Neptune smiled on the Farley Mowat when we left Jacksonville, Florida on August 16th, 2005.

We voyaged on calm seas down to the Straits of Florida, slipped past the west coast of Cuba and made our way to the Panama Canal, and on to the Enchanted Isles of the Galapagos.

It was like crossing a pond. And it was no accident. As a seaman with over three decades on the big blue, I do know hurricanes and over the years sailors do acquire an instinct for them.

And I did know that one was coming. As we passed through those calm waters, I knew we were seeing the calm before the inevitable storms. The seeds of Katrina had been sown in the south Atlantic and the lord of storms was preparing to send a major category 4 hurricane to ravage the Gulf Coast.

New Orleans had been living on borrowed time for years. Only the ecologically and meteorologically ignorant should have been be surprised at what happened when Katrina struck. But then again, there are many such people, especially in America and notably in Louisiana.

New Orleans is the realization of all our predictions on global warming. Environmentalists have been predicting the super storms for over two decades and for two decades the predictions have been ignored and ridiculed.

Consider that Katrina struck mid Hurricane season. Ten days later we have Nate heading for Bermuda and Ophelia ready to pounce, and we will see Hurricane Zelda by November.

Next year will be worse and it will worsen every year hereafter.

Global warming and radical climate change is a full blown happening event. It is NOW.

It is Thermageddon and not Armageddon that will be our downfall.

No need to worry overly much, the stock market took a hit but recovered and George W. Bush is still investigating if this global warming thing has any evidence of existing. The rest of the world has embraced the Kyoto Protocols which means they can drive their cars with a clear conscience. New Orleans may be gone but it is back to business as usual in America and for the oil companies it's back to business with bigger profits since they decided to use the hurricane as yet another excuse to gouge profits from the public.

Environmentalists need not concentrate any longer on educating people about impending climate change. We must now focus on teaching people how to adapt to living in a warmer and climatologically evolved world. We are such dreamers. People will continue to live in denial. But we need to try anyway, that is our job after all, speaking common sense to those who have little sense at all.

And one of the first things we should do is to warn people to not live on the Gulf coast or in parts of Florida or on the Outer Banks of the Carolinas. Just kidding. I know that will not happen even if it is the logical, practical, most intelligent thing to do. And of course global warming will impact other areas in different ways so there is really no escape for anyone in the long run.

Our predictions have been ignored for decades and people still have not demonstrated the good sense to listen and adapt. Hell, many thousands did not demonstrate the good sense to get out of New Orleans in the face of certain catastrophe. Chalk this up to alienation from nature. One excuse was that the people were to poor to leave. The tribes that survived the Tsunami in Indonesia were the poorest people by the way. They had the good sense to know that receding water is an indication of impending doom. They did not need a weatherman to know which way the wind blew. They left for higher ground. The victims of New Orleans had weathermen but chose not to listen to them.

Yes the federal, state and local governments were incompetent. Duh, they are always incompetent so that is not an excuse and hardly a surprise. They continue to be incompetent and it appears that the only one with his wits about him is the Mayor of New Orleans who deserves a great deal of credit for what sanity exists in New Orleans today.

On the brighter side, the Earth is at last striking back and the laws of ecology are demonstrating that for all our actions we are now, and will continue to experience natural reactions. The reactions will be equal to the actions taken to bring about the reactions. All those carbon emissions are triggering an ecological upheaval of truly mammoth proportions. More carbon means greater consequences in climate change. More people means more carbon. More people living apex consumer life styles means more carbon emissions. Oh I'm sorry did I just hint at immigration there. I almost forgot, I must not do that - no, no, no, I must repeat the mantra - "more people from wombs in America is bad but more people from beyond the borders is good." This confuses me because I can't see the difference between addition from births and addition from immigration except it is P.C. to oppose the former and not the latter. Oh yes, the numbers don't increase they are just relocated. Of course they are relocated to a place where they can now own a car and mega-energy wasteful domiciles thus increasing carbon emissions but I shall desist and return to the party line - i.e. increases through immigration are not to be discussed nor should we be concerned about it. And now with Rehnquist dead - the forces are in place to overturn Roe vs Wade and Lordy, let us go forth and multiply.

Just before I left the Galapagos, Fanny Uribe, Senator for the islands and the "chosen one" of the fisherman said this gem of a quote, "the only species in the Galapagos worth saving is the human species."

Sounds like she would make a good christian right wing Republican.

My observations of the Galapagos over the last seven years has been a lesson in ecology for whereas just as Darwin could see the reality of evolution in what he observed on the ground in these islands, we can now see in microcosm the reality of the affect of our increasing numbers on eco-systems.

A few days ago I met former Marine enforcement chief Pablo Salas on the street in Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz island. Last year he was our main contact at the National Park. This year he is a captain of a tour boat and making plans to immigrate with his wife and two children to Canada. "This place is finished." He told me. "There is no future for the Galapagos and none for Ecuador. If my children have any future at all it is in Canada."

So much for the Galapagos. Five years ago there were marine iguanas sunning themselves on the sidewalk in Puerto Ayora. No more, sadly no more - just more people, more cars, more dogs, more construction, more appliances, more civilization.

As for New Orleans, the city has been living on borrowed time for decades. The Mississippi intends to change course and should have changed course years ago with no thanks to the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers whose meddling is responsible in many ways for the disaster just experienced. The Corp of Engineers should keep their toys off the banks of the Big Muddy and let nature take her course which she will do anyway despite the relatively trivial delays caused by our blundering interference. New Orleans should be abandoned like the ruins of the Anastazi and allowed to sink into the toxic delta mud where it belongs. There is no future for New Orleans and of that I am certain. New Orleans is our modern day Atlantis.

Oh by the way, the barrier islands that have buffered the Gulf Coast for centuries are - - Gone! Yep they are no more, washed away by the winds of Katrina and if that does not indicate just how severe these storms have become, I don't know what will.

Oh I'm sorry am I being alarmist?

Environmentalists must show leadership now and we must speak out no matter how unpopular the message. This will probably not happen as it will certainly affect membership numbers for environmental organizations because the public does not want to hear predictions of doom and gloom even if real, and even if such predictions can be utilized to adapt to the escalation of consequences.

If we can't save the Galapagos, how can we save New Orleans or anywhere else for that matter.

If rebuilt as I'm sure they will try, next year this city will be hit again and it will be hit again the next year. Time to cut our losses and retreat before the thundering advance of Nature's retaliatory fury. Let New Orleans sink into the sludge of the delta.

One other thing that came out of New Orleans is that it certainly demonstrated to the world just how incredibly disorganized the United States has become with third world casualties now happening from natural disasters and just how ineffective a leader George Bush really is.

It is one thing to kick ass with superior mega-weapons against an vastly inferior military force and it is quite something else to take on the forces of nature. George demonstrated that he and the nation are unprepared for climate change and that this unpreparedness is a direct result of the denial of his administration concerning the reality of global warming. Instead of a skilled disaster responder, George appointed Michael Brown, a friend of a friend whoses resume shows him as a breeder of Arabian horses. George probably mistook him for a Saudi. Nevertheless appointing friends and friends of friends to important jobs that require skill and experience, why that's what those banana republics do, isn't it?

So with New Orleans now the new Atlantis and the Galapagos rapidly becoming the disenchanted islands, with the U.S. Supreme Court about to be taken over by the bible thumping breeders, and with car sales increasing despite escalating fuel prices, it is plain to see that the end of days may be closer than even the right wing wacko Christians may think.

We do indeed live in interesting times.