Why New Orleans?

[Libsmasher]

Why does it continue to exist? I read the federal government already spent $2 billion bailing out (literally and figuratively) New Orleans. Why? The whole country going nutso to protect some slums that are below sea level, and never should have been built, is beyond me. New Orleans is america's bangladesh. The low lying areas should be returned to wetlands. Half the people never came back after katrina. Give it up.

 

[Not Amused]

The whole country is going nutso (to use your description ) because they all feel rather guilty regarding the fiasco surrounding the events of three years ago, basically.

 

[Libsmasher]

The whole country is going nutso (to use your description ) because they all feel rather guilty regarding the fiasco surrounding the events of three years ago, basically.

They do?? Gosh - people wildly distorting this nation's politics because they feel guilty over things they had nothing to do with is getting tiresome. And let's not forget - new orleans residents RE-ELECTED the man largely responsible for the fiasco - Ray "chocolate city" Nagin. Why should anyone feel guilty about a group of people who are militantly stupid?

 

[Not Amused]

They do?? Gosh - people wildly distorting this nation's politics because they feel guilty over things they had nothing to do with is getting tiresome. And let's not forget - new orleans residents RE-ELECTED the man largely responsible for the fiasco - Ray "chocolate city" Nagin. Why should anyone feel guilty about a group of people who are militantly stupid?

I agree with the essence of some of your points, but not the way you represent them. Less rabidity, more effect .

 

[Libsmasher]

I agree with the essence of some of your points, but not the way you represent them. Less rabidity, more effect .

Sorry, but I tell it like it is.

 

[Dr.Who]

Sorry, but I tell it like it is.

Which is better, to tell it like it is and persuade almost no one or to rephrase things and persuade a great number?

 

[Libsmasher]

Which is better, to tell it like it is and persuade almost no one or to rephrase things and persuade a great number?

There comes a time when SOMEBODY has to cut through the BS. Except for racial politics, the sub-sealevel areas of NO would have been abandoned in 2005.

 

[Sihouette]

Yes, as sea levels rise steadily, due to icecaps melting, due to global warming, due to monsterous amounts of greenhouse gases being released into the atmosphere, due to the burning of fossil fuels, New Orleans and all low-lying areas will have to be abandoned.

They should try to salvage the French Quarter for means of historical preservation. The low-lying slums must be allowed to go back to the Delta. We have some levees where we live. People are trying to sell in those lowlands as fast as they can.

Everyone knows...

And we cannot keep spending money on the wrong end of the problem. The root of it is continuous use of fossil fuels en masse. The tipping point has already been reached, obviously, but that only means we should step up our efforts exponentially to get off the fossil fuels and onto safe, clean alternatives.

We will have to sacrafice our low-lying areas.. and that will be the bitter price we pay for listening to the drone of BigOil that "we don't need efficient cars" "solar is silly" "geothermal steam isn't good enough to run turbines" or "wind generators are unsightly".

Anyone who tries to come on this thread and argue that we aren't experiencing the consequences of BigOil's monopoly with New Orleans is going to risk serious hits to their credibility. Warning in advance.. The type of people who think that way are now in the same shrinking category of people who think evolution isn't real and that dinosaur fossils are just random rock formations..

BTW fossil fuels include: oil, coal and natural gas, no matter how "clean" they're pitched to be...

 

[BigRob]

Yes, as sea levels rise steadily, due to icecaps melting, due to global warming, due to monsterous amounts of greenhouse gases being released into the atmosphere, due to the burning of fossil fuels, New Orleans and all low-lying areas will have to be abandoned.

They should try to salvage the French Quarter for means of historical preservation. The low-lying slums must be allowed to go back to the Delta. We have some levees where we live. People are trying to sell in those lowlands as fast as they can.

Everyone knows...

And we cannot keep spending money on the wrong end of the problem. The root of it is continuous use of fossil fuels en masse. The tipping point has already been reached, obviously, but that only means we should step up our efforts exponentially to get off the fossil fuels and onto safe, clean alternatives.

We will have to sacrafice our low-lying areas.. and that will be the bitter price we pay for listening to the drone of BigOil that "we don't need efficient cars" "solar is silly" "geothermal steam isn't good enough to run turbines" or "wind generators are unsightly".

Anyone who tries to come on this thread and argue that we aren't experiencing the consequences of BigOil's monopoly with New Orleans is going to risk serious hits to their credibility. Warning in advance.. The type of people who think that way are now in the same shrinking category of people who think evolution isn't real and that dinosaur fossils are just random rock formations..

BTW fossil fuels include: oil, coal and natural gas, no matter how "clean" they're pitched to be...

Why did ice melt before we burned fossil fuels?

 

[Sihouette]

I'm not sure at the moment.

But that doesn't excuse adding more heat to an already tenuous situation.

BigRob, your logic is flawed and it's not impressing.

You're argument is like this "well if the sun naturally melts glaciers, then why does it matter if we add a flame-thrower or a thousand?"

..

 

[Federal Farmer]

Why does it continue to exist? I read the federal government already spent $2 billion bailing out (literally and figuratively) New Orleans. Why? The whole country going nutso to protect some slums that are below sea level, and never should have been built, is beyond me. New Orleans is america's bangladesh. The low lying areas should be returned to wetlands. Half the people never came back after katrina. Give it up.

For the same reason that we bought the entire Louisiana Purchase from the French, because of the PORT! Now Orleans is THE port through which the vast majority of goods are moved into, and out of, the center of the country. Without the port facilities in New Orleans, well, let's just say that you have NO idea what high fuel and food prices are.

 

[Libsmasher]

For the same reason that we bought the entire Louisiana Purchase from the French, because of the PORT! Now Orleans is THE port through which the vast majority of goods are moved into, and out of, the center of the country. Without the port facilities in New Orleans, well, let's just say that you have NO idea what high fuel and food prices are.

One can keep the port, and reinforce it (a small area) against storms. My point is the folly of the US repeatedly going to immense expense and disruption to preserve a sub-sea level slum.

 

[BigRob]

One can keep the port, and reinforce it (a small area) against storms. My point is the folly of the US repeatedly going to immense expense and disruption to preserve a sub-sea level slum.

I do not think really all that much went in to redoing the lower 9th ward after it was destroyed.

 

[Libsmasher]

I do not think really all that much went in to redoing the lower 9th ward after it was destroyed.

The money went to the levees - NBC said $2 billion the other day. How much for repeated evacuations of a million people? How much for zillions of trailers? How much for emergency services? The whole thing is folly.

 

[Federal Farmer]

One can keep the port, and reinforce it (a small area) against storms. My point is the folly of the US repeatedly going to immense expense and disruption to preserve a sub-sea level slum.

It would take too much time and too much effort to explain the dynamics of New Orleans, but suffice it to say that over 90% of the employment in the New Orleans area in in some way connected to the shipping industry.

The problem isn't that New Orleans is below sea level, the problem is that even those areas that aren't below sea level are still surrounded by levees which either hold out the Gulf of Mexico, or hold in the Mississippi River, the level of which is, in some places, as much as 10 feet ABOVE the land on either side of the levee walls that contain it!

If either of the River levees were to fail almost anywhere between Waggaman and English Turn, even those areas that are well above sea level, like the Vieux Carre (that's the French Quarter to you) would be under several meters of water until the water level fell to it's natural level, which could take MONTHS, and the River would be closed to navigation during that entire time.