What if Katrina was Due to Global Warming?

It's almost 6 months since Katrina and there has been only peripheral discussion about global warming. It is obviously impossible to ascribe one specific hurricane (or any other event) to a phenomenon such as global warming. However, there is increasing evidence that global warming is causing an increase in ocean water temperatures. Warmer temperatures lead to more frequent and--more importantly--more intense, hurricanes. Katrina Rita and Wilma were three of the most powerful hurricanes ever recorded (forget the bizare statistics you may have seen about hurricanes hitting the US). Coincidence?

We are told that the current increase in hurricane activity is due to a natural cycle. But an analysis of hurricane activity since record keeping began in the 1880s shows that there has been a real increase in hurricane and tropical storm frequency over the past 10 years. The figure shows a 10-year rolling average of hurricane and tropical storm activity. While additional research is needed, it is evident that something other than a natural cycle in activity is at work here.




The relationship of hurricanes and global warming is perhaps best left to the scientists who have spent careers researching this. The area that has not been explored by either the scientists or the politicians is the impact that global warming has on the economy. The policy of the Dunce in Chief is that to curb emissions of greenhouse gases would have a crippling effect on the US economy and business. The true cost of Katrina has yet to be realised, but $85 billion and rising has already been appropriated by the government. This doesn't include the real cost to the economy of the Gulf Coast and the as yet unrealised impact on defaulted mortgages etc etc. And don't forget the hurricanes of 2004 which repeatedly hit Florida.

How many disasters like Katrina can US policymakers stand before realising that we are already directly paying the price of global warming? Perhaps the irony here is that while other industrialsed countries signed on to Kyoto in a futile attempt to address global warming, it is the US that is paying the economic price for refusing to recognise the dangers.