Denying Disaster: Katrina and the Case for Impeachment

A human-made disaster: predictable tragedy

There are few totally "natural" disasters. We put a city in the way of a natural, predictable storm, and then call the resulting destruction a natural disaster. But this is a social disaster. Social disasters don't just come about from the ignorance of putting a city on a fault line, in a floodplain, or in the way of forest fires. Social disasters also come from the state's actions (poor planning, cronyism, and ideologically-motivated politics) and the needs of capital (continued growth and consumption of resources without concern for the future).

What happened in New Orleans was a preventable social disaster. The hurricane's strength was due in part to global warming. Destroying wetlands and dredging canals for development prior to the storm exacerbated the flooding. The evacuation, such as it was, was inextricably linked to race and class, and also with the encouraging ability of people to organize themselves.


Decision-based fact-making

The Bush administration has up-ended the normal fact-based decision-making process. They make decisions and then mold the facts to fit the decision. Blind emphasis on pro-business and anti-environmental policies, such as their refusal to negotiate or ratify the Kyoto accord, the promulgation of ineffectual voluntary pollution control measures, broad development policies based on market needs, and privatized solutions to public problems all add together to constitute an abuse of power in the face of scientific consensus on global climate change. Virtually all credible scientific studies now agree that the earth is warming due at least in part to anthropogenic (i.e., human-induced) causes. And yet since his days as Governor of Texas, Bush has championed private solutions to public problems where "voluntary" pollution controls generally amount to no pollution controls at all.

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