Environmentalists, Katrina and public policy

Colby Cosh looks at environmentalist claims that Katrina is the fault of global warming and he doesn't buy it. On the other hand, he notes, now would be a good time to think about whether we want to subsidize homeowners who choose to live in disaster-prone areas.

However these debates turn out, there is likely to be more attention paid to the wisdom of public policy that persuades people to live in areas that are certain to be flattened or washed away every 20-60 years or so. (See this snide but trenchant 2004 piece by John Stossel.) I admit that New Orleans has a long history, and that this point may be more applicable to Gulfport or Biloxi. There will be overwhelming public sentiment in favour of rebuilding New Orleans exactly as it was before it went completely to hell. But my sense is that the city didn't catch an unlucky break on Tuesday; it caught some ordinary luck after decades of the exceedingly good kind.

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There may be excellent reasons for an American to be living in a south-facing semi-tropical oceanfront polder. (I like to think I have good reasons to live near the site of a tottering riparian fur-fort that existed 90 years ago on the edge of the boreal forest.) But whether there are excellent reasons for FEMA to pay people and businesses to return to the same places is another question. The agency really has no choice but to underwrite a blind Andrew-style reconstruction effort here, but in the future, actuaries could consider awarding bonuses to swamped residents willing to relocate inland. It might, at any rate, be cheaper than rebuilding New Orleans in its current configuration all over again a second time.

I certainly don't want to see New Orleans abandoned: It has a long and storied history. But persuading people who live in flood plains and other such places--even paying them to move--is something that we ought to discuss.