Trail of tragedy and lessons

HURRICANE Florence has brought immense flooding to many places, particularly the lowlying areas of southeastern North Carolina.

One has to wonder what we as a society are thinking. From the climatechange denial prevalent in Washington to a federal flood insurance programme that subsidises development in floodprone areas, it is almost as if policymakers are conceiving ways to make such storms more destructive.

Even some things that occurred by happenstance — such as the region’s growth as a storage site for pig waste and coal ash — seem like a plot against common sense. Most of North Carolina’s farms are in the very places that are under water, putting billions of pounds of waste held in lagoons at risk of spilling into waterways.

The most glaring example of willful policy malfeasance has to be what is happening in the Trump administration, as it pulls out of the Paris climate accord and softens regulations affecting everything from automileage standards to methane emissions.

What planet do these people think they are on? Certainly not the one in which shrinking polar ice fields are opening new shipping lanes, rising sea levels in places like south Florida are creating sunny day flooding, and a warming Atlantic is producing storms like Florence.

Adding to this headinthesand approach on climate change is the misguided National Flood Insurance Program. Begun in 1968, it has encouraged building in floodprone areas with premiums that greatly underestimate the risks.

Since Hurricane Katrina broke its bank in 2005, the flood insurance programme has run up a tab with the US Treasury of $US21 billion. Barring an unexpected, prolonged period of benign weather, this won’t get paid back and taxpayers will be on the hook for the losses. In fact, the deficit is likely to grow larger.

Florence is a tragedy. It is also the latest example of the march of folly that is making matters worse. —