EMAIL SIGN UP!
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
Climate Change Blamed for Record Mississippi Floods
WASHINGTON - Human-induced climate change is contributing to the recent heavy rain and ongoing record flooding along the Mississippi River, and we can expect more extreme weather events in the future, according to scientists and adaptation experts on a teleconference held by the Union of Concerned Scientists.
"Climate change is about more than warming. What we're really seeing is global weirding," said climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe, associate professor at Texas Tech University. "It is altering the character and conditions of the places we know and love. For many places around the world, what we are likely to see could be feast or famine - more frequency of weather at the extremes, from intense storms to prolonged droughts."
"We can't attribute any one event to climate change," she said, "but we do know that every event that happens is already superimposed on very different background conditions than we had 50 years ago."
Economic losses from natural disasters have soared from a global average of $25 billion annually during the 1980s to $130 billion a year during the decade ending in 2010, said Nikhil da Victoria Lobo, senior client manager in the Global Partnerships team at Swiss Re, an international reinsurance firm.
He told reporters that there's little doubt that "climate volatility was a major contributor," although he says it is impossible to estimate what percentage of losses were due to climate change.
Swiss Re is working with local governments around the world to help them bear less of the burden for costs associated with extreme weather. "We live in a world where rising budget deficits are being coupled with extreme weather events that further aggravate these financial burdens," he said. "However, insurance can put a price tag on climate risk, and help local governments more efficiently prepare for and finance what may happen."
Local governments must now determine what municipal infrastructure is vulnerable to future extreme weather and what capital investments will best protect residents and property.
Aaron Durnbaugh, Chicago's deputy commissioner for natural resources and water quality told reporters, "Chicago's sewers were installed over the past 150 years and it takes decades to replace this aging infrastructure under the best of conditions. Given our financial challenges, we just need to be sure that if we're replacing a sewer or adding green infrastructure, it's ready to handle the kind of rain events we're likely to see."
The pattern of rains and drought is set up by the La Niña - cold tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures - which influences the jet stream and the movement of storms across the United States.
These conditions shift precipitation, helping to drive extreme drought in Texas and Oklahoma while also contributing to extremely wet conditions in southern Missouri and the Ohio River Valley.
Additionally, a combination of natural factors and Arctic sea ice melt brought a relatively cold winter to much of the central United States, causing more precipitation to fall as snow, rather than rain, on the upper Midwest. Now that it is spring, that snow is melting and feeding into the Mississippi at the same time heavy rainfalls have occurred.
All these factors helped make April 2011 the 10th wettest on record in the United States, according to the National Climatic Data Center at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which maintains records going back to 1894. Several states where rainfall drains into the Mississippi also experienced their wettest April on record.
In addition, human-induced climate changes continue to warm the Gulf of Mexico, the scientists observe.
Higher temperatures increase the amount of water that evaporates from the gulf's surface as well as the temperature of air that moves over the gulf, increasing the amount of water vapor it can hold.
At the same time, shifts in natural ocean currents are also contributing to higher temperatures in and over the gulf.
Natural atmospheric circulation patterns then carry water vapor over the gulf to North America. According to the NOAA's National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service, the Gulf of Mexico was nearly two degrees Fahrenheit hotter than average in late April when parts of the Midwest experienced intense downpours.
An upsurge in the number of heavy rainstorms has been triggered by an increase in moisture in the atmosphere, which, in turn, is tied to global warming, the Union of Concerned Scientists points out. Five states: Kentucky, Indiana, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania, broke precipitation records in the three-month period between February and April this year.
Today, the Mississippi River crest is slowly working south. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers continues to monitor the crest southward down the Mississippi River and continues flood fighting measures throughout the Mississippi River and tributaries, with increased focus on conditions in southern Louisiana.
New Orleans is expected to remain at near the current level for the next two weeks. The river is forecast to fall below flood stage on May 27.
In Louisiana, there are 16 of 125 gates currently open along the Morganza Floodway. The Corps says the release of water from the Morganza Spillway is moving slower than anticipated through the Atchafalaya River Basin.
Three hundred and thirty-three of 350 gates are open on the Bonnet Carre Spillway that empties the Mississippi River into Lake Pontchartrain and is anticipated to remain open for two to four weeks.
As the floodwaters spread across the land, approximately 3,900 residents may require sheltering and 22 shelters are on standby with the capacity to house over 8,200 occupants. The majority of residents are expected to stay with friends and family.
Thirty-four parishes across Louisiana have declared a Parish State of Emergency.
Planning and preparations are underway for evacuations downstream from the Morganza Spillway. Mandatory evacuations are in place for Krotz Springs and Melville communities outside of the ring levee in St. Landry Parish. Voluntary evacuations are in place for the remainder of the low lying areas in St. Landry Parish.
Mandatory evacuations will be issued for St. Martin Parish beginning on Saturday, emergency officials warn.
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
46 Comments so far
Show AllBut global warming is just a myth, right?
So the flooding along the Mississippi River is, what, an illusion?
Mass-induced hysteria?
Mass hallucination?
Martha,
The denialists, and I know a few, don't deny global warming, they deny that it's man-made. They are stupid and uninformed and overwhelmingly confuse knowledge with bloviation and think Rush Limbaugh knows everything. They all, to a wo/man, think paying taxes is monstrous and have various other idiotic notions.
Climate change is THE most important news/education/political/financial and corporate power/religion/anti-science/human hubris story ever.
And so goes extinct homo sapiens stupidis and all the bilateral species casualties.
The other danger from a warmer Gulf is hurricanes. Gone are the days when 8 hurricanes a year would be the norm.
But this story is about flooding. It would help if we built 10 million houses on 10 foot stilts and allowed the flood to pass underneath, like people do on barrier beaches, except those houses already should be on 20 foot stilts. It would also be nice if they designed flood walls in the U.S. to handle 10,000 year flooding events like they do in the Netherlands, where commoners' lives and property are valuable, but the US Army Corps of Engineers doesn't do that. The Corps of Engineers too often designs for a 100 year flood that too often becomes a 20 year flood these days.
How about the tornadoes happening now and past in the midwest the season? We don't know how bad it will get. What might have been a 10,000 year flood before might come next year.
Well, the Christers will just say it's the tribulation and sit around and wait for the rapture... Clue: Ain't gonna be no rapture. And you morons will be stuck on this planet with the rest of us. So start working for a better world.
Guess what. There will be yet more rain.
Oh well, Obama is Moving Forward with more coal mining and coal plant construction, more nuclear plants, offshore drilling for oil in the Gulf and ANWR and anywhere else Big Oil wants to create more oil "spills", and fracking for natural gas. There's also plenty of empty rhetoric on hand for "caring about" alternative energy sources, the kind you don't actually ever have to DO anything about.
So with a president focused solely on fossil fuels and perpetual war, I'm sure we'll all be just fine. So long as we can get enough insurance to pay for the inevitable natural disasters consequent to official stupidity regarding global warming, there shouldn't be anything to worry about. Keep destroying the world, but "pay" for all the wreckage. That's all we have to do.
Because extreme weather events occurred before the present era of AGW.
A needed correction to the article: El Nino also contributes to the swings in climatic extremes. And La Nina's cooler water temperatures are relative to the overall increasing average. Already the 4th tropical cyclone has formed in the western pacific, will become the season's 1st major typhoon and is generally pointed at Manila.
Hi scribe: I certainly agree that what we know is massively outweighed by what we don't. Recently weather conditions in Fairbanks, AK became balmier than those in Eugene, OR and indicate the start of another Arctic heat wave. And of course the great number of fires in Alberta. The following link will take you to the global drought monitor, which can be displayed in differing modes, http://drought.mssl.ucl.ac.uk/drought.html?map=%2Fwww%2Fdrought%2Fweb_pages%2Fdrought.map&program=%2Fcgi-bin%2Fmapserv&root=%2Fwww%2Fdrought2%2F&map_web_imagepath=%2Ftmp%2F&map_web_imageurl=%2Ftmp%2F&map_web_template=%2Fdrought.html Note Canada's high arctic region and the lack of drought in Australia's Murray/Darling region that was recently devastated by drought. What I've always found fascinating are the physics that drive climate, how they are linked to the planet's most massive storms, and how global warming will increase their intensity; and it should be noted that tornadoes serve a similar purpose--to move excess heat into the upper atmosphere and then into space.
'Twas I. Here's another: the British Antarctic Survey, http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/
Good point, Scribe, the other area of uncertainty comes from the idea that natural systems that once harmonized no longer fall into synch. Therefore the parameters used to judge (or predict) weather patterns for any given year no longer fit the pre-established metrics. One could say that too many tipping points have been passed. In other words, we're now in uncertain territory all the way, bats forced to navigate by a form of echo-location.
What I find interesting about the article is that now that someone is beginning to put a price tag on what these climate events are costing, more pundits are at last willing to admit what's been obvious to anyone with half a brain for at least the past few years.
I'd related in the forum a few days ago that back in the l990's one of my clients slipped me some insurance company insider info on predictions for this very type of thing. Even then, the math equations used to insure that "the house always wins" were failing, and insurance companies were finding themselves paying out huge sums.
Events like Katrina and Miami's hurricane Andrew cost billions of dollars each. I haven't seen a price tag for the floods to Pakistan or those to Australia, or what the net losses will be to Japan for so much damage, existing and continuing (due to radiation acting as the "gift that keeps on giving"). Then, too, there are the human costs, in the form of losses that cannot BE measured... such things as the forfeiture of family heirloom objects, places that carry memory, and of course, loved ones.
In my view, anyone still beating the drums that there's no such thing as climate change, and thereby encouraging Amerikans to keep on abusing (via extravagant usage patterns) resources, deserves to be publicly whipped...
SCRIBE: You're a smart cookie. Thank you for the feedback and your evident capacity to connect significant "dots."
By the way, since I live near the Gulf (in Florida), my other concern is rising sea levels. Suppose what just happened, in terms of record snowfall and the like, recurs as part of an annual cycle. It would not be long before all that water washing down raised the Gulf water levels.
Florida is a porous state. One of the prophetic sources I've recently turned to says there will be MANY sink holes occurring in Florida. Hard to know if changes to the Gulf will be the cause of that?
Our state has rivers not running through it, but actually under it. Some of these were pristine, even prehistoric... and where they pierce the surface, we have gorgeous springs. Most of these are nestled in the middle of the state, north of Orlando... streaming from Deland and thereabouts. I've had the good fortune to kayak in quite a few, and it's like being in the Garden of Eden. Clearer water cannot be found... still, all of this will be potentially jeopardized by the BP oil, the Cor-exit, and now the pesticide residue streaming in from the outwash of heartland farms.
"Man is the only beast that fouls his own nest." Indeed.
I am being more mindful of each day's blessings; for truly, we don't know how much longer the web of life (or those systems we've depended upon) will hold up. It's THAT bad...
Posters here may have been misled by the title of the article. If we blame the flooding solely on global warming, we are missing a larger point. We are also relieving pressure for change on land use practices. In this way, global warming can be used as a convenient whipping boy-- a distant foe that we are all collectively responsible for, and hence one that other actors with more immediate responsibility can hide behind.
It is indisputably important to acknowledge the role that global warming is playing in changing weather patterns, and to mobilize human efforts against it. (Reduction of carbon dioxide levels would be far less costly than the damage that they will ultimately incur, in this writer's view.)
But it would be foolish to disregard other causes of the Mississippi flooding, some of which are the results of human activities as well.
First, the article notes the influence of La Nina. Second, it says that this is the tenth-wettest US April on record, so I'm guessing there have been years before the onset of global warming when rainfall exceeded this year's. So what has changed?
What we neglect at our peril is how the river basin has been altered by human needs and wants. Farm fields have replaced wetlands, which act as a sponge during flood times. Shockingly, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, and Indiana have lost more than 85% of their wetlands.
http://water.usgs.gov/nwsum/WSP2425/images/fig02.gif
http://water.usgs.gov/nwsum/WSP2425/history.html
(A wetland is not necessarily a swamp, either-- it can be a place where water typically fills the pore space of soil for part of the year.) Driving this has been the tiling of farm fields, which undeniably boosts yields. (If you google 'farm tiling' you can find many companies that specialize in this.)
The most intensive draining of wetlands has occurred in the Midwest corn-and-soybean belt of Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, and Iowa.
http://www.jstor.org/pss/3744552
The channelization of the river has further effects. Floods are normal. Humans don't like flooding, though, so there has been an increased reliance on dikes, levees, dams and berms to direct the river's flow. This results in increased sedimentation in the main course of the river--- which leads to the river becoming shallower and-- you've got it-- more prone to flooding.
Top this all off with our need to live and work near the river, and you have a recipe for flood damage.
We need to consider what is important to us, and what it will cost. John Wesley Powell thought that government entities should be organized, instead of along arbitrary human-conceived state lines, along the outlines of river drainages. It is a provocative thought, one that makes sense in light of the damages caused by upstream states like Minnesota, Illinois, Iowa, and Ohio to the lower-basin states of Mississippi and Louisiana. This includes not only water runoff but nitrogenation, which causes the dead zone phenomenon in the Gulf.
Please do not blame the Missippi flooding solely on global warming. We cannot ignore the loss of wetlands, or the need for their restoration. Nor can we continue to place our trust in engineered solutions for our hydrological problems.
H.C. I agree with the points you made. It's probably more accurate to define matters as "Human Induced Climate Change." (or climate chaos!)
One could say all of the following add to the problem:
1. Deforestation of major sectors of the Amazon and other once notable forest regions.
2. Deep sea fishing practices that utilize enormous drift nets. (One key element missing from the food chain can throw the entire thing asunder.)
3. General land "development"
4. Pouring nuclear and other poisonous effluents into the oceans and waterways.
5. Pesticide/insecticide/herbicide run-off rushing into major waterways.
6. "The Road" penetrating deeper and deeper into once pristine sanctuaries, where ecosystems based on complex communities of live beings become compromised.
7. Automobile usage & carbon poured into the atmosphere.
8. The military's gigantic fossil fuel foot print, added to weapons' testing.
9. The meat consumption that's causing a lot of rain forest to be stripped away in order to open yet more turn to graze cattle (and then, too, there is the methane problem resulting from their dietary feedback);
10. Lack of respect for nature.
11. No national or international call to Conservation of precious resources like water!
12. A business mantra that perceives every living thing as a potential item to sell, and therefore uses all sorts of PR and subtle forms of hypnosis/behavior mod. to maintain a consumer-driven frenzy. We call it capitalism's call for endless growth; however that premise is destined to confront the dead side of the equation in the form of FINITE resources. And living systems increasingly coming asunder.
13. Violent conflicts proliferating. According to mystics, these agitate the energetic templates that support life on unseen planes.
I've frequently made the point that it's now impossible to isolate any one offender, or offensive factor (i.e. causative agency) due to the climate of trespass that touches so many areas of our lives. How can we say that pop soda is the singular culprit for rising Diabetes rates when Corn Syrup is poured into products that hardly need any sweetener at all? How can we isolate the fossil fuel aspect when, as you mentioned, general patterns of land "development" also contribute to the over-all implosion of the natural world.
Finally, I am convinced that spiritual thinkers like Evo Morales from Bolivia, calling upon nations to HONOR Earth Mother/Pachamama, and take the natural world seriously enough to consider its sustainability in their business equations and trade agreements, is not only onto something... but leading the way to the future. The ONLY future that promises survival, ultimately.
Hymanaea: you write like an ecologist. I know several, involved in identifying and classifying wetlands. There are such things as uplands wetlands; there is a fairly large one just up the road from my house and I am on a ridge in the foothill region of eastern Ohio. That wetland only continues to exist because this area is so depressed that new subdivision development is almost non-existant.
Many of the wetlands that were destroyed in those States you mentioned were the remnants of the outwash plain of the terminal boundary of the last ice sheet. It wasn't until ecologists sounded the alarm that wetlands are vital to clean water, wildlife habitat, and flood control that the wholesale draining and destruction of same was forbidden. This is one of those very sore points of land developers against the "Nazi Environmentalists."
These "all development is good development" types are absolutely determined to destroy the EPA and their state counterparts. I quit the Land Surveying profession about ten years ago over one such development near Pittsburgh. Our firm was the lead site engineer to develop a shopping mall in the lower reaches of Deer Creek near its mouth on the Allegheny. A worse piece of ground for commercial development could not be imagined. Not only did Deer Creek run the entire length of this 200 acre plus development, but the valley is surrounded by sheer hillsides prone to failure and interspersed with red clay which is notoriously unstable. The plans called for channelizing and building levees along the length into what can only be desribed as a riprap lined ditch. Anticipating this development the land owner logged the length of the stream which was illegal, but made so much money on that that he could afford to pay the fine and still make a profit.
But here's the best part. Turns out that the girlhood home of Rachel Carson overlooked this very same plot of ground and the developers, under increasing resistance from anglers and outdoor types proposed to build a Kiosk on a bend of this riprap lined ditch and call it "The Rachel Carson Outdoor Environmental Laboratory."
I kid you not. That was the last straw - I quit. The good news is that the cost of developing this tract vastly exceeded what the developers were willing to accept in their profit calculations, and the site remains undeveloped. There's much, much more to this story, but you get the drift.
It is a rare person who will walk away from a job in his or her profession on ethical grounds. Kudos to you, Justaman.
Rachel Carson's life would be the sort of inspiration that could motivate a person to do that, though.
Her personal story is very compelling. She displayed a rare courage, as I am sure you are aware.
All of this is/will prove to be interesting considering we spend most our money on killing others instead of making plows.
The Stockholm Symposium of Nobel Laureates on Climate Change has posted an archive of talks that are setting the Memorandum going into Rio+20 next year. This was convened by the queen of Sweden - the third session
Among the some 10+ Brian Walker's talk is quite interesting -
http://globalsymposium2011.org/live/video-archive
Fascinating with very basic and accessible graphics and presentations. The better the scientists, the more concerned they are with accessibility
don't confuse climate change with river irrigation negligence typical for pakistan and the like
C'mon. This is God's wrath visited on the bible belt in righteous retribution for so many closet homosexuals and adulterers bellowing from the pulpit. We all know global warming is caused by too much hot air.
There has always been climate change and on no real precise schedule of cycles. As far as human's know anything, it could be and is really probable that past warming periods have been much warmer than what is going on in the present. NEVER have humans experienced a complete ice age cycle and understood it for what it was other than a one point in the cycle, it was terribly cold, cold enough to stop the vikings from colonizing the western hemisphere. And there is a point where the 'change' gets pretty warm, I say as warm as is currently and even warmer.
Now in my life time, I can remember the Mississippi River flooding several times. And yes, the rains all the water is part of the climate change. What is not so common is the military blowing holes in the levees to 'control' the flooding. Off hand, I would say it is wrong because the loss of useable land is nothing trivial. If humans are adamant about not controlling its own growth, the loss of use any land it unacceptable.
One thing. Climate change is slow, but at the same time with periods of intensity as we have seen of late all over the globe, and it is unpredictable so those so cocksure about how and why the climate changes should offer better reasons for those changes. After all none of us will be alive to experience the next glacial period of the next upcoming ice age, where the ice sheets covering the northern latitudes could grow to about 2 or 3 miles thick and that will not take a few years to happen.
There have been four (major) global warming periods during the past 261 million years. The Mideval Warm Period was not global. Duriing the first two global warming periods during that time frame it indeed was much warmer than now, atospheric Co2 levels eventually soared to over 1,200 ppm and almost all life on Earth was eradicated.
The forth warm period (is now), and instead of it taking more than a million years to occur it has happened in about 200 years and has accelerated at a fantastic rate since the year 1950. It will continue and get a lot warmer in the Arctic region of Earth and the Arctic weather and climate is the driving force of climate and weather world wide.
It is human caused this time, human activity emits more Co2 every year than (17,000) active volcanoes like the one in Hawaii. Dramatic world wide climate change is the result and it has just started to show how bad it can be. It will become much worse from now on.
There is no telling of what may occur weather wise anyplace on the globe from now on, we can only expect dramatic changes. The climate scientists long range computer models are worthless, things are happening far faster than any of them have predicted or imagined.
Ever see the runway as you approached a major airport for landing or upon a turn away on takeoff?
The length of a runway at an int'l a/p is about 10,000'.
The vast majority of weather happens below 25,000'...only 2 and a half runway lengths. At 30,000---3 lengths---- the temperature is at least -30 C/F. Above 40,000' it's a relatively constant - 57 C/F.
Above 100,000' is virtually cold dead space. On a clear day you can see 100,000' (10 miles) from a building or hilltop.
Our margins are thin.
These are some of the reasons we shouldn't drive SUVs, burn coal and boil water with uranium.
>>>>> 100,000' (10 miles)
You must have very small feet.
ok, so it's 18.9 miles, not ten miles. snydly's comment remains valid. It actually surprised me-- I think it's a great illustration of how limited our atmosphere is.
There are airport runways that are actually much longer than 10,000 feet, as hard as that is to believe. The Airbus 380 is driving airport lengths to absurd distances.
http://www.dimensionsguide.com/airport-runway-length/#hide
The Qamdo Bangda airport in Tibet is the world's longest. The thinner air at altitude requires a longer takeoff, something I had never thought of before.
Also, it would be quite easy to see 18.9 miles from a tall building. The Empire State Building claims a view of 80 miles in one direction.
http://www.bigapplevisitorscenter.com/piesb.htm
These comparisons suddenly make me feel how 'short' a stack of air we're living under. Pretty precious, really.
oops...sorry. Easy to trip on small feet.
"Economic losses from natural disasters have soared from a global average of $25 billion annually during the 1980s to $130 billion a year during the decade ending in 2010"
It could be that the mushrooming economic losses from natural disasters are being covered through the public treasuries, funneled out of low and middle-incomes into das kapitalists' disaster-profiteering enterprises. I would suppose that Harvard Business School is hooking this devious trend into its curriculum, for "troop indoctrination", and if you would like to verify by giving someone there a call and reporting back here, we may have something on them.
south of the equator - understanding the concept of "flying rivers" and what happens with the contiued deforestation of the Amazon to the rest of South America
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jT0FgvjRthY
Although it is natural for news stories to try and find some quantifiable entity to illustrate any point it irritates me somewhat when every disaster has to be couched in terms of economic losses. How about human losses? Or animal or plant losses? When it becomes impossible to grow a crop for survival and sustenance then all the money on earth won't be able to make up the difference.
Perhaps if climate change was spoken about in more personal terms then more progress could be made educating people about the real cost--not the monetary one. The most important things on earth, money cannot buy so please quit acting like it can.
Richmond VA built a hefty flood wall to keep the James River from flooding Shockoe Bottom.
The only time it's been "used" they forgot to open it so hurricane downpours could flow away from Shockoe Bottom into the James River.
This created a soup of floating cars and flooded buildings.
human hubris knows no bounds
dave_m
There is nothing "natural" this time in Earth's history about an atmospheric Co2 level over 340 ppm. It is now approaching 400 ppm.
If that very high atmospheric Co2 level were due to (volcanic activity), it would be "natural". When the Arctic sea ice is rapidly disappearing and the Arctic may be ice free within three to five more years, it is not "natural" this time.
When the Arctic is warm, as it now is, it is not "natural" this time, it is because humans have burned coal like Hell would not have it. So the tree hugging enviromentalists are speaking out about it. Does that bother you?
Tell you what is going to bother you Dave,,, and everyone else. When summer temperatures are near or above 140 degrees F. every day in the shade. That is going to happen very soon, perhaps we will see it this summer, perhaps next, but it is going to happen, and soon.
Have you ever visited Death Valley in the summer time Dave? I have... Don't go there, it's not nice... It's friggin hot!
I'll probably catch hell for this, but, please, read the whole post. I know that there are extreme calls for the end to all USDA subsidies. I agree with ending ethanol/fuel & other unnecessary payments. However, the USDA has actually added payment programs for conserving & protecting areas of land that are close to water, ponds & other wetland areas. The planting of native grasses is also encouraged. There are also programs being gradually increased that allow farmers to permanently retire forests and wetlands from any type of agriculture use. Of course, these programs will be the first cut.They are also underfunded compared to wasteful subsidies. I know many farmers who wish they could enroll in these programs, but the limited funds are being directed to the most troublesome areas of the country. I think these programs are very beneficial for conservation, as well as educating farmers about these issues. Just go to www.usda.gov & judge for yourself.
IB
No flames out of this corner. The government can get many things right when it can be separated from its wealthy controllers. As for ethanol/fuel subsidies, if we made ethanol from sugar cane, which could be grown all across the south, no subsidies would be required. Energy input to energy output is about 1 to 1 using corn. It is 1 to 8 or better for sugar cane (as in Brazil). But of course politics dictates subsidies to corn growing corporations.