US suffers world's first climate change exodus: study (Gulf Coast)

[Barrett808]

US suffers world's first climate change exodus: study
by Jitendra Joshi

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The first mass exodus of people fleeing the disastrous effects of climate change is not happening in low-lying Pacific islands but in the world's richest country, a US study said.

"The first massive movement of climate refugees has been that of people away from the Gulf Coast of the United States," said the Earth Policy Institute, which has warned for years that climate change demands action now.

Institute president Lester Brown said that about a quarter of a million people who fled the devastating impact of Hurricane Katrina a year ago must now be classed as "refugees".

"Interestingly, the country to suffer the most damage from a hurricane is also primarily responsible for global warming," he said.

(more)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060817/ts_afp/usenvironmentclimate_060816195121

[kurth]

1. And taxpayers continue to pay for reconstruction

for the next hurricane.

[larrysh]

2. Well.........

the 250,000 who evacuated N.O. didn't do so because of the effects of
global warming....The disaster in New Orleans has been in the making since the city was first established (below sea level). Years of living
in denial, corrupt politicians handing out contracts for work that would never be done, an Army Corps of Engineers that turned a blind eye to changing flood patterns, a city government that allowed building
and more building and more building, without any consideration of where these waters would go....all human greed and human errors that culminated
when a massive storm bore down on a town more concerned with partying than preparation......

[bleedingheart]

4. Money is always the motivating factor in the creation of cities

Cities don't exist unless they are profitable...even if there is corruption...corruption can't make profits....in fact corruption occurs where there is money to help breed it...

There are many ghost towns that lost their steam because the ability to make money left.

New Orleans was and still is a port city...(moneymaker)...trade, slaves, rice, cotton, etc...all made it profitable...now it is natural gas, oil, entertainment..etc

[Igel]

3. Woo-hoo!

Somebody's shown a causal relationship between global warming and Katrina!

*That* will get a Nobel prize, for sure.

Not one of those funny statistically possible kinds of things based on an assumption about cycles or models.

Causality.

They did do this, right? They sound like they want us to assume they did.

Oh.