IPA
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
AUGUST 30, 2005
4:11 PM
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CONTACT: Institute for Public Accuracy
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167
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Katrina · Global Warming · Homeland Security
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WASHINGTON - August 30 - ROSS GELBSPAN
Today's Boston Globe features a piece by Gelbspan titled "Katrina's Real Name" in which he writes: "The hurricane that struck Louisiana yesterday was nicknamed Katrina by the National Weather Service. Its real name is global warming. When the year began with a two-foot snowfall in Los Angeles, the cause was global warming.
"When 124-mile-an-hour winds shut down nuclear plants in Scandinavia and cut power to hundreds of thousands of people in Ireland and the United Kingdom, the driver was global warming. When a severe drought in the Midwest dropped water levels in the Missouri River to their lowest on record earlier this summer, the reason was global warming. In July, when the worst drought on record triggered wildfires in Spain and Portugal and left water levels in France at their lowest in 30 years, the explanation was global warming.
"When a lethal heat wave in Arizona kept temperatures above 110 degrees and killed more than 20 people in one week, the culprit was global warming. And when the Indian city of Bombay (Mumbai) received 37 inches of rain in one day -- killing 1,000 people and disrupting the lives of 20 million others -- the villain was global warming." Ross Gelbspan is author of the books The Heat Is On and Boiling Point: How Politicians, Big Oil and Coal, Journalists and Activists Have Fueled the Climate Crisis -- and What We Can Do to Avert Disaster.
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LLOYD DUMAS
Professor of political economy and economics at the University of Texas at Dallas, Dumas is author of the book Lethal Arrogance: Human Fallibility and Dangerous Technologies. He said today: "It's remarkable that with the massive re-structuring of the federal government that took place with the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security, they don't have more well thought-out plans to evacuate a city like New Orleans. ... An emphasis should be placed on plans that have multiple purposes, like evacuation plans for a city like New Orleans that can of course be useful in the event of a terrorist attack but also in the event of a natural disaster like this one. ... There were plans during the Cold War to evacuate major cities in a few days, although they were not well thought-out."
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