Many environmentalists seem to be discussing Katrina's link with global warming.  I think the more serious and immediate question is what are they going to do with all of the water that has built up in New Orleans.  It seems to me that they can't pump it back into the ocean as it is filled with gas and who knows what else, but yet need to get it out of there to begin the clean up of the land.  This is a environmental nightmare that could worsen if officals are not careful. It seems to me the only logical thing to is instead of rebuilding is to replace the wetlands....

you can't prove that a particular cigarette nor a particular vodka tonic gave you the tumor in your lungs, or the bleeding ulcers, nor the hypertension that facilitated the stroke, etc... so why is this the discussion you're wasting so much time on?  the point is this:  cigarette smoking and alcohol hurt human cells and in excess  kill.  

changing the climate, upon which life as we know it is based, is also harmful and in excess kills.  so why waste precious time & energy on, "is a particular storm scientifically attributable to global warming?" when we know we are heating the globe and its consequences are certain disaster for many people?

thankfully the medical stance to alcohol and smoking weren't based on linking a particular Camel Light or 40 oz Schlitz Ice to your ancestor's death.

furthermore, isn't the first step to recovery admitting you have a problem?
so let's admit we're warming the planet with carbon emissions and its consequences are profoundly lethal---  then we can begin focusing on how to kick our addiction to fossil fuels and fix the problem.  

reporting that no scientist will say climate change and Katrina are related when the one reporter cites the MIT study.  

Another reporter says no, it's not tied to global warming, it's just that the gulf waters were warmer than usual.  

Duh. Could that be connected to climate change?

The entrenched interests will continue to have these shills fronting for them, but if you live in Florida or the Gulf Coast, it's becoming harder and harder to deny that climate change is a problem.

of unnatural air pollutants (or even unnaturally large amounts of natural pollutants, like carbon dioxide) will cause significant, negative effects.  This is an undebatable fact.  (Actually, carbon dioxide is a "pollutant" only from our point of view.  It's not a pollutant to plants.)  So, instead of obsessing on global warming, let's just advocate for zero air pollution.

I understand the possiblity of a lull in storms for a few years and the possible impact on getting the population to recognize that climate change is on us and is going to be difficult, but my sense that Katrina and climate change are linked is a gut and intuitive sense, not a deliberative or strategic tactic.  

I think that lots of us know in our gut that the weather is changing, but when it is discussed as global warming or ice sheets melting, it is shapeless and has little meaning to Americans.  When it is presented as Katrina, it looks pretty disturbing.  

The bottom line for me is that the warm waters of the gulf coast (inside of Fl) have great potential to fuel storms that move into that area to blow up into Cat 5 Storms.  If that is true, and I think it is, as long as the waters are abnormally warm, the gulf coast has become a death zone.  Houston, Galveston, Corpus Christi, New Orleans cannot be made safe from Cat 5 storms.  

To the extent that our petroleum industry is sited in this region, this death zone really affects us all.  I think we have hit the convergence of peak oil and climate change with Katrina.  

I think we have to make the link to get the American people to wake up and demand a sensible energy policy.  A sensible energy policy for this country would be one that includes energy indepence and goes way beyond Kyoto in terms of greenhouse gas reduction.

Katrina's real name is global warming or climate change.  The politics and possibility of a couple of years of mild storms (I don't think it is likely btw) don't change that.

It's an emegency, they are going to talk about safety measures and pollution control, then they are going to pump the filthy polluted water into the Mississippi and let it flow right into the Gulf.  You may mark my words on that. American believes the Mississippi is the nation's biggest sewage plant.

reporters think they know everything. I'm sorry for what happened to the reporter in New Orleans. But leave sweeping statements to actual scientists (and bloggers like me who like to make sweeping statements):

"This storm was not created by climate change, and I doubt its intensity and path were created by climate change..."

(thank you mr. REPORTER. From which journalism school did you learn that?

Of course this storm was created by climate change, every storm is. It's only a question of the degree of climate change that effected it. And when you're talking about a 0.6 C increase in global temperatures since industrialization (and a considerably slower increase in the century before that), one has to factor in global warming.

I think reporters are hesitant to write about climate change because it is hard to write about science, period. I once wrote science stories and found my scientist sources parsing every word I used because I tried to translate their very exact, yet hard to understand, language into something lay people could grasp.

Take the term climate change, for example. Debate rages about whether we should call it global warming or climate change. I've read stories implying that climate change is a wimpier, even right-wing, appellation. But I had a scientist insist I write climate change because global warming is misleading. Climate change CAN mean colder temperatures in certain areas. Climate change can cause the Gulf Stream to stop flowing, which will render England uninhabitable due to cold.

But I very clearly have gotten the message that climate change WILL produce more intense storms, but trying to pinpoint how much more instense a storm is because of climate change is likely something we won't know until years have passed, decades maybe, and we can look back and analyze the whole spectrum of storms.

Whatever caused Katrina to be as severe as it was is moot compared to the fact that as soon as it crossed Florida we were told it was heading straight for New Orleans. And why New Orleans was not prepared, is frankly inexcusable, whoever is to blame. And let's face it, who could be prepared for devestation the size of Great Britain?