Ravaging Tide: Death of America's Coastal Cities

Mike Tidwell , author of "The Ravaging Tide: Strange Weather, Future Katrinas, and the Coming Death of America's Coastal Cities," will be online Wednesday, August 30, at 11 a.m. ET , to discuss issues related to climate change and the lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina.

submit your questions and comments before or during the discussion.

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San Francisco, Calif.: Good morning, Mr. Tidwell, and thanks for chatting with us today. What do you make of this days-long Pacific typhoon with record windspeeds? And why, with the natural tie-in to the Katrina anniversary and changing weather patterns, do you suppose there's been so little about it in the news?

Mike Tidwell: The record storm in the Pacific this year are just part of an ongoing GLOBAL increase in destructive tropical cyclones, including hurricanes, worldwide. Six major scientific studies in the last 12 month alone connect growing hurricanes with global warming. But for the U.S. media, it's out of sight, out of mind. If the storms are happening right here, right now, they don't cover it. China is getting hammered by catastrophic storms, but no coverage.

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Brisbane, Australia: Dear Mike,

Queensland's a carbon copy of the U.S. East Coast, though upside down. Otherwise we look like coastal Georgia and S. Carolina, complete with hurricaines (aka 'tropical cycolones'.) We face rising sea levels and storm activity; we sit on a tidal river, making us a sitting duck for storm surges. Worst, our leaders' heads are just as deep in the sand as Bush's. What might we say to them that might save us from ending up like poor New Orleans? Help!

Thanks.

Mike Tidwell: Read my book The Ravaging Tide: Stange Weather, Future Katrinas, and the Coming Death of America's Coastal Cities. It makes clear that with a sea-level rise of up to three feet in coming decades (as now predicted by even the BUSH ADMINISTRATION)all the coastal cities of the world that are now at sea level or barely above it will soon be BELOW sea level just like New Orleans. We'll need dikes and levees for lower Manhattan, Miami, and many of Australia's coast cities. On top of this, tropical cyclones themselves are becoming much more powerful because of global warming. So the combination is lethal. N.O. was destroyed for two reasons. 1) It's a city below sea-level living behind vulnerable levees. and 2) it was hit by a massive hurricane. These two exact same conditions are rapidly coming to coastal Australia.

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Bethesda, Md.: The Bush Administration has, in my mind, rightly been raked for its response in the weeks following Katrina. But I am mystified why no one talks about the bigger failure. Confusion and inaction during a crisis is one thing, but what about the four years they had after 9/11 to get a catastrophe infrastructure in place? Do you think proper attention has been paid to that?

Mike Tidwell: This administration has problems hearing and then processing warnings. They were warned about a 9/11-type attack months before it happend. They were warned about the vulnerability of New Orleans. In my book, The Ravaging Tide, I dissect the culture of denial within the adminstration that has now given us a failed war in Irag and the Katrina nightmare.

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Silver Spring, Md.: How does one overcome "compassion fatigue?"

Mike Tidwell: The best way, I think, is to realize the same catastrophic threats like Katrina and 9/11 could come to you and your family where you live. If you're ever in a situation of extreme need, you'll certainly want to count on your fellow Americans to sustain their level of assistance until the need has passed. Likewise, we must continue to help victims of Katrina until they no longer need our help. This sets a proper precedent that will be in place when, god forbid, you or I need help the next time.

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Oaxaca, Oaxaca: Mr. Tidwell, good morning. I worked for FEMA during the hurricane season last year and heard just about every complaint and criticism possible. How will FEMA's failures and successes (there were some) last year shape the public's willingness to depend on the agency for assistance with catastrophes in the future?

Mike Tidwell: Americans' faith in FEMA has been completely and unchangeably shattered. The U.S. Senate, therefore, has recommended the agency be abolished and replaced with something entirely new and better. I agree with the Senate. FEMA is utterly broken and discredited and we need an entire new emergency preparedness mechanism.

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Rockville, Md.: Denial?

Sure. We first heard that the stadium had hundreds of rapes and murders and was a disaster. Then later they said hardly any of that happened. Who was right?

Mike Tidwell: It's now been widely and utterly documented that the reports of rapes and snipers, etc were entirely untrue. In moments of disaster when communications are shakey and unreliable, rumors unfortunately spread. The N.O. rumors were tragic in that they detracted from the utter patience and civility with which the suffering masses in the Superdome, etc endured their horrific plight.

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Fairfax, Va.: What are the special interest groups that are against seeing the facts the scientific community presents? Why won't this administration listen to science. Most other countries believe that global warming is real.

Mike Tidwell: ExxonMobil and Peabody Coal have a headlock on the present Congress. As for Bush, the oil industry doesn't need to lobby the White House. The oil industry IS the White House. This bunch would rather cut off their arms and legs than cut back on oil use. Unfortunately, ending global warming means the unavoidably death of the oil industry. Therefore an oil man like Bush HAS to say that either global warming isn't happening (his old response) or it can't be solved (his newest excuse).

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Arlington, Va.: Do you think we will need floodgates on the Potomac somewhere south of Alexndria? And if so, do you think the nation's capital is important enough for the politicians to think about it?

Mike Tidwell: Read my piece in the August 20th Washington Post Outlook section. It details how, unless our nation rapidly changes its relationship to fossil fuels, we'll need a floodgate near Mt. Vernon to protect the city from sea-level rise and bigger storms. It's horrifying but true.

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washintgonpost.com: We're All New Orleanians Now (Post, Aug. 20)

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Bethesda, Md.: After years of letting the oil lobbyist contingent obfuscate the "debate" about anthropogenic global warming (which has actually been in scientific consensus for about a decade), the press seems to finally be seeing the destructiveness of their "obligatory balance" impulse in reporting. I am less often seeing the "opposing view from the flat earth side" in coverage. Do you think the public is as a result slowly waking up to how they've been snowed with this contrived "debate" they've been reading about?

Mike Tidwell: I agree with you that U.S. press coverage of global warming has finally reached a more responsible level. I think the U.S. media, faced with observable, measurable, and shocking climate impacts on full display worldwide, have come to finally believe that this is becoming a big story. They are beginning to report it as much. But the coverage tends to be mostly about impacts alone. There are very few stories documenting what's holding up ACTION to confront the issue. Why CAN'T we get Congress to adopt a fuel economy standard for cars that within the ball park of what the Europeans and Japanese have? Why can't we make faster progress in promoting alternative to coal as a source of electricity? Whose preventing us from PROTECTING ourselves from the harm that's coming? You almost never see these kinds of stories. The fossil fuel lobby and their elected apologists in WAshington are condemning us to utter climate chaos so that ExxonMobil can register another $30 BILLION in profits next year.

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Washington, D.C.: Why do so-called "experts" always want to point to "global warming" as a cause of current weather patterns? Have any of these "experts" considered the idea that we only have a little over a hundred years of weather data to compare recent weather with. I think any reasonable scientist would look at the limited sample size of weather data as inadequite to draw any conclusions even if we only look at weather from the last ice age over 10,000 years ago.

Everyone with a political agenda wants to throw up their hands and point fingers at industry and the government for what could very well be normal fluctuations in global climate that may have been slightly accellerated by industry. However, a reasonable scientist would look at weather in the early 20th century, a time of significantly more exhaust of harmful chemicals into our atmosphere, and show no correlation between industry and global climate.

Politically motivated people always seem to find some way to spin every tidbit of news into a political platform, and Katrina's link to global climate change is no different. Can't we just accept we live on a dynamic planet that will constantly change with time. The day our climate is not changing is the day I'm getting off this rock, because that is signaling that our planet is dying.

Mike Tidwell: Read my new book The Ravaging Tide. We have EXHAUSTIVE records now of Earth's fluctuating climate regime going back at least 400,000 years thanks to examinations of ice cores in Greenland, ancient coral reefs, etc. And over the last 400,000 years, every time carbon dioxide goes up, temperature goes up and vice versa. The climate changes in the past were NOT driven by human activity. They were driven by changes in radiation from the sun and other factors. But we ARE driving the current climate change, according to THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION. And change is not in our best interest. Climate change is bad for us. We are rapide disrupting our one and only life-giving climate.

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Washington, D.C.: Why does every disaster bring enraged criticism? Is it not possible for us as citizens to have a civilized dialogue about what has gone right and wrong instead of pointing fingers at people and groups for failures. When it comes to learning, it's human nature to point out negatives, but as many have discovered, possitive reinforcement is significantly more effective than playing the blame game.

It's particularly true in the Katrina case when so many levels of the government failed (local, state and federal). The failures have been well documented, so now that we're one year later, why are we still dwelling one them? We should be looking at what did actually work correctly and apply those ideas and concepts to keep a disaster of this size from happening again, namely reducing the population of people who live below sea level.

Mike Tidwell: This country has failed to learn the single most important lesson from Katrina, and that is this: The same disaster is rapidely approaching all of our coastal cities because of global warming. It's hard to accept the inability or unwillingness of our leading federal agencies to learn this lesson in the face of a damburst of evidence. We, as a nation, are sleepwalking into an enormous global catastrophe.

But there's a way out of this mess. Read The Ravaging Tide.

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Rockville, Md.: "opposing view from the flat earth side"

Why do all of our debates start from the premise that "I am correct and anyone who does not agree is an idiot?"

Perhaps some of us agree that it is getting warmer but don't know if it will be all bad. Some even wonder about the ice age cycle. Warmer could be better if it prevents another ice age. But we are stuck with one question and anyone who ask other questions is a "flat earth person."

Mike Tidwell: Don't kwow what to say. If you're still clinging to the old myths that global warming might be good for us then you could probably profit from reading one of several recent aritcles in all of the following publications that make clear that the coming climate change is going to be very painful unless we do something about it. Simply google "global warming" and Parade Magazine, National Geographic, Scientific American. That should get you started.

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SW, Washington, D.C.: Hello - I was in New Orleans last week on a business trip and drove thru many of the damaged areas, what a shock, not sure why I felt it a shock or what I was expecting but there are thousands of homes left untouched a year later. For the few, and I mean, FEW that plan to return and rebuild, they are going to be living in what was once a thriving area and now is a remote area. My friends in Chalmette (St Bernard's Parish) lost everything but plan to rebuild. Unfortunately she may have only a few neighbors because most have opted to never return.

The few homes that have been rebuilt will spend many years looking across the street to a house that looks like it did the day after Katrina hit. There is no possible way that the State can get bulldozers in there to tear down those unwanted homes in a quick turnaround. It will take years.

God Bless everyone who has decided to return and rebuild and for those that have moved on, I fully understand because I would have done the same.

Mike Tidwell: I was in in N.O. last week. I've seen what you've seen. My prayers are with all those how died or are now trying to rebuild.

But the best thing we can do as a nation to prevent future Katrinas is to get off the fossil fuels that are driving global warming.

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Orlando, Fla.: A new New Orleans.- Unless the city of New Orleans is relocated to a safer site, "above sea level" the city could be destroyed time after time. A thorough multidisciplinary geotechnical, structural engineering study should be undertaken by a city, state and federal goverment task force, appointed by the U.S. Congress and president George W Bush.

Mike Tidwell: Sorry, everyone. I have to sign off now. Again, if you're interested in the BIGGEST lesson of all from Hurricane Katrina, get a copy of my new book The Ravaging Tide: Strange Weather, Future Katrinas, and the Coming Death of America's Coastal Cities.

Thanks, Mike Tidwell

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