A Philosopher's Blog

Philosophical Essays on Many Subjects

Hurricane Katrina

Part of Nature

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Humans have a tendency to think of themselves of being outside of nature and often as being better than the rest of the natural world. This view has been embraced by intellectuals as well as the masses, and it often serves to blind us to the reality of the situation-at least until another disaster reminds us that we are firmly embedded in the natural world.

Our latest reminder is, of course, the terrible disaster that has struck Japan. The shaking of the earth and the rising of the sea struck a terrible blow against humanity and their works, thus showing that we are not beyond the reach of nature. Even the nuclear disaster reveals that we are vulnerable to nature as well-radiation is part of the natural world and though we might have thrown a leash on that dragon, it is always ready to consume us with its fire.

This situation, like all the other disasters before it, serves to show that despite all our technology and pride, we are still very vulnerable. While we so often see ourselves as masters of creation, in a matter of seconds we can become its victims. This is something that we should keep in mind.

While our delusion that we are somehow outside of nature does contribute to our failure to plan and prepare adequately, we are also hindered by other factors.

First, while we often overreact to threats from other humans (as our war on terror indicates), we generally tend to under estimate the threats posed by the forces of nature. So, for example, while we are dumping billions to fight a few rag tag terrorists, we are ill prepared to face the natural disasters that are certain to strike. Katrina, of course, shows just how well prepared we have been for such disasters.  This is no doubt due to a key factor in human psychology regarding threat assessment. Also, there is the rather obvious fact that railing against human threats is great fodder for politics (and contractor profits), while being concerned about natural disasters seems to merely bore most of the public (at least until disaster strikes).

Second, in a nice bit of irony, the places that humans tend to find most appealing also tend to be places where disasters occur. An obvious example is the coast of Florida. It is beautiful, but also routinely hammered by storms. While it would make some sense to stay away from disaster areas, I doubt this is a viable option. After all, I really like the coast, too.

Third, planning and preparing for disasters seems to fall, psychologically, under the same sort of area as eating healthy and working out. Everyone knows that these are good ideas, yet people seem to find it very hard to actually act on that knowledge. It might be because the effort does not have an immediate payoff. Eating a bag of Cheetos feels good immediately while exercise feels bad to most people and won’t yield immediate results. Likewise, disaster planning and preparation does not yield immediate results and requires effort and expenditures that will probably only pay off in the future.

If my analogy holds, it would seem to follow that just as people often need coaches and trainers to motivate them to work out, we also need people who can motivate the public into preparing for disasters. Or, failing that, we need people and organizations that are willing to do the work for everyone else.

Fourth, people have a tendency to live in denial about future problems. Just as a smoker will not think much about lung cancer, people tend not to think about the next disaster. Just as a smoker will try to quit when they learn of a friend dying of lung cancer, we do worry about disasters when one strikes. So, for example, now that the Japanese reactor is spewing radiation, the rest of the world is poking at their reactors. Of course, just as most smokers go back to smoking after the funeral, we will be right back to ignoring things after we forget about Japan.

As the human population continues to increase and as our civilization grows ever more reliant on easily broken technology, the impact of disasters will continue to grow. After all, the more people who live in more concentrated areas, the greater the number of people who will be killed in a natural disaster. There is also the concern that our own actions are making the world more prone to more serious weather events. As such, we need to reconsider how we handle disaster planning and preparation or we can be sure that the coming disasters will be even worse.

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So, How About New Orleans?

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Great Seal of the State of Louisiana
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Back in 2005 New Orleans got hit with two disasters, one natural (Katrina) and one man-made (the federal disaster response). Since then, the city and Louisiana have been trying to rebuild. As one might imagine, this has been  yet another disaster (at least for some-for others it has been a bonanza).

To help out the state, Congress voted to underwrite $7.9 billion in tax free bonds. The idea was that the state could sell them and use the money to fund rebuilding. Shockingly enough, about 1% of the money has gone to New Orleans while about 29% has been spent on projects that directly benefit the oil industry. Interestingly, these often do not seem to be projects to rebuild from the damage done by the storm.

It might, of course, be argued that the oil industry needs that money because (like a person who is poor) they simply lack the funds to get by on their own means. So, just as the state should give handouts to the unemployed and the poor, the state needs to provide welfare to the oil corporations.

However, this does not seem to hold water any better than the levies of New Orleans. After all, the oil industry seems to be doing quite well (just consider some of the salaries and benefits the CEOs enjoy).

It could be argued that giving money to the oil industry helps Louisiana by enabling them to create more jobs. After all, if they had to spend their own money for such projects, they would not have as much money to pay to their top executives or to hire more people. Since we surely do not want the state to directly provide money to people, it makes perfect sense to help out the oil companies so they can hire people to make even more money for them. Giving directly to the people would be socialism/welfare Giving to the oil companies so they can hire people is good old trickle down economics and that is, obviously enough, only like socialism/welfare if you consider corporations to be people. Surely no one thinks that.

Since I am a heartless person, I am inclined to think that the oil industry should be left to fend with the horrors of the free market and not handed welfare or handouts. I know this seems cruel-those poor corporations left to fend for themselves on the basis of their own efforts and being at the mercy of the consumers.

Naturally, I would not suggest that the money be used to rebuild the still damaged areas of Louisiana or, God forbid, help out the small business folks and homeowners’ whose lives were devastated by Katrina. After all,  person who can be heartless to a cute kitten like the oil industry surely would not be moved by the plight of mere non-corporations.

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Katrina’s Money Trail

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A U.S. Coast Guard aircrewman searches for sur...
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For some folks on the right, it is a matter of faith that the poor are draining America’s wealth via various entitlement programs and federal support. For some folks on the left, it is a matter of faith that the corporations and wealthy siphon off vast sums of taxpayer money.

While a person’s political view tends to serve as a tinted lens in such matters, where the money goes is a matter of fact. While it can be rather challenging to determine where it goes, it is often possible to discern just where it is ending up (or not ending up-such as the billions of dollars unaccounted for in Iraq).

As a specific example, consider the situation in Louisiana. After Katrina took down New Orleans, the federal government provided billions of dollars to the region. But, one might wonder, who received the money? Of the $5.9 billion in bonds in Louisiana, New Orleans received less that 1%.  $2 billion went to support oil production projects, such as $1 billion to expand a refinery.  Meanwhile, parts of New Orleans are still uninhabitable.

It might be argued that money given to the oil industry is money well spent. After all, the oil industry generates jobs in the region as well as significant profits for the oil companies.

While I do agree that creating jobs is a good idea, it might be wondered why the state would need to provide two billion to the oil industry. After all, oil companies seem to operate with rather tidy profits and hence seem to be far less in need of tax payer support than people who lost everything to Katrina. It would seem to be both more sensible and ethical to aid those who are most in need of help first. Once these people are given the support needed to rebuild their lives, then perhaps the well off corporations can be given the leftover money.

Given the changing climate conditions and our general lack of proper defensive preparations against natural disasters, it seems reasonable to expect that new disasters are just around the corner. Given the way Katrina was handled, it seems reasonable to expect the same pattern to repeat itself again. That is, most of the money that is supposed to aid those in need will instead end up going to companies.

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Obama’s Iran Hostage Crisis?

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Iran Hostage Crisis student demonstration, Was...
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While comparing the spill to Katrina had some degree of merit, I was a bit surprised to hear people start comparing the spill to the Iran Hostage Crisis that put the lid on Carter’s presidential coffin. However, the analogy is worth considering.

Oversimplifying things, the hostage crisis was an ongoing situation that created a festering political wound. Through this wound leaked Carter’s credibility and political reputation. After all, going month after month and being unable to take effective action tends to be rather damaging. In the case of the spill, the situation is ongoing and is damaging Obama. While the main failures are due entirely to BP, people tend to perceive Obama as accountable (the media contributes to this perception). As such, Obama’s reputation is being damaged because the situation is seen by some as showing that he is ineffective.

Another point of comparison is that both crises have a history of governmental misdeeds behind them. The hostage crisis was caused, in part, by a history of actions taken by the West (such as propping up an oppressive police state). In the case of the BP spill, BP has been allowed to operate despite a truly horrifying record.  For whatever reason, the government has failed to properly reign in BP and get it to act properly. This helped lay the foundation for the disaster and, as such, the government deserves some blame. Of course, it is unfair to stick all the blame on Obama-he inherited the problem

As such, the comparison does have some merit.

Of course, the comparison also breaks down. First, as noted above, the main failings are on the part of BP, a corporation, and not on the part of the administration. As such, it is more apt to say that this is BP’s “hostage crisis.” Second, unlike the hostage crisis, there does not seem to be any clear action that the government can take to fix the problem. The oil cannot be negotiated with, impressed by a show of resolve, or otherwise influenced by political means. It is primarily a specialized engineering problem and the experts on this problem are 1) already working on it and 2) consistently failing. True, the government could be doing more and, most critically, more should have been done to ensure that BP was not operating the way it did.

As such, the comparison does not seem to quite stick. But, check back in a few months…

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Obama’s Katrina?

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A beach after an oil spill.
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Interestingly enough, when Obama seems to be doing something wrong the pundits and others say that it is Obama’s X (where X is something bad that happened under the Bush administration). At this time the oil leak is being considered as a candidate for Obama’s Katrina. Katrina, as you will recall, was a paradigm of government inefficiency and poor crisis management. So, the obvious issue here is whether or not it is fair to compare the situations.

On one hand, the comparison seems apt. First,  mismanagement played a role in setting up both disasters. In both cases politicians had a hand in this. Second, both cases involved a delayed response on the part of the government. Third, the responses made in both cases tended to be inadequate.

On the other hand, the comparison does break down in some important ways. First, Katrina was clearly within the responsibility of the government. In the case of the oil spill, the initial responsibility was on BP and BP claimed it could handle the situation. Perhaps the administration should have assumed that BP was mistaken (or perhaps even being deceptive), but this is clearly an important difference. In the case of Katrina, there was no corporation that caused the storm-it was a straight forward natural disaster of the sort that the government is supposed to handle. The BP situation is a corporate disaster of the sort that the corporation should have been equipped to handle, which leads to the third point. Third, the government does not have the equipment that is needed to contain and repair such oil spills. This is because the government is not an oil company. BP is, which is why it makes sense that BP should have been able to handle the situation. True, the Coast Guard does have some very limited ability to deal with spills. However, this is what the Coast Guard has been doing.

However, the government has failed in two important ways. The first was in allowing BP to operate the well without having the means to effectively deal with such an accident. The second is the failure of the federal government to step in and do everything that it could do to address the situation. For example, the federal government should have started organizing the onshore cleanup (using BP’s money, of course) so that people would be trained, equipped and in place as soon as the oil hit the shores. As a second example, a comprehensive plan is needed to address the economic and environmental disaster that will arise from this situation. Plans and contingency plans should have been in place weeks ago.

There are some interesting ironies about this situation. One is that just as Obama was giving in to “drill, baby, drill” this disaster occurred. The second is that the pundits who have been slamming Obama for his alleged desire to expand government power and regulation are now slamming him for not getting “big government” involved right away and on a massive scale.

My considered view is that the situation is not yet Obama’s Katrina. As noted above, one important distinction is the cause of the disaster. Another is that while the government could have made a huge difference in New Orleans, the same is not true in this case. After all, the government does not have the equipment to do well repair at the bottom of the ocean. That is, obviously enough, something that BP should have been able to do.

That said, the situation is still developing. It does have the potential to be his Katrina or perhaps even worse.

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