Several other posts talked of vultures, hyenas, enviro-predators, power-monsters and the general immoral exploitation of Katrina. Here is something worse if only because it does all of the ugly things at once.

We also know that Katrina was just a foretaste of what we should expect in the coming years. We are changing the weather with the pollution we spew from tailpipes and smokestacks, and the bill for that irresponsibility is starting to come due.

No, NOLA has lived under this exact threat for decades, rolling the dice that it wouldn't happen this year. We are not changing the weather. We are changing the climate, we think, and are still trying to think through how weather might be affected by a changed climate.

Katrina was a watershed moment. From here on out, the debate is over. Everything has changed, at least as dramatically as in wake of 9-11. From this moment forward, there is simply no ethical way to debate the need for a new, holistic, worldchanging approach to tackling the planet's biggest problems.

No, this is not a watershed moment, it's a hurricane and flood that happened exactly where we feared it would, as we feared it would. It is not a feasting opportunity for immoral exploiters of any species though they are slavering at the thought. I suspect it will be a hunter's delight, that as these predators emerge from their dens they can be taken down. We'll never get them all of course, but there could be a good cull.

As we begin thinking about how to rebuild New Orleans, we need also to recommit ourselves to a new vision for the future of the planet as whole.

We now live in a post-Katrina world. It's time for our thinking to catch up.

Does that mean anything? I didn't think so. This is just double-dutch political yammering.

The climate tab is being rung up: how much are we prepared to pay? Climate change cost $60 billion and perhaps as many as 150,000 lives in 2003. In 2004, according to a recent report, "weather-related disasters caused nearly $105 billion in economic losses." Katrina has shown us that the reckoning in coming years may be orders of magnitude more extreme.

For all of human history there have been lives lost and property damaged by weather. What it is that makes those of 2003 attributable to climate change? Nothing of course. This is religious speech by a millenarian nutter. There is no shortage of them, and in general they are of no great concern, sort of amusing in a dark way, but it is important that we be clear that climate change is something real, and that though we have no clear effects yet we have very good reasons to believe that we will.

This can't be stopped since the atmospheric change that has already happened will take 100 years to work itself through the system, unless we find ways to intentionally scrub the atmosphere for a price we can pay.

Note that this nutter is only talking about money, about insured storm losses, most of which - according to the big insurers - results entirely from population growth in storm affected areas. It's not about climate, it's about insurance and building in risky places.

The rest of that screed goes on to repeat every addle patted bit of nonsense espoused by the rag-tag remnants of the post-socialist left. The difference is that World Changing does it for pay. It's a job not an adventure. Here's the close, though as all good salesmen know, and Alex "the Poseur" Steffen always does, Always Be Closing the sale.

There is a way forward. We have the know-how, the money and the power to remake our energy systems, redesign our cities, re-conceptualize our industries, re-imagine our agriculture, and end poverty in the process.

Who is this we? What if we don't like your screwy ideas? Ah, I see, it's just the old totalitarian nightmare tarted up and paraded before the John's to see if it can do a few more tricks in its old age. "We" means the cadres who manage to claw their way to the front and seize the purse strings. . . at least for a while.

The Debate Is Over

That's Katrina's most important lesson: the time to debate whether or not to act is over. That debate's history, like the Berlin Wall. Katrina flattened it. In the aftermath of Katrina, we can no longer scruple self-interest masked as caution, short-sightedness masked as responsibility, and lies masked as patriotism. To see the pictures and hear the stories coming out of New Orleans is to know one thing: whatever moral credibility professional environmental "skeptics" once claimed is as shredded as the Superdome roof.

Rubbish. Not only does Katrina have nothing to do with environmental debates, the arguments of skeptics counseling prudence and responsibility will always have an audience no matter what the current state of affairs. And that's a good thing, even if you tend to be an excitable boy revolutionary, because the cautious old sticks sometimes have a bit of wisdom, and their presence keeps you honest. No sale Alex. The pitch sucks.

When the predators get this excited you know that this is the manic phase and that depression will soon follow. As argued here in several places, one of the insights we can glean from the systems failure of NOLA due to Katrina is that localities are taking a big risk when they abdicate responsibility for themselves and depend on some powerful someone, somewhere far away, to do their thinking and planning for them. There's risk in doing your own thinking too, but the risk is greater when those who are responsible for doing the task have no skin in the game, will not personally suffer from failures. Knowing this, seeing this in NOLA, the idea that any vision will get much play is slim indeed. We've had enough of grand visions and need to focus more on reality. The consequences of dreams, visions and the cherished illusions of political activists are just too ugly and painful to give them any attention.

Better we should be adult about these things for once. Every place has different threats, different needs, different opportunities and assets, and so different possibilities. Those on site, with their boots on the ground and their skin in the game, are not the best decision makers just because it is their right and responsibility, it is also because they are the best informed and most engaged. No Great Leaders, no mystic visions required.

The creeps, cranks, immoral exploiters and such are having a fire sale - even though it was a flood - because their goods are damaged and out of style. Their shrill hawking and doomsday rhetoric reflect the urgency of their needs, not the urgency of our needs. They are in a panic, but we need to remain sensible and concentrate on reality.