Sheldon wrote:

> Hey Jill, of course we'll weather this storm... but don't you find it
> kinda strange that not one other country has offered so much as
> condolences, let alone offered to lend a hand (I expect no money) but
> utility crews, rescue teams, medics, even kitchen crews to fix
> sammiches and tend the stew pots? I don't find that strange at all,
> they all hate us. What I do find strange is how the US is ALWAYS there
> to help with any country's disaster...


Yup...damn straight, Sheldon, THANK YOU, I was just thinking the same thing.
Take a gander at what the Krauts (of ALL people) are saying about the event,
they have the nerve to lecture us! :.


SPIEGEL ONLINE - August 30, 2005, 03:39 PM
URL: http://www.spiegel.de/international/...372179,00.html
"German Papers

Katrina Should be A Lesson To US on Global Warming

Seems like everything is President Bush's fault. One day after Katrina
hammered the Gulf Coast, German commentators are laying into the US for its
stubborn attitude to global warming and Kyoto.

Fun-loving New Orleans, now a disaster area.
Hurricane Katrina is big news for German commentators, whatever their ilk.
For some, the powerful storm which slammed the Gulf Coast on Monday, is a
symbol of the sort of environmental terrors awaiting the world thanks to
global warming and proof positive that America needs to quickly reverse its
policy of playing down climate change. For the more conservative, it is
simply another regrettable natural catastrophe.

Regardless of how one views it, Katrina has not only devastated parts of
Louisiana and Mississippi and killed dozens, it also has threatened the US
and its trading partners with economic instability. The Gulf Coast states
refine about 30 percent of America's oil supply and Katrina's damage is
threatening to cause already-high oil costs to skyrocket. The fun-loving
town of New Orleans, beloved for its moody, French-inspired bars, crooning
jazz riffs and free-for-all Mardi Gras spirit, has transformed into a watery
ghost town, with 80 percent of the city's 480,000 residents obeying the
mayor's call to evacuate. The pictures tell it all: frantic racing through
chest-deep water, flooded city streets and uprooted trees. The storm even
ripped off a chunk of the roof of the New Orleans Superdome, where close to
10,000 people had run to for cover.

The toughest commentary of the day comes from Germany's Environmental
Minister, Jürgen Trittin, a Green Party member, who takes space in the
Frankfurter Rundschau, a paper owned by the Social Democrats, to bash US
President George W. Bush's environmental laxity. He begins by likening the
photos and videos of the hurricane stricken areas to scenes from a Roland
Emmerich sci-fi film and insists that global warming and climate change are
making it ever more likely that storms and floods will plague America and
Europe. "There is only one possible route of action," he writes. "Greenhouse
gases have to be radically reduced and it has to happen worldwide. Until
now, the US has kept its eyes shut to this emergency. (Americans) make up a
mere 4 percent of the population, but are responsible for close to a quarter
of emissions." He adds that the average American is responsible for double
as much carbon dioxide as the average European. "The Bush government rejects
international climate protection goals by insisting that imposing them would
negatively impact the American economy. The American president is closing
his eyes to the economic and human costs his land and the world economy are
suffering under natural catastrophes like Katrina and because of neglected
environmental policies." As such, Trittin also calls for a reworking of the
Kyoto Protocol -- dubbing it the uncreative title of "Kyoto 2" -- and
insisting that the US be included.

The left-leaning Die Tageszeitung also delivers a punchy plea for more
attention to global warming, saying politicians should pay more attention to
Katrina's alarming images than to election polls and economic forecasts.
"Hurricane Katrina has delivered terrible photos. Experts are already
calling it the worst hurricane of all time. But this year's hurricane season
has only just begun. Flooded villages, mud slides, sandbags....Scientists
are quite calmly saying that we will see this kind of thing more often.
After all, this is what they have been forecasting for years -- climate
change, human-caused and irreversible. But a change of policy is not in the
cards. Politics is trapped between voters and industry lobbyists. And of
course, there is the killer argument: Protecting the environment impedes
economic growth." This is not how it should be, the paper opines. Indeed,
more "pictures from New Orleans should encourage us to follow science's
advice on climate protection."

The business daily Handelsblatt has a more pragmatic approach to viewing the
catastrophe. Instead of harping on the cause of hurricanes and other
disasters, it insists that the world should better help those in danger get
protection. "People will argue about the causes of climate change for a long
time to come," the paper writes. "But its effects are already reality. They
are called Katrina, or the flood catastrophes in southern Germany, Romania,
Switzerland and Austria.... It's not enough now to just call for measures
against climate change. Such policies need decades to take effect. But now
we must begin taking different kinds of measures, ones that better protect
people affected by extreme weather incidents." The best way to begin, says
the paper, is to identify areas of the globe most in danger. In Germany,
that includes areas around the Elbe and Donau rivers, while in the
Netherlands, much of the nation is under sea level. More needs to be done,
says the paper, to prevent building in potentially dangerous areas and to
create high water emergency policies. The world, too, needs to help nations
like Bangladesh, which doesn't have the means to reduce the risks its people
face alone. "All of this will cost time, a lot of money and the eradication
of old habits. But only in this way can people be protected and the
even-higher costs of post-catastrophe damages be reduced."

The Financial Times Deutschland refrains from any commentary about the human
costs of the hurricane and focuses on the economic impact it will have on
oil supplies. "For the already-strained global energy market, Katrina is a
small nightma The huge world-wide demand for oil has left producers and
workers pushing their limits of capacity. If production platforms and
refineries on the Gulf of Mexico have to shut down, the supply holes will
not be easy to fill." Even if the current projects of the economic impact of
Katrina are exaggerated, one thing is clear, the paper says. In the end, the
storm will have proven "the vulnerability of the oil-dependent world
economy."

The Süddeutsche Zeitung uses its feature page as a defacto editorial by
focusing on the hurricane as its theme of the day. Among its articles, it
cites a study by US hurricane expert Kerry Emanuel of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology that shows a rising tendency for hurricanes that
exactly reflects the curve of greenhouse gases. German scientists from the
Max-Planck Institute hail the study as the first proof of a real link. "If
this man-made warming continues, we will have to expect stronger storms in
future" Emmanuel tells the paper.

The conservative Die Welt, naturally, has an altogether different take on
Katrina, insisting that despite the terrible images broadcast, we should not
get hysterical about the environmental implications of the hurricane or
start screaming for change. After all, it says, "hurricanes are a natural
phenomenon. They occurred long before humans could be affected by them.
Whether the frequency and intensity of these storms has truly increased in
recent years has not yet been proven with statistics." Whether humans have
aversely affected the Earth's climate or not, the paper says, one thing is
clear "we have modern technology to thank that Katrina was not able to do
more damage." Indeed, thanks to early warning systems, the people of New
Orleans were evacuated before the storm hit. "One hundred years ago, a
tropical storm as strong as Katarina would likely have caused many deaths,
because it would have hit people unawares." Now, says the paper, we should
be grateful technology allows us to save so many lives."


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