View From The End of The World

View From The End Of The World

‘One of the things we forgot is that Katrina is a terrorist’, Walter Maestri, Emergency Manager For Jefferson Parish was looking around at a deserted French Quarter in New Orleans. The French Quarter was one of the few lucky areas of the city to avoid the catastrophic floods that have turned New Orleans into a foul smelling ghost town. Walter has been a fixture on National Television over the last three weeks. For years he begged and badgered anyone who would listen about the flood risk from a Hurricane. No did, now they can’t get enough of his homespun wisdom. For Walter, the events of August 29th is Louisiana’s 911. A terrorist attack known about and ignored, but this time it was not Islamic radicals, but one of Nature’s terrorist, the Atlantic Hurricane. Unlike the Middle East version, this terrorist was no sleeper cell. In the days prior to Katrina’s attack, NASA, NOAA and an alphabet soup of organizations and experts had followed the whereabouts of the coming storm. Katrina’s every move, her every mood change was charted, measured analyzed. By August 28th, they all sensed the worst about to happen. New Orleans’s last hope was her coastal defenses, the hundreds of thousands of square acres of marshland.
Those marshlands quelled and diverted storms for 200 years. They were the ramparts holding out against the furies of elements. Over the previous 70 years, 2000 square miles of marsh grasses had vanished. For an array reasons from changes to the Mississippi River, that starved the bayous of silt and sedimentation, to oil drilling in the Gulf, the marshes and wetlands were in poor shape. On August 29, the ramparts fell. In a real sense those wetland were a sacred battleground, like Gettysburg, Verdun, Normandy, places where the course of history was changed.
The following morning I was invited by the Louisiana State Department of Wildlife and Fisheries to tour the bayous. Except for a few National Guard troops, no one had gone down to see the place where the Battle of New Orleans was lost. Our destination was Delacroix, a commercial fishing village. The town has one claim to fame, a mention in a Bob Dylan song, but for the most part it is off the beaten track to all but the most avid crabbers. Getting there was a challenge, traveling to and through New Orleans was difficult enough, what roads are not under water are manned by National Guard troops. For security reasons and some not stated reasons, these roadblocks move, so at any given time on any given day no-one can tell you how to get anywhere. I was lucky to be linked up with three of the Department’s most knowledgeable specialists, Noel who seemed to know the hide out of every alligator in the swamps, Harry, the department manager with a telepathic connection to the fish populations and to where illegal fishing nets were strung and Heather a specialist in rare Bayou birds. What they did not know about the wetlands wasn’t probably worth knowing. It certainly helped that they knew the roads. Once past New Orleans and through the small towns of Reggio and Violet the landscape changed. Road signs vanished. The open grasslands were brown and turning black, destroyed by the surging seawaters. In the air hung the smell of decay, not the reek of sewers like that in New Orleans; this decay had the pleasant smell of late fall. The further we drove into the bayous the roads narrowed, to thin ribbons now heavily eroded with dark pools of water, and the occasional sickly yellow pond. The trees were stripped of leaves, many had been blown down, and one brought us to a dead stop. On the other side of the tree the road had been destroyed, a bright yellow torrent of water with a sulphurous smell was cascading into a lagoon. By the side of the road was a dead horse, trapped by the storm waters just yards from its stall. Everywhere the signs of destruction, trees stripped of their leaves, the earth covered in sticky black goo. I knew that I was entering the battlefield.
A short detour brought us to Delacroix, there was not building standing, just the skeletons to mark the spot. There were clumps of dead marsh grasses everywhere, on the remnants of buildings, in the branches of trees, and dangling off telephone poles. The End of The World Marina was just a shell; festooned with so much marsh grass it gave the appearance of an ancient ruin just uncovered by archeologists. Making the view from the End of The World truly remarkable was the Battlefield debris, boats lodged in trees, sticking out of the fetid marsh water, and jammed at strange angles into the skeletons of buildings. Along the road were the carcasses of wildlife; an armadillo squashed on the pavement, dead crabs and snakes baking in the sun. Next to the End of The World was the rubble of a new home, utterly destroyed except for a wet bar standing unscathed with a full compliment of hard liquor! In the bayou, by what was once a boat landing there was an overturned partially submerged Chevy panel van that had been hurled into the water. Across the road was the Roser home. I knew that because the mailbox was still standing in front of the ruin of what was their home. In their neighbor’s yard between the shattered cedar trees, with plastic ducks hanging from their branches was a Hackberry tree in full bloom. That there are trees that like hurricane winds of 160 miles per hour was something of a revelation. Out on the water, what remained of the marsh grass was broken up, some turning from brown to black. I asked Noel if there was any chance it could recover, he thought for a while, it depends, he said slowly, whether the silts and sediments can be replenished. I asked if that was likely. He told me it would be expensive, the oil companies wouldn’t like it, as it would effect the waterways used to carry their cargoes and the shrimp fishermen would not like it because it would kill their farms, and it would mean reconfiguring the Mississippi River. So, I asked what if they don’t. Well, he said, there is not much point to rebuilding New Orleans. And the thought struck me, then the Battle of New Orleans would be truly lost

The Great Treasury Heist

A greater number of Americans are travelling overseas, but they are still a minority of the population. This may explain why few people are alarmed about the drop in the value of the dollar. The price of a cup of coffee in Paris or breakfast in London seems of minor importance. That is until you speak to real estate brokers in coastline areas. Foreigners by the boatload are buying up prime real estate, not just the condo in Florida, no thousands of acres of the best real estate going cheap. One result of the irresponsible management of the American economy. The great giveaway of first the country's wealth to greedy corporations and the well connected, and now its land to speculators from overseas is an affront to American pride. So why is there no uproar? In a word the answer is radical individualism, in another age called selfishness. Americans have just one focus today, taking care of number one. So what if Mexicans are reclaiming the south west without firing a bullet, as long as they will do the work for a fraction of what it would cost an American to do the job, it's no problem. So what if the dollar is dropping, as long as the prices at Walmart stay low, that's all that matters. The thought that corporations are selling our invaluable technology at cut rate prices to a potential rival such as China and what we get in return are cheap toys and clothes makes no difference. To the selfish American, the 21st Century American its a win win, we spend, we pawn our assets and the extra we borrow, they loan the money then we spend more. It's like an Addiction.
Lost in all this is the sinister motive of the present Government in undertaking all this spending, after all Republicans are supposed to be the financially responsible party. There is method to the madness of the "Great Treasury Heist". By the time the Bushocrats have finished there will be no money for Government agencies to function. The goal of Libertarian Republicans is to 'get government off our backs' this is one way to do it, bankrupt it. Their policies assure no money for the pesky, Environmental agency, the IRS, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the SEC or any other agency except the Defense Department. At the current rate the government will be broke and out of business within four years. Then, those wimpy Democrats will have no way to get to the Bush Robber Barons, no way to stop the Bush carpetbaggers from moving their wealth into tax shelters, no way those tree huggers will be able to stop the rape of the Alaska, open season on our natural resources, no way to fund anything, because the debt will be so large. It will be left to the Democrats to raise taxes on the Middle Class and the poor, just to keep the government afloat. After four years of that the Robber Barons will be voted back in power to get what is left. Who cares, obviously the American people don't care, if they did they would raise their voices. Instead all that is heard is the Roar of Silence. So what are you going to tell your children when they ask, how did the USA become a Third World Nation?

The Underlying Concern

Within the scientific community, there is a growing anxiety that powerful reactionary forces tied to certain religious beliefs are trying to undermine three hundred years of scientific progress, even possibly usher Western civilization into a new dark age.
The requirements to teach creationism or intelligent design in schools in place of, or, in addition to evolution, the restrictions placed on embryonic stem cell research are, they contend, the latest evidence of this trend. Many scientists feel that religious beliefs have no place in their field of expertise and the views of their opponents are imaginative fabrications or worse the product of the manipulation of the weak minded and the ignorant. On the other side, there is a growing concern and alarm, that science has devalued human life. Cherished principles some thousands of years old are ignored and trampled in a quest for scientific knowledge that has no apparent or at best questionable purpose. What is most interesting about this struggle is that history, surprisingly, tilts more to the latter. The Roar of Silence has concluded that, if scientists were less apt to dismiss these criticisms and actually reflect on them, their work would be more appreciated and their role in society enhanced. Most importantly, it would enable them to understand widespread underlying concerns, that if not addressed will batter science in the 21st century
The present debate about stem cells is a good starting place. Scientists in favor of embryonic stem cell research offer a seductive vision; the possibility of cures for dreaded diseases. What greater good is there than that? And what possible harm could it cause? The Roar of Silence has concluded it can cause great harm, possibly catastrophic. Let’s go back to the beginning of the 20th century and revisit a similarly seductive argument. Back then it was nuclear power, the line was slightly different, imagine a clean, cheap, efficient source of energy that would light and warm homes and power industry. Now, at the beginning of the 21st century those promises seem hollow. Not a single nuclear power plant built in nearly forty years in the US. Many communities with upscale, educated residents like those near Indian Point in Northern Westchester County, New York want them closed forever. A history of leaks, rarely admitted until recently, the memory of Three Mile Island, the fear of terrorist attacks are reasons enough to shut them down. Nuclear power introduced the world to unimaginable horrors, destruction of life never before contemplated. Historians have only recently discovered how close the world came to destroying itself during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Renowned scientists like Oppenheimer lived out the later days of their life trying to reverse the implications for their nuclear handiwork. In April 2005, we learned that terrorists were planning to explode a dirty radioactive bomb in New York. Should the terrorists eventually succeed, there will be a demand to abolish nuclear power forever, end all scientific research in this area, period. Does wanting to end research on nuclear power make someone a fundamentalist or a realist? The Roar of Silence believes the evidence is clear, and the only sane conclusion based on historical facts is that human beings are not ready to handle the awesome power that drives the Universe. So we ask why should these same human beings be allowed to unlock the secrets of the only known biological life processes in the Universe? Why should we expect the outcome to be any different?

Science can be irresponsible, and scientists too often fail to think through or seem to care what the impact of their work will be on humanity. When things go wrong, they brush off responsibility, or worse run for cover. The bottom line is, that regardless of its shocking failures scientific research just barrels on, damn the consequences. The Roar of Silence has some words of advice, skepticism by the scientific community about embarking on grandiose and potentially harmful ventures is needed. Think, could not stem cell research face the same fate as eugenics? A little soul searching and reflection is needed on the harm caused to millions of people by the misguided research in eugenics. It is time the scientific community admitted to its failings and acknowledged its checkered past. By and large, scientists have been given the benefit of the doubt, but for how much longer? Science without ethics it has been demonstrated is a dangerous proposition. If the major scientific bodies around the world continue to ignore the need for a universal ethical standard for scientific research, exercise a greater say in how their discoveries and inventions are used backed up with credible action, others such as religious fundamentalists will force the issue. And they have the arguments of history on their side, so says The Roar of Silence