After the catagory 4 mega storm Katrina breached the fund starved flood defences of New Orleans, two things happened. One was that people blamed the Bush administration for cutting funding to the system of levees that protects the city, much of which is built below sea level. The other was that the american media and public started to take seriously claimed that the increase in severity of tropical storms was a direct result of increased sea surface tempatures caused by global warming - a warming resulting from human activity.

You can see parallels with the aftermath of the London bombings on the 7/7. People quickly recognised that such attacks were a response to British government foriegn policy - not some kind of random unforseen act of god (or Allah). However, as quick as people made the link, the goverment and their propaganda department, the national media, started to say dismiss the connection and claimed the attacks were a result of a evil ideology. They said that preventing such attacks wasn't about addressing the injustices melted out by our foriegn policy but about rooting out the radical preachers of extreme islam! Don't change anything, that would be allowing the terrorists to win, clearly we must continue business as usual - don't panic, go to work as normal and continue shoping!

Now, as I write this Huricanne Rita has finally made her long awaited landfall. America's oil production facilities in the gulf are virtually all offline and refining capacity slashed by over 30%. Around 3 million americans have been evacuated and petrol stations have run dry leaving thousands of vehicles and refugees stranded. Structural damage, blackouts and flooding are just the start as empty cities are savaged by the awesome power of nature. But only when the winds die down and the country begins to take stock of the dead and the damage, only then will we have any idea of the true cost of the storm. Billions of dollars worth of damage not just to buildings and infrastructure but the ongoing damage to the economy as oil shortages drive oil prices up and the winter sets in.

So will americans take stock of the connection between this seasons mega storms and their own energy policy? Will americans consider addressing the injustice of their massive consumption of resources and energy and the inevitable effect of their lifestyles on the worlds ecology?

Only time will tell but even before Rita had made landfall the media spin was coming into effect. Climate change? No, never, it's the evil ideology of 'natural fluctuations'!
Don't change anything, that would be allowing climate change to win, clearly we must continue business as usual - don't panic, go to work as normal and continue shoping!

Director of the National Hurricane Center, Max Mayfield, told a Senate subcommittee this period of heightened hurricane activity that could last another decade or two.
"The increased activity since 1995 is due to natural fluctuations (and) cycles of hurricane activity driven by the Atlantic Ocean itself along with the atmosphere above it and not enhanced substantially by global warming," he testified.

Also quoted is meteorologist Chris Landsea who said "minimal for the forseeable future". He said studies indicate global warming might increase hurricane wind speeds and rainfall but only by about 5 percent but not for another 100 years so clearly we arn't to blame for Katrina and Rita.

So, no need to change anything. There is nothing wrong with our lifestyles. Blame it on god or rather that mischievious mother nature. Hey, prehaps technology can save us!

But it's not just the americans bush regime and media that are in denial. Remember how in the UK we heard that the bomb attack in London had nothing to do with Iraq or Afghanistan because terrorists attacks predate those wars? Well John Redwood (Conservative MP for Wokingham and shadow secretary of state for deregulation) has adapted the same argument for spining climate change denial.

"in the current drama about climate change there are two constants: western businesses and car drivers are the villains, whatever the facts. Asia drifted into Europe throwing up huge mountain ranges and not a little heat and dust long before the first multinational corporation roamed the world scouring it for resources. Some tell us the dinosaurs were wiped out by sudden rapid global warming, but I do not recall Mr Ford being around to sell them his cars. It is time business answered back and injected a sense of perspective into the debate."

So you see, just like it's not our foreign policy and role in the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, it's also not out fault that the world is heating up. Islamic extremists have always been responsible for terror and nature has been doing naughty things of millions of years so let's not worry that perhaps it might have something to do with us.

Dismissing established knowledge about global warming John Redwood says that "the earth has lived through hotter times than today". Don't worry he says, "volcanoes and continental drift are responsible for so much of the earth’s reshaping, and gloss over the way the sea and land have regularly remodelled themselves long before mankind was born". So that's okay then, it's not our fault, it's the evil ideology of nature, we don't have to change anything.

Banging home the point he insists that, "If everyone in the UK stopped driving cars and everyone in the US gave up air conditioning, there would still be great storms in the Gulf of Mexico. If the UK halved its carbon outputs, there would still be earthquakes threatening Tokyo or San Francisco and the possibility of tsunamis in distant oceans. It is not sensible to lay every dreadful natural disaster at the door of western consumers."

John Redwood is incrediable optomistic about the future. He sees this 'natural' warming as an incrediable business oportunity. He tells us that, "Hybrid cars that double the fuel efficiency of the typical family car are already in production. Within a few years, hydrogen technology may produce cars that emit no carbon dioxide at all."

He doesn't mention how we might produce the energy supply the hydrogen for all these amazing zero emmision cars or how well will supply the energy and resources to make billions of these cars, or what we do about the fuel cells require platinum which is pretty rare, expensive and finite!

So.. roll on the the War On Weather!



 http://www.thebusinessonline.com/Stories.aspx?StoryID=F016CC00-25C3-4F21-B03B-77721F77BF10&SectionID=1DC16DAD-79A2-4262-B487-51DC79546E35