At the same time, Hurricane Gustav appears to be closing in for a direct hit on New Orleans. The city is being evacuated and a dawn to dusk curfew kicks in at 6pm US-CDT there.
Gustav has been downgraded to a category 3 hurricane. But it is still a very powerful storm and could prove to be an embarrassing reminder for the Republican Party and voters of what happened (and didn't happen) in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina landed there in 2005. Katrina, despite timely warnings from weather watchers, caused over a thousand deaths and ruined large parts of the city, some of which remain uninhabited today.
Katrina highlighted how unprepared almost every major agency was for the storm and provided insight into the extent to which critical jobs had been given to unqualified people as crony sinecures by the Republican administration responsible for federal disaster preparedness.
At the same time, comes the news that the NorthWest Passage across the top of North America is now open in both directions (h/t to No Right Turn)for what is thought to be the first time in 125,000 years. Scientists are warning that the Arctic ice cap is entering a "death spiral".
Again, the Republican Party in the US has actively denied there is a problem and spared no effort to frustrate any global attempts to address it. As that country is reportedly the largest single source of CO2, that matters.
Meanwhile, here in New Zealand, we are moving ahead with a modified ETS. Whether it is enough and soon enough is another matter, but at least we are moving on this issue.
It will be interesting to see how the weather will affect the politics, here and in the US, in the months ahead.
Steve, Katrina was also a category 3 storm when it made landfall. Even at that level you're still looking at a 3-4 metre swell, and the possibility of flooding again in New Orleans.
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