CHAPTER THREE CLIMATE CHANGE THE ULTIMATE WAKE-UP CALL

FOR many, it was Mother Nature who was indisputably to blame for the deluge in New Orleans last week.

"This is the worst natural disaster in the history of this country, " declared the governor of Mississippi, Haley Barbour.

But was it really an entirely natural phenomenon? Or was it at least partly due to the growing climate chaos caused by the pollution that belches from vehicles, industry and agriculture?

For a system as complex as the world's weather, it is impossible to give a definitive answer. But the evidence that global warming is making extreme storms like hurricane Katrina worse is becoming overwhelming.

The latest, and most convincing, study was done by Kerry Emanual, a professor of meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US. He analysed the records of hurricanes over the last half-century, and discovered some dramatic trends.

In a paper in the science journal Nature, Emanual showed that the peak wind speed of hurricanes in the North Atlantic and North Pacific had increased by 50% since 1949. Over the same period, the average duration of the hurricanes had increased by 60%.

Hurricanes, in other words, had become much more ferocious and lasted a lot longer. Furthermore, Emanual suggested, this was clearly linked to a rise in the average temperature at the surface of tropical oceans.

The rapid increase in the power of hurricanes over the past decade was unprecedented "and probably reflects the effects of global warming", he concluded. And he predicted - just a month ago - that things would get worse.

"Future warming may lead to an upward trend in tropical cyclone destructive potential and - taking into account an increasing coastal population - a substantial increase in hurricane-related losses in the 21st century, " he warned.

Emanual is a respected academic, so is invariably cautious in his pronouncements. Others, such as the American environmental author, Ross Gelbspan, are blunter.

Hurricane Katrina's real name was global warming, Gelbspan argued. "It was supercharged with extraordinary intensity by the relatively blistering sea surface temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico, " he said.

"The consequences are as heartbreaking as they are terrifying. Unfortunately, very few people in America know the real name of Hurricane Katrina because the coal and oil industries have spent millions of dollars to keep the public in doubt about the issue."

The drowning of New Orleans, which lies mostly below sea level and is surrounded by large dams, has long been predicted. In October 2001, a feature in the journal Scientific American described the city as "a disaster waiting to happen".

"A major hurricane could swamp New Orleans under 20 feet of water, killing thousands, " it said. The sunken city's fate was "at best a troubled Venice, at worst a modern-day Atlantis".

This year's hurricane season has been forecast to be the worst for more than half a century. In July, the Benfield Hazard Research Centre at University College, London predicted that the Atlantic would be twice as stormy as usual. It forecast 15 tropical storms in the Atlantic basin including nine hurricanes, four of which would be very violent.

Chillingly, the centre also predicted that two of the hurricanes would hit the US coastline.

David Crichton, a visiting professor at the centre, believes that the rising ocean temperatures caused by climate change were at least partly responsible. "I can't say that any one event is linked to climate change, " he told the Sunday Herald. "But the models indicate that hurricanes like Katrina will become more severe and more frequent."

The question now is whether what has happened in New Orleans will trigger an environmental rethink within the Bush administration. The leaders of the world's most polluting nation have hitherto been in denial about the emerging realities of climate change.

Dr Richard Dixon, director of the environmental group WWF Scotland, said: "Hurricane Katrina should be a wake-up call to those in the United States who have been trying to ignore climate change.

"The damage climate change will do to the rest of the world has not been enough to get political action in the States, but this reminder that US citizens can feel the direct effects of climate chaos should put greenhouse gases high up the agenda."

Dixon was pessimistic, however, that President George W Bush would himself see the light. "He will never admit that the US needs to address climate change by reducing emissions, " Dixon said.

"But hurricane Katrina will strengthen the hand of all those around him with a will to actually do something serious. Bush will be gone in three years, but the legacy of Katrina will ensure that US climate targets will follow quickly after his departure."

Friends of the Earth Scotland accused the president of having put narrow US economic interests above the stability of global climate. "In the aftermath of this storm, even he must wonder if he has made the correct choice, " said the environment group's chief executive, Duncan McLaren.

He added: "After the humanitarian response, there must be a political response that helps prevent such chaos becoming commonplace."

McLaren pointed out that Katrina disabled 95% of the oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico. "The terrible irony is that climate change arising from our economic addiction to oil will make such problems more severe and more frequent, " he said.

"In response, the world has to begin a rapid transition out of the age of oil, not extend the search for even more."

Only time will tell if this message will get across in the US, but after last week it is one that will often be repeated.

Christopher Flavin, president of the Worldwatch Institute, a leading environmental think tank in Washington DC, said: "The appalling images from New Orleans demonstrate that the world's richest country is not immune to the need to respect natural systems and to invest in their protection.

"If the world continues on its current course - massively altering the natural world and further increasing fossil-fuel consumption - future generations may face a chain of disasters that make Katrina-scale catastrophes a common feature of life in the 21st century."

The flooding of New Orleans, in other words, was not due to the malevolence of Mother Nature but to the carelessness of humankind. It was, Flavin suggested, an "unnatural disaster".

Copyright 2005 SMG Sunday Newspapers Ltd.
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