Hurricane Katrina: Pushing us to act faster on Climate Change

Four years ago this Saturday, Hurricane Katrina slammed into the United States, killing at least 1836 people and shaking the foundations of our country. Dr. Kerry Emanuel reports that if Katrina had occurred in 1980, the levees would have held. But global warming increases ocean temperature, increases storm intensity, and threatens America with more super-storms.

There’s a lot of talk in the news this week about national security and the risks posed by global warming, both domestically and abroad. In light of a recent typhoon, Taiwan’s military has ranked climate change as its biggest national threat and is re-organizing some military operations accordingly.

Pacific island states have upped their call for industrialized nations to act on cutting carbon emissions, saying that the nations least responsible for causing climate change shouldn’t be the first to pay the price.

And right here at home, a new study finds that big storms this decade in the Atlantic hit a 1000 year high. None of these things make me feel good, but for people who live in coastal areas, these developments must be downright scary.

Security in one’s home is a fundamental human need, one that we’ll fight for and one that we expect our leaders to look out for. President Obama, and congress, do you have our backs on this one? Even if its difficult, can you mobilize the resources available and put us on track to get to 350 parts per million of co2?

1sky.org is calling for climate action in the name of Hurricane Katrina. The Alliance for Affordable Energy in Louisiana is doing phenomenal work on climate and energy issues, inspired in part by Katrina.

Take a moment this week to think about what’s really at stake when we talk about stopping global warming. We’re trying to reduce the risk of extreme storms that kill people and destroy homes. There are 104 days until Copenhagen. Lets accelerate the progress and show up at the negotiations ready to fight for our people, for all people.