore, on the climate. But, as the CAN newsletter points out, the train from Kyoto is leaving the Montreal station, leaving the Bush administration [mostly*] on the platform, and much of the world looking forward to the working with the next president, in 2009.
As for Kyoto, nothing is perfect, but an emissions cap is generally regarded as essential for lowering the cost of carbon emission reductions through markets for emission reduction credits. Although questions remain about feasibility of carbon markets in practice, IMHO, a cap on emissions can also create economic incentives for the kind of technological innovation that will be needed to begin to move beyond a fossil fuel economy. The real challenge is how to do that, as well as respond to unavoidable impacts. But there are a lot of creative ideas and possibilities floating around that just seem to need a policy framework for getting us from here to there. For a very readable overview of what was on the table in Montreal, that explains the meaning of many of the acronyms, see this article at the EcosystemMarketPlace. More thorough reporting and analysis in the Climate Action Network Eco newsletters, and the IISD Earth Negotiations Bulletins (which should have a final summary up soon).
*You are either on a train or you are not... Or, as a Montreal train conductor might say: "Alors, vous montez, ou vous restez sur le quai?"
[The pictures were taken last year at a behind the scenes tour of the ExpoRail, Canadian Railway Museum, compliments of Daniel Laurendeau, seen in the last picture, channeling the operator of a Montreal Streetcar. At the time, I was in Montreal for a combined working group meeting of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment - which I will probably blog about in the near future - the full reports are due to be released in January. In addition to ExpoRail, I also, of course, managed to squeeze in some aikido practice and a visit to the water museum which, at least at the time, had a great exhibit about climate change in the Great Lakes. ]
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November 3, 2005
Brownie, self-proclaimed "Fashion God," asks to be rescued
by Sylvia S Tognetti
In this town, good image consultants get paid for an hour or two of work, what I make in a day. So perhaps it should come as no surprise that, as Katrina made landfall, "Brownie" was more preoccupied with when he could go home, and, with his attire. I really do have other topics I want to write about but, since Brownie is still on the federal payroll, and since he provides some transparency into how things get done, or not, in the Bush administration, and since disasters don't end when news coverage fades, a few excerpts from Brownie's e-mails(pdf):
Monday August 29th, 7:52 am (Mike Brown to Cindy Taylor, FEMA Deputy Director for Public Affairs): "Can I quit now? Can I come home?"
Monday August 29th, 8:51 am (Mike Brown to Cindy Taylor and Marty Bahamonde - the only FEMA employee in the region before landfall): "If you'll look at my lovely FEMA attire, you'll really vomit. I am a fashion god."
Other e-mails, from later that morning, at 9:39, 9:53, and 10:20, and 11:57 show that, contrary to his statements that he only learned of the breach in the levees on Tuesday, he was indeed informed on Monday morning, both of the breach in the levee, and of severe flooding. But for some reason, replied at 12:09 that he had been told that "water over not a breach."
By Friday September 2nd, he must have realized he was in way over his head - in another e-mail: "Last hurrah was suppose to have been Labor Day. I'm trapped now, please rescue me."
On Sunday September 4, he was advised by his press secretary, Sharon Worthy to: "Please roll up the sleeves of your shirt, all shirts. Even the president rolled his sleeves to just below the elbow. In this [crisis] and on TV you just need to look more hard-working.... ROLL UP THE SLEEVES"
More analysis is provided in this staff report prepared for Rep. Charles Melancon.
But that isn't all that happens in this town. If you live in the area, please come out to Bangkok Blues in Falls Church this evening from 7-11 pm, for:
A Special Fundraiser and Performance by Marva Wright, the Blues Queen of New Orleans
Marva Wright will be reunited with her close friend and bandleader, bass player and vocalist Benny Turner (brother of the late blues guitarist Freddie King). Both Marva and Benny lost everything in New Orleans and he is now based on the West Coast as she tries to rebuild her life here in the DC-Baltimore area. Joining Marva on stage will be one of the area's finest blues guitarists, Robert Lighthouse as well as Pete Locke on keyboard, L.T. King on drums and Tala Faral from Madagascar on sax. The evening will begin with a performance by the award-winning singer-songwriter Margie Perez and her band Disaster Relief featuring Fritz Myer on guitar and flute, Don Fede on bass, L.T. King on drums, and Tala Faral on sax . She too lost everything to the floods following Katrina.
Tickets: Minimum $15 (ahead) $20 (door)
Net ticket proceeds will go to Marva Wright.
Bangkok Blues is located at 926 W. Broad St. (or Rt. 7), Falls Church, VA; 703-534-0095
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October 20, 2005
barf
by Sylvia S Tognetti
Excerpts of e-mails to (former) FEMA director Mike Brown from Marty Bahamonde (a FEMA official who arrived in New Orleans in advance of Katrina):
On Aug. 31, Bahamonde e-mailed Brown to tell him that thousands of evacuees were gathering in the streets with no food or water and that "estimates are many will die within hours."
"Sir, I know that you know the situation is past critical," Bahamonde wrote. "The sooner we can get the medical patients out, the sooner we can get them out." A short time later, Brown's press secretary, Sharon Worthy, wrote colleagues to complain that the FEMA director needed more time to eat dinner at a Baton Rouge restaurant that evening. "He needs much more that (sic) 20 or 30 minutes," Worthy wrote.
"Restaurants are getting busy," she said. "We now have traffic to encounter to go to and from a location of his choise (sic), followed by wait service from the restaurant staff, eating, etc. Thank you."
Meanwhile, a concluding remark made at a panel discussion on Intelligent Design, as reported at Aetiology:
"God is to engineering what Michael Brown is to hurricane relief"
The dissenting (pro-ID) view was presented by..... a physicist - who obviously has the same kind of a relationship to biology as God to engineering and Mike Brown to hurricanes.... Come to think of it, why does it seem like most of the top science and policy positions are occupied by physicists?
Thanks to Coturnix for the hat tip.
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September 29, 2005
Category 5 Spin
by Sylvia S Tognetti
[Update: after you read this, see Category 5 Wingnuttery, at Sadly No, to find out Who is really behind soaring oil prices. And note that, since we will undoubtedly be hearing more of this, the title of this post is now also a category. Feel free to contribute and/or send links. And start stockpiling those bullshit protectors.]
Tuesday, at a House hearing on federal state and local responses to Katrina, Mike Brown (aka, "Brownie") - now a FEMA consultant, admitted to "a few specific mistakes":
First, I failed initially to set up a series of regular briefings to the media about what FEMA was doing throughout the Gulf Coast region. And instead, I became tied to the news shows, going on the news shows early in the morning and late at night, and that was just a mistake. We should have been feeding that information to the press and in the manner and in the time that we wanted to, instead of letting the press drive us.
Second, I very strongly personally regret that I was unable to persuade Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin to sit down, get over their differences and work together. I just couldn't pull that off.
[And later added:] "My biggest mistake was not recognizing, by Saturday, that Louisiana was dysfunctional."
He also blamed the Department of Homeland Security for removing a request for communication equipment from the budget, but, when asked "what he and the agency he led should have done to evacuate New Orleans, restore order in the city and improve communication among law enforcement agencies" Brown said: "Those are not FEMA roles. FEMA doesn't evacuate communities. FEMA does not do law enforcement. FEMA does not do communications." No wonder the request for communication equipment was removed. I guess he was just following orders. An Independent Commission, should we get one, might ask about those.
A full transcript can be found here. More at The Progress Report. If you need to restore lost memory, see Josh Marshall's Katrina timeline and ongoing thread on Brownie's Lies.
Meanwhile, fueled by the winds of Katrina, just as Katrina was fueled by the heat of the loop current, House Republicans wasted no time in introducing legislation that would permit wholesale looting of public assets by: lifting moratoriums on offshore oil development elsewhere in the country, open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration, sell public lands including parks to recover costs, ease environmental restrictions on the expansion, development and siting of oil refineries, and provide "government funded risk insurance against regulatory delays" to refinery construction. Never mind that revenue from offshore oil and gas is suppose to be used to finance the Land and Water Conservation Fund so as to expand public land holdings.
On the Senate side, things were kept a bit more simple. Senators Inhofe and Vitter introduced a 1 page bill (SB 1711) that would just give the EPA administrator unprecedented power to waive any federal or state laws and regulations - including state criminal laws, anywhere in the country, in any way related to Katrina, regardless of whether it has anything to do with the environment, as long as it is determined to be "in the public interest." What it does not do, is require that anyone be held accountable for injuries that might result, e.g., from poisoned drinking water. According to an analysis by the NRDC, "not even during the Civil War, World War II, or the aftermath of September 11 has any one person had that power."
In older news, in case you missed it, an article in the National Review blames environmental groups for EVERYTHING. To properly respond to that one, I would have to look at the specifics of the examples given but, the point is, the specifics matter. The article is based on gross generalizations about environmental opposition to Army Corps of Engineers levee projects and delays in such projects associated with the need to conduct environmental impact studies. That the example cited is an entirely different set of levees from the ones that failed, and that what was opposed was not the fortifying and heightening of levees, but that it would be done with fill material removed from wetlands - will not even be noticed by those who will just read the headlines and conclusions to reinforce their preconceived notions. No mention of the fact that levees and offshore oil development are the main culprits in the loss of coastal wetlands, which made the Louisiana coast more vulnerable to hurricanes to begin with. If you read one of my previous posts, you know that forthcoming attempts to use Katrina as a pretext for waiving requirements to do environmental impact studies will come as no surprise. There are people who have been waiting for this moment for a long time. An Independent Commission, should examine this response pattern as well. And next time, we need to be prepared to distribute BS protectors - along with food and water.
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September 26, 2005
Katrina delivered an overdue bill for watershed services
by Sylvia S Tognetti
Besides this blog, I write an e-bulletin called Flows that reviews lessons being learned, or not, from efforts to establish payment arrangements for watershed services - as part of a project of the International Institute for Environment and Development. The latest issue, regarding the overdue bill that was delivered by Katrina, is cross-posted below, and includes a collection of links to further information - a number of which were brought to my attention in the blogosphere - a special thanks to Chris Mooney, Roger Pielke, Majikthise and Neddie Jingo. This and past issues are archived at www.flowsonline.net.
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Review: Payments for watershed services in coastal regions: not whether but when, and the cost of delay
When Katrina struck the Gulf coast of Louisiana and Mississippi, there was no lack of scientific information, timely warnings, public awareness, or even response plans. These included not only immediate plans for disaster relief from the long anticipated consequences of the loss of coastal wetlands and barrier islands, but also a long-term plan for restoration (see Coast 2050, 1998 and LCA 2004). Lacking, however, were the financial resources, institutional capacity and political will necessary to implement the response plans. Consequently, the disastrous response to Katrina has exposed links between these coastal wetlands and the economic well being of the entire US, along with other vulnerabilities and social dysfunctions, of which it is only a symptom.
As land loss has accelerated along the region’s coastal areas, storm surges and flooding have become almost routine - even in the absence of hurricanes. In the past, these wetlands acted as a buffer against flooding, protecting not only the city of New Orleans from flooding , but also the extensive infrastructure that supports offshore oil and gas operations in the Gulf of Mexico, as well as key ports. Even in their depleted condition these wetlands support 20% of US commercial fishery production and during hard times in particular, make a significant contribution to the livelihoods of the diverse cultures that inhabit this region and who, themselves, have made significant contributions to national and global cultural heritage (Gramling, 2005).
The loss of 1,900 square miles (4,900 square km) of these wetlands since the 1930s is not so much a result of the actions of individual landowners, but of the extensive flood protection structures (or ‘levees’), over 8,000 miles of canals - built to support offshore oil and gas operations and shipping, as well as subsidence. The levees increase vulnerability to flooding by preventing the deposit of sediment in coastal floodplain areas that would otherwise form coastal land. Other sources of vulnerability are changes in climate that have led to a rising sea level and, most likely, to an increase in the intensity of hurricanes (Kerr 2005). Poverty is a further source of vulnerability which has limited response options.
The people of Southern Louisiana - approximately 540,000 or 15% of whom have a fishing license, are keenly aware of the services provided by coastal wetlands. Over the past decade, there has been a concerted effort by scientists, environmental groups, business leaders, local and national government agencies and citizens of the region, to develop a comprehensive and scientifically sound plan for coastal restoration. Long before the hurricane, local public officials and newspaper headlines warned that it would be necessary to “pay now or later” and to either “repair the marshland or rebuild New Orleans” based on this $14 billion plan for which funds were urgently requested over a 10 year period. These funds would probably not have entirely eliminated the damages caused by Katrina, but together with additional funds that were requested for levee improvements and other structural measures, they might have proved to be a bargain in light of the consequences. Recognizing the inadequacy of piecemeal approaches to the restoration of these wetlands, there have also been calls for Louisiana and other coastal states to receive a 50% share of the revenue from offshore oil and gas operations adjacent to their coast. By a constitutional amendment passed last June, the Louisiana legislature now requires all new revenues that might be obtained from offshore oil and gas extraction to be placed into a trust fund for this purpose (PACE 2005).
Such a policy would also go a long way towards addressing a root cause of the disastrous response to Katrina - a policy that placed the burden of response on individuals and local governments, without giving them also a constitutional right to the benefits of natural resource extraction. As an independent stream of revenue, these funds could also be used to reduce vulnerability by building local capacity to respond to extreme and hazardous events. However, achieving this will require more than innovative payment arrangements. The sale of leases for offshore oil and gas exploration and development is the second most significant source of US government revenue after the federal income tax, and provides a basis for government revenue projections and policy decisions before they are even sold.
Events such as Katrina - and also the South Asian Tsunami - may lead to greater value being placed on the supporting services of watersheds that maintain coastal areas, or indirect values, rather than only on the more direct and tangible values such as freshwater and recreation. However, overcoming value conflicts over inevitable trade-offs will require a comprehensive strategy addressing both the political and technical challenges of maintaining and restoring ecosystem services.
References and further reading - after the jump.
(more...)Appel, A. Many Islands “Gone,” Wetlands Gutted After Katrina, Experts Say. National Geographic News, September 19, 2005.
Boesch, Donald F. 2005. The awful price of coastal ruin. Baltimore Sun, September 1, 2005.
Bourne Jr., J.K., 2004. Gone with the Water , National Geographic Magazine, October 2004
Coast 2050. Louisiana Coastal Wetlands Conservation and Restoration Task Force and the Wetlands Conservation and Restoration Authority. 1998. Coast 2050: Toward a Sustainable Coastal Louisiana . Louisiana Department of Natural Resources, Baton Rouge, LA. 161 pp. [A more detailed overview of the values of coastal wetlands can be found in Chapter 6 of this report: The value of coastal wetlands (pdf).]
Friedman, George. 2005. The Ghost City. The New York Review of Books, Vol. 52, No. 14, October 6, 2005. Gramling, R. 2004. A Working Coast: People in the Louisiana Wetlands. Journal of Coastal Research. Special Issue Number 44, Saving America’s Wetland: Strategies for Restoration of Louisiana’s Coastal Wetlands and Barrier Islands.
Kerr, R.A. 2005. Is Katrina a Harbinger of Still More Powerful Hurricanes? Science 309, 16 September 2005, p. 1807.
Laska, S. 2004. What if Hurricane Ivan had not missed New Orleans? Disasters Waiting to Happen… Sixth in a Series. Natural Hazards Observer, Vol. XXIX, No. 2, November 2004.
LCA 2004. Louisiana Coastal Area Ecosystem Restoration Study. US Army Corps of Engineers New Orleans District and The State of Louisiana.
Reed, D.J., Wilson, L. 2004. Coast 2050: A New Approach to Restoration of Louisiana Coastal Wetlands. Physical Geography 25:1, pp. 4-21.
Washing away: A special report from The Times-Picayune. A five part series regarding the threat of hurricanes to the Louisiana coast, published June 23-27, 2002.
Travis, J. 2005. HURRICANE KATRINA: Scientists' Fears Come True as Hurricane Floods New Orleans. Science, Vol 309, Issue 5741, 1656-1659 , 9 September 2005
Webster, P.J., Holland G.J., Curry, J.A., and Chang, H.-R. 2005. Changes in Tropical Cyclone Numbe, Duration, and Intensity in a Warming Environment. Science 309, September 16, 2005. pp. 1844-1846.
Books:
Barry, John M. The Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How it Changed America
Colten, Craig. An Unnatural Metropolis: Wresting New Orleans from Nature
Tidwell, Mike (2004) Bayou Farewell: The Rich Life and Tragic Death of Louisiana's Cajun Coast
Other links:
America’s Wetland - provides an up to date collection of news articles.
Hurricanes, Climate, and Katrina: A selection of past Science articles related to hurricanes, coastal disasters, and disaster policy are being made available free of charge by Science and its publisher, the AAAS.
For a history of coastal restoration efforts in Louisiana by the Federal government, see the presentation of US Senator Mary Landrieu, Louisiana’s Coastline: Federal Initiatives to Save Our Coast. Friday June 2, 2005.
New Orleans and Hurricanes was also the subject of an Environmental Science Seminar Series hosted by the American Meteorological Society, held 6-19-05 in Washington DC. Presenters included Mary Landrieu, US Senator from Louisiana, Thomas Knutson, a Research Scientist at the NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, and Shirley Laska, Director of the Center for Hazards Assessment, Response and Technology and Professor of Sociology at the University of New Orleans. Highlights of the presentations can be found here.
For further discussion of whether there are links between hurricanes and global warming, see www.realclimate.org.
For a sampling of the musical heritage of Southern Louisiana - much of which is related to the 1927 flood - and its contribution to American music, there is a series of audio programs, Down in the Flood, that can be downloaded from www.highwatereverywhere.com.
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September 12, 2005
Hurricanes are acts of God - Disasters are not
by Sylvia S Tognetti
EVEN MORE about "Brownie's" qualifications to be the director of FEMA. That he could make it through a background check tells us everything we need to know about the Bush administration. Since then, Mike Brown has been removed from the spotlight, but is back at his desk where he is still, at least officially, in charge of allocating $51.8 billion in Katrina relief funds, and of planning for the next string of hurricanes and disasters to come.
[Update: CNN posted an announcement of Brownie's resignation at 3:31 pm]
Meanwhile, an exchange between Nancy Pelosi and Bush suggests Bush has already given a reconstruction contract to Lacuna Inc - the company that was featured in the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, that specializes in erasing problem memories:
At a news conference, Pelosi, D-Calif., said Bush's choice for head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency had "absolutely no credentials."
She related that she had urged Bush at the White House on Tuesday to fire Michael Brown.
"He said 'Why would I do that?'" Pelosi said.
"'I said because of all that went wrong, of all that didn't go right last week.' And he said 'What didn't go right?'"
"Oblivious, in denial, dangerous," she added.
Note: hurricanes and other extreme events are normal acts of God or nature - disasters are not. By definition, a disaster occurs when response capacities are exceeded, and is a political failure. In this case, the response appears to have been negligent to the point of being criminal. But don't expect that to be a conclusion of any assessment conducted by the Bush administration. While many commenters have dismissed the need for an independent commission, the issue remains - that independent assessment and oversight are as critical as they are unlikely when both the House and the Senate have a Republican majority. Somehow, this needs to happen before one more appointment is made, especially to the Supreme Court. Without immediate accountability, our great experiment in democracy will also be dead in the murky waters of New Orleans, and now Lake Pontchartrain, as this administration takes advantage of the crisis to suspend legal requirements and experiment with controversial policies that they have been unable to adopt through normal legislative procedures, and hand out relief funds they way they did in Florida, just prior to the election - in places that were not even affected by the 2004 string of hurricanes - one of which was also a close call for New Orleans. It may well be a matter of life and death. As one now former Bush supporter notes:
How is it possible that four years after 9/11, the president treats a federal agency vital to homeland security as a patronage prize? The main reason I've been a Bush supporter all along is I trusted him (note past tense) on national security -- which, in the age of mass terrorism, means homeland security too. Call me naive, but it's a real blow to learn that political hacks have been running FEMA, of all agencies of the federal government! What if al-Qaeda had blown the New Orleans levees? How much worse would the crony-led FEMA's response have been? Would conservatives stand for any of this for one second if a Democrat were president? If this is what Republican government means, God help the poor GOP Congressmen up for re-election in 2006.
2006 is too long to wait.
Posted by Sylvia S Tognetti at 12:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack