So I’ve been seeing a lot of posts on my friends list, taking the federal government and, particularly, the Bush administration to task for the wretched handling of the Katrina aftermath. I confess I don’t completely get it; if anyone can explain it to me, I’d be all ears.
Most of the complaints I’ve seen so far have been about the media posturing of the adminstration, rather than saying anything concrete about what they should have done differently. The only definite mistake I’ve seen pointed out so far was the appointment of a beaurocrat with no relevant experience to be head of FEMA.
Tens of thousands of people were left homeless, stranded, without food, water or medical help in New Orleans. But shouldn’t the fault for that be laid squarely at the feet of the state and local authorities? Much has been said about racism and classism – and it may well be true – but if so, isn’t it the classism of the mayor and/or governor who failed to provide bus transport for those without the means to leave on their own?
Bush has been faulted for only cutting his vacation short by two days, which seems silly to me. Congress has been taken to task for taking five days to convene – vs. the single day it took them to convene for the Schiavo case – which seems like a much more legitimate complaint. But the actions of the president and congress generally take effect in the large and over the long term – would accelerating either of those events have changed anything about how the first responders handled the crisis?
If anyone can shed any light, it would be much appreciated.
UPDATE: OK, another data point has come to my attention: the Army Corp of engineers got a lot less money than they requested for flood management in the last budget. It’s not clear who’s doing that was, though – presumably it happened during the usual congressional pork-wrangling.
UPDATE 2: Some good information here on the lack of adequate federal response, particularly on the part of FEMA. More than anything, it sounds like general disaster preparedness has suffered due to the single-minded focus on terrorism.
UPDATE 3: Much more here. Sounds like rolling FEMA into the DHS was Really Bad Idea. I’m not sure if that can be laid at the feet of the Bush administration or not. Yes, the administration is responsible for creating the DHS – but only after dragging it’s heels while Democrats in congress called out for it’s creation. To quote the article: Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., a member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, said he voted to put FEMA under Homeland Security – and now questions that decision after watching all the chaos.
Something else that this article brings up is that the National Guard has apparently been hampering some relief efforts. They’ve kept the Red Cross out of the city, for what may or may not be good reasons. But it sounds like their beaurocratic rigidity is also standing in the way of potential rescues:
“We’ve tried desperately to rescue 250 people trapped in a Salvation Army facility. They’ve been trapped in there since the flood came in. Many are on dialysis machines,” said Maj. George Hood, national communications secretary for the relief organization.
“Yesterday we rented big fan boats to pull them out and the National Guard would not let us enter the city,” he said. The reason: a new plan to evacuate the embattled city grid by grid – and the Salvation Army’s facility didn’t fall in the right grid that day, Hood said in a telephone interview from Jackson, Miss.
the Army Corp of engineers got a lot less money than they requested for flood management in the last budget.
Even if that had not happened, none of the work would have been completed in time (as I understand it) to withstand Katrina. The existing system just was not built to withstand a Cat 4-5 hurricane.
Well, we //do// have a national infrastructure for responding to disasters like this. The problem is that most of the equipment for it is on the other side of the globe.
As for the state and local authorities. Don’t forget that Mississippi is the second poorest state in America, right after West Virginia.
Oh, and the Army Corp of Engineers has been screaming for a bigger levy for years now.
I can go into much more detail about this when it’s not 4 in the morning…
Two of the biggest issues: There were not enough National Guard troops on hand because so many of them are in Iraq. President Bush, not long ago, had to be *pressured* to agree not to deploy more than 1/2 of any state’s reserves overseas (he had been taking up to 2/3 in some areas). The job of the National Guard is to defend the *homefront* and especially in situations just like this. There is, was, and never has been ANY good excuse for Bush to use the National Guard like his personal piggy bank to crack open to prop up an unpopular and unjust war overseas, and his willingness to do so severely affected the ability of those states and localities to do effective damage control. Additionally, recruiting for the NG has been lagging precisely because no one wants to sign up for one job and end up getting shipped off to another one that’s not supposed to be part of the bargain.
Second, FEMA says on its own website that it has executive authorization to mobilize emergency relief efforts on its own initiative and at its own discretion. Meaning, it doesn’t have to wait around for anyone’s permission to load ’em up and move ’em out when disaster is brewing. But because the current head of FEMA is a bumbling jackass who was given the post purely as a political goodie, they sat around with their thumbs up their asses (or making things worse, according to some accounts), then when they got called on the carpet for it tried to blame the state/locals for everything, claimed they were waiting to be called in, and flat-out lied about things (like saying they had no idea for three days about things that were being screamed in headlines around the world, or that they had no idea the levees might break, or that they didn’t know how big the storm would be– really STUPID lies, insultingly so).
FEMA’s *JOB* is to mobilize and swoop in on big disasters– both natural and man-made, but the natural ones are the much more frequent and much more likely scenario. They fell down on the job, and the administration bears a lot of responsibility for the reasons why.
We’ve spent $400 BILLION in four years presumably to prepare as a nation to deal with massive emergencies, and people are rightly asking what the fuck that time and money got spent on, since this response has been a shameful display of our lack of preparedness on a federal level. If this had been something as “glamorous” as a terrorist attack, and especially one aimed at a wealthier, whiter area of the country, you bet your ass Bush would have seized on it the instant trouble hit, declared the feds in charge, and ridden that motherfucker like a cheap whore to get all the political capital he could out of the image of himself saving all the rich white folk from crazy brown people. But it’s clear that he failed to take this threat seriously and that he doesn’t much care about the poor (mostly) brown people in that area– since most of them didn’t vote for him– and he wanted to make it be the states’ and locals’ problem so that he didn’t have to trouble himself with something that didn’t involve an enemy with a funny accent.
Just so I’m clear: what you’re saying is that it was the local and state authorities, and especially FEMA, which initially failed; the complaint about Bush is that he didn’t take direct control and manage the disaster himself either initially or once it became clear that the responsible agencies had fucked up. Is that accurate?
1. There are plenty of National Guard available…this is a big bullshit myth hyped by media and the likes of Michael Moore.
2. 40,000 National Guard members would have devastated relief efforts (not enough food and water to support that number – it would have consumed what little supplies they were able to get to refugees.)
3. Food / Water deliveries. These are not simply right on hand. Sure it took a coupe of days until military convoys started to bring it in. First, the military units needed to be activated and organized. Then they had to organize the convoys and collect food and water. (Estimate a day for each of those tasks easy.) Then they had to drive across a few states. Then after that they could begin delivering. Yeah so a solid 3-4 day task.
4. And although FEMA can respond. The national guard cannot be mobilized within a “state” by the Federal government without permission. And there is a lot of question about whether it was necessary. And it looks as if Bush offered but was told let’s wait 24 hours.
5. As for the reduction in Federal levee monies. I read a great article detailing how a review of the current plans had shown them to be inadequate. So a detail review and analysis followed by a developed engineering plan was called for that would detail how to upgrade the repairs and modifications to handle what just occurred. Estimated cost of review was $4 million and it was expected to be done in 2009. Then construction (and budgeting for construction) would begin. I believe $6 million was budgeted.
6. Congress establishes the budget. The President just signs off. The president is not aware of every little detail of the budget…no one is. The president will have his needs and push for those. State Senators are there to push for their own state needs. So to blame President Bush for the cuts is pretty lame.
7. “The only definite mistake I’ve seen pointed out so far was the appointment of a beaurocrat with no relevant experience to be head of FEMA.”
I agree this is suspect. However, I read he was picked by the then “Head of FEMA”. It may be that this guy actually was good at managing funds/resources, etc. A lot of times the head people are there for budget management and not actual action duties. Just look at the military and the golden shoulders (admirals and generals). Many of these are there for running a well budgeted and managed fleet. It’s why in war time often lower star generals and colonels who are actual good strategists are placed in command of the actual mission. Because the high rankers are merely pencil pushers who are good at managing the day to day. So the current head may keep FEMA running smoothly during the day-2-day 365 days out of the year when most of the time no emergency is happening. But might not be a good strategician. An account is probably a poor chess player.
8. Rampant environmentalism…I’m all for protecting the environment. But sometimes a balance is necessary. Much of the cost and time involved in levee repairs, etc. is review of environmental impact and mitigation. This can take 10 yrs for a single building. Just another aspect of the delay in implementing the updates.
9. Lack of intelligence….I am oft dismayed at the stupidity of engineers. The pump failures, for example, should never have happened (not that they could have kept up with such an inflow). But why were these units NOT built atop 4-story structures? Why are pumping units failing because generators are underwater? What good is elevating a pump and not the generator. These were just dumb dumb dumb design flaws that any moron in my opinion should have seen. But this gets me into an entire irrelevant discussion on the crappiness of engineers and designers today. I walk by everything and sit there going “this design sucks” or “so close…why did they do or not do this” and “how in the world did they not realize this was a problem”.
10. The last and most important thing – HINDSIGHT IS A BITCH!
(it’s easy to say x, y and z after the fact… and sure many reports described the potential event. Which was in study for how to protect against it. Problem. Study was supposed to end in 2009, work to begin after that. Yes, in 2020 we’d probably be ready. Welcome to the wide world of beaucracy.
Good point about the Guard, by the way…
cont…
And it’s not so much how many days he cut back his vacation as the fact that he STAYED ON VACATION for three days after the disaster, going around on his schedule like nothing was amiss, and barely mentioning the hurricane victims at all. Combine that with Condi Rice GOING on vacation in the aftermath, and Dick Cheney staying on vacation until Friday, and pretty much no one in the administration rousing themselves to the slightest effort for as long as they could get away with, and at the *very* best you have the APPEARANCE of a bunch of spoiled patricians who can’t be troubled to care about the suffering of the little people. At worst, you have criminal negligence on a massive scale that contributed to the death and suffering of countless citizens. I personally cannot think of another president who didn’t at least try to look busy and act concerned when something disastrous befell Americans. Bush acts like this is all just a big inconvenience to him, and people are rightfully furious that someone who loves to jerk off about how big and important a leader he is, when push comes to shove, is behaving like a careless, ignorant child. It’s the one-two punch of hypocrisy and incompetence.
There are so many other things I could get into about how the federal government failed the Gulf Coast on this one…but it’s going to have to wait until I’ve gotten some sleep…
Re: cont…
Huh. I need to find a timeline. I could have sworn I was listening to news about him ending his vacation on NPR while the storm was still winding down.
His performance has been compared favorably to his dad’s in the aftermath of Andrew. So, there’s one other one, anyway. Not that that excuses anything.
Re: cont…
Too me, it’s a fairly moot point to bring up his vacations…
His vacations usually are full of presidential work. He has his support staff and can do almost everything he needs to do from his offices in the ranch. It’s termed “vacation” simply because he is not in Washington D.C. but it’s not vacation like you or I would think.
The only real reason he needs to be in Washington D.C. is to deal with Congress (who were on their several month long vacation).
My issues:
1. Bush reduced funding for hurricane protection in that area to fund a war that I do not believe in. He was begged to fix the levies, yet decided that this war was more important.
2. They knew that the hurricane was coming BEFORE it hit and he still stayed on vacation until after it hit, he should have left beforehand to make sure that everything was in place as it should be.
3. he did not put caps on the gas prices so people around the area of New Orleans were charging about 6 dollars a gallon further making the evacuation for the poor people even harder
4. his oil industry that his family supports and what this war is all about is causing us to use Petroleum Gas, Petroleum gas causes more CO2 in the air which leads to the depletion of the ozone layer, which leads to global warming. Global warming leads to more intense storms. The warmer the earth gets the stronger these storms are going to get. It throws the homeostasis of this planet off.. just like the human body, if our natural setting gets thrown off by even 1 degree it causes a lot of damage.
So the anger you are seeing especially towards Bush is a multi-faceted one. Anger towards the war, anger towards his selfishness in the Oil industry, anger about the environmental damager causing many other issues.. Especially when it is realized that all of these things can be fixed easily if only people were educated otherwise.
also, there is no way that Bush doesn’t realize the other options of power, he is conveniently ignoring them and the only reason I can see is because he is selfish. Tapping into the Alaskan Preserves is not going to even effect a change for at least 6 years (he will be safely out of office by then) Why doesn’t he instead say, in 6 Years we will have fully started our decline of using oil and becoming dependant on Solar, Wind, Biodiesel? Why not? Because his enormous wealth and friends all depend on oil.
On that we can both agree.
1. Bush did not reduce funding, he simply approved the Congressional budget. Secondly, as it was determined current plans for the repairs were inadequate and a new development plan was necessary that would review in great depth and analysis followed by an engineering plan. Estimated cost: $4 million Estimated time of completion 2009. Then once a viable engineering plan was done and approved budgeting for development could begin. So yes, the budget cut funds down to $6 million (enough for the plan and smaller fixes).
2. Vacation – yes, my co-workers are home most days of the week. It’s not vacation. Sure, he’s out of Washington D.C. so the time is counted as vacation time. It’s really tele-commuting. He is able to do almost everything from his offices in Texas. Furthermore, with Congress out of session (on vacation a helluva alot more than the president) there is not much he could do in Washington that he couldn’t do in his Texas offices.
3. He doesn’t have authority to put caps on gas prices. Educate yourself about our government please. He can execute enforcement of laws. Not pass them. Talk to your congress people.
4.
Solar – not developed nor the space to supply our current needs
Wind – same as above, furthered by numerous environmental damage and the fact new studies are showing wind power damages the local environment and causes regional warming.
Biodiesel – renewable yes, but still causes the same pollutions. So really a moot point. Second, biodiesel, on a level to support U.S. consumption is not feasible without massive habitat destruction. It requires immense amount of land dedicated to farming.
The administration of the President has focused $5 billion on fuel cell research and stated promises of additional funds to build a support infrastructure as soon as vehicle manufacturers can offer such vehicles. In the meantime, the tapping of Alaskan reserves is to give us some negotiating power and short term ability to lighten our reliance on foreign oil. It is a conjunction strategy. Invest in a long-term solution while at the same time easing short-term concerns.
Furthermore, the leading culprit of ozone destruction is CFC’s.
As for putting caps on Gas.
Lastly, as for your 1 degree theory. There has been several degree fluctuations for periods of decades and even centuries in recent history. One such period allowed the vikings and the norse to explore the Americas. Others have occurred over the past 4,000 yrs. Along with much more extreme cooling periods.
The only viable long-term sources of alternative power are “hydrogen” & “nuclear”.
Hydrogen including “fuel cell” and “fusion” and nuclear also including “fission”. Sadly, America stopped it’s growth of nuclear fission. We operate 40 yr old power plants that were extremely early and inefficient designs that produce vast amounts of waste. Since then newer designs have been made that produce much more efficiently with far less waste. Some of the latest designs actually can use our old “waste” as fuel thus helping to reduce one of our current waste problems.
Fusion, well, we’re working on this and there have been some interesting developments but no break thru yet.
If it were easy, it’d be done already.
1. I haven’t seen anywhere that it was Bush, specifically, who reduced those funds. Do you have an article you could point me to? The budget gets hashed out in committee and all kinds of compromises get made; my impression was that this was just one of those many compromises.
2. I didn’t realize that presidents were expected to get back to Washington for every hurricane. I’m not trying to be snide, here; I’m just thinking that no one realized it would be this bad until it was upon us, and it’s never been tradition in the past for the prez to take personal charge of hurrican preparations for every storm that hits the mainland.
3. AFAIK a federally-instituted gas cap would have been a MAJOR breakdown of the federal/state division of authority, and would have been instantly struck down in court. That’s just not an authority the president has.
4. I’m sorry to be harsh: that’s just bad science. Overall storm severity is down, and there is no scientist in the world with a good enough climate model to tell us that Katrina is a result of human-caused global warming, LET ALONE the warming that his family, personally, could in any way be held accountable for. You might as well hold King Canute responsible for the tides.
I’m sorry, but it’s sounding to me like a lot of these complaints are largely based on generalized anger towards the man’s foreign and domestic policies, rather than anything he did wrong in dealing with the hurricane.
now I think that it is your turn to do the research to find these things, I am not going to spend time going through the internet to connect you with articles, if this has sparked your curiosity then find out on your own. No offense to you either, but if youw ant to argue, find out if you have actual facts in opposition to what i say first.
On point 1: OK, I’ve done some research, and it appears that it was, indeed, Bush who cut the funding for the levees. On the other hand, it seems the levees – even if they had been fully funded – were designed to withstand a category 3 hurricane. Katrina, of course, was a category 5. So maybe they would have held, and maybe not. Either way, you are right: Bush bears the responsibility for cutting the funding, not some congressional subcommittee. Much good information here.
Point #2 is a matter of opinion, so I can’t really provide documentation. Myself, I don’t feel that it’s the president’s job to personally manage the arrangements for every hurricane that hits the mainland – that’s why we HAVE organizations like FEMA. You may feel differently. Certainly his posturing since FEMA failed so miserably has been unimpressive to say the least – I just don’t feel that the posturing actually hindered relief efforts. With one exception: it apears that his flying onto the scene caused National Guard relief helicopters in the area to be grounded, as per SOP when Air Force One is in the area.
I did a little research on gas price caps. While the US has enacted price controls on gas in the past, it was always nationwide. As far as I know a regional price cap would have been beyond the authority of the federal government – it would have had to have been enacted by the state. Either way, it’s a process which takes time. It’s not clear to me whether declaring an area a federal disaster area grants the power to do things like control prices. Regardless, though, capping gas prices would almost certainly have had the same effect it usually does when demand is high and supply is scarce: those who got to the stations first would have gotten gas, and the rest would have been fucked. I’m not sure the outcome would have been much different.
On 4: I direct you here. Relevant data:
Also, from the New York Times:
The gist of the above article is that the severity of hurrican seasons cycles over a period of decades, and that even if human-caused global warming will have an effect on them, it would be too soon to see it.
Part of the problem is that smaller hurricanes seem more severe cause they cause more damage then they did 100 yrs ago.
Why?
Because there was less development, less people…etc.
Now, a hurricane in Florida wipes out thousands of homes. Well, 100-200 yrs ago there might have only been a few dozen homes in that same area.
P.S.
I hope I don’t come off as attacking you or anything. I know a lot of people are just hopping mad at the guy, and to some degree I sympathize.
My biggest concern is that blame be placed where blame is due, and that the right lessons are learned for next time.
Re: P.S.
there are a ton of articles on the internet about concern with global warming and the other things I mentioned, to treat it like not happening seems a bit odd.
Re: P.S.
I never said it’s not happening. Perhaps you are confusing me with someone else?
Global warming is real. How much effect human factors have on it is still an open question – something that any climatologist will tell you, although there are plenty of interest groups ready to spin their words into dire predictions. We may be having a large effect. We may be having a negligible effect on top of the earths natural cycles. It’s important to realize that the earth has been FAR warmer than it is now in the relatively recent past. The most common refrain I see when reading climate research is “we just don’t know” – it’s still too complex a subject to make definite statements on.
One thing that DOES seem pretty clear from what I’ve read though, is a) the severity of hurricanes this year is natural, and not unusual from a historical perspective, and b) that even if we are having a significant effect on the earth’s climate, it is too soon for it to be changing the storm seasons.
Re: P.S.
just because I felt like I had to prove something here but also in combo of not having the time to do the research for you I am linking you to only one site that says that global warming most likely will lead to more intense rainstorms.. You can take your journey of exploration as to wether what I say is true or not on for yourself after this point.
http://yosemite.epa.gov/oar/globalwarming.nsf/content/Impacts.html
Re: P.S.
That’s a projection for the future, not a statement of current effects.
Re: P.S.
Look I don’t have time to search the net right now, really I don’t.. maybe later I will do this for you. BUT!!!!! there are many scientists that believe that we are currently seeing the effects of global warming. I can tell you from my personal non-scientific observations that all of my life I have not seen tornadoes in Maryland until just this past couple of years I have seen many of them touching down in my area.
Re: P.S.
In times of disaster, many draw the “obvious” conclusion. Radical Islamcists have claimed Katrina as the hand of Allah. Some despicable American christians have called the storm God’s punishment of a sinful city. And radical environmentalists have claimed that it’s the sins of industry, come home to roost.
As far as I know none of these claims have any scientific backing. There’s a difference between an activist saying “aha, this MUST be the result of global warming”, and a consensus of scientists saying so. So far what I’ve seen from scientific quarters says the opposite.
Mother Earth moves in rhythms which dwarf our human lives. As I pointed out elsewhere, storm seasons cycle on a scale measured in decades – and I don’t know how old you are, but I only have two and a half of those under my belt. A thousand years ago climate was warm enough to enable the Vikings to settle Greenland. The seas at that time were free of ice, and Greenland could support their crops. Wine grapes were grown in Britain. More recently, we’ve only just emerged from a little ice age lasting several hundred years.
The earth is a living organism, with complexities we can’t imagine, undergoing changes we can’t conceive, on timescales which make our lives seem like nothing. She has been both warmer and colder than she is now. With all due respect, I don’t think any of us can look at some new weather pattern and say “ah! global warming in action!”. The only constant we can expect from the earth is change.
Re: P.S.
and even lets say these are only future predictions, which is not true..but lets hypothesize for a second.. do we really want to fuck up the natural climate of the earth with overpopulation and CO2 emmissions just to experiment to see what type of damage we can cause?
Hurricanes are made more intense by warmth and warm waters. The warmer the water is by the constant raising temps of the Earth the more intense the storms will be. We are one degree warmer in general then we used to be, you think that this will not effect something?
Re: P.S.
Again, I never said that. I said that a) we have no idea how much of the effect is ours, and how much is natural. And b) I haven’t seen anything to suggest that this years storm systems are either out of the ordinary or a result of manmade warming.
I have not made any statements about what I think we should or should not do about it, so I don’t know where you’re getting that I think we should “experiment to see what type of damage we can cause”. For the record, I am fully in favor of cutting down our use of fossil fuels and our various noxious emissions – but that has nothing to do with the crisis at hand.
Re: P.S.
ugh nevermind perhaps if we were talking in person this wouldn’t be so frustrating for me personally. I think that it is very likely that the warming of the climate could very well have everything to do with how intense the storms have been in the past few years. I know that many other scientists think the same exact way.
If you want to argue otherwise, feel free to do that.
Re: P.S.
Online conversations have a way of getting frustrating. I sympathize.
I have presented the evidence for my views; I hope that sometime soon you will have the time to locate the science which you base your own views on and get back to me. I would very much like to see it.
My first response got erased so I will respond again. I am finding this back and forth essay writing a bit tedious.
1. Bush did not reduce funding, he simply approved the Congressional budget.
Yes, he approved it. Your point?
Secondly, as it was determined current plans for the repairs were inadequate and a new development plan was necessary that would review in great depth and analysis followed by an engineering plan. Estimated cost: $4 million Estimated time of completion 2009. Then once a viable engineering plan was done and approved budgeting for development could begin. So yes, the budget cut funds down to $6 million (enough for the plan and smaller fixes).
So then one would think that since they knew that the correct protection wasn’t in place then the extra money would go towards education, transportation and shelters in place for when the storm actually hit. There should have been a forced evacuation with buses 48 hours before the storm hit. The knowledge was there before the storm hit, where was the government with all it’s money?
2. Vacation – yes, my co-workers are home most days of the week. It’s not vacation. Sure, he’s out of Washington D.C. so the time is counted as vacation time. It’s really tele-commuting. He is able to do almost everything from his offices in Texas. Furthermore, with Congress out of session (on vacation a helluva alot more than the president) there is not much he could do in Washington that he couldn’t do in his Texas offices.
Actually most people in this country don’t have the luxurious jobs from which they can operate from their homes (or on an Ipod from the golf course.) I am pretty sure that his life is a bit more cushy then most people. Being able to operate out of our homes is usually a rather rare ability for just your average guy. I have no idea your position in the government, so I cannot speak for you but maybe you get to work at home too?
But on the subject of the president, considering the small amount of time that this person is spending leading the country (8 years) I think that it would make the people in this country a lot more comfortable to know that this person can get his hands dirty a little bit more and operating at home doesn’t “look good” to the rest of us.
3. He doesn’t have authority to put caps on gas prices. Educate yourself about our government please. He can execute enforcement of laws. Not pass them. Talk to your congress people.
So you are telling me that he can run by bills start wars but can not run by a bill to put caps on gas prices?
4.
Solar – not developed nor the space to supply our current needs
I have stayed in completely off the grid homes in New Mexico. Using both Solar and Passive Solar power.
Wind – same as above, furthered by numerous environmental damage and the fact new studies are showing wind power damages the local environment and causes regional warming.
A lot of Germany uses wind power, I do not know enough about the subject of wind power to comment either way
Biodiesel – renewable yes, but still causes the same pollutions. So really a moot point.
You are absolutely incorrect about biodiesel causing the same pollutions, I am not sure where you are getting your facts, but either you are wrong or you are reading completely different facts then me.
Second, biodiesel, on a level to support U.S. consumption is not feasible without massive habitat destruction. It requires immense amount of land dedicated to farming.
We are just disposing of used veggie and animal restaurant oils currently which can be used to help power our cars. If we had some sort of diesel hybrid car then we would be using even LESS bio-diesel. This is using RECYCLED oils.
The administration of the President has focused $5 billion on fuel cell research and stated promises of additional funds to build a support infrastructure as soon as vehicle manufacturers can offer such vehicles. In the meantime, the tapping of Alaskan reserves is to give us some negotiating power and short term ability to lighten our reliance on foreign oil.
It is a conjunction strategy. Invest in a long-term solution while at the same time easing short-term concerns.
It is decieving for you to say “in the meantime” when infact it will not effect us for another 6 years.
Lastly, as for your 1 degree theory. There has been several degree fluctuations for periods of decades and even centuries in recent history. One such period allowed the vikings and the norse to explore the Americas. Others have occurred over the past 4,000 yrs. Along with much more extreme cooling periods.
I am not as concerned about cooling as I am about warming when it comes to the subject of hurricanes. Hurricanes feed off of warm water.
The only viable long-term sources of alternative power are “hydrogen” & “nuclear”.
The only viable? What about the fact that our entire structure is based on having outside power? We are completely dependant on having the power, water etc.. given to us by some large companies? Have you ever read about Earthships? What about the concept of having self-sustained off the grid housing?