Storm Shelter Needed in Haiti; the Storm over Climate Rages On

January 24, 2010 – Vol.14 No.45

STORM SHELTER NEEDED IN HAITI; THE STORM OVER CLIMATE RAGES ON. by Bruce Mulliken, Green Energy News

How do you dispose of the concrete rubble of shattered cities? Truck it inland to sites that most will never see? Or build an island memorial in remembrance?

(Forget about recycling the concrete into new buildings. New buildings made from the material that crushed so many would be filled with hauntings.)

With the hurricane season only months away, how can shelter stronger than tents be built to protect from a disaster from the skies?

Perhaps a meeting should be convened of global architects, engineers and in particular panelized building manufacturers. What can be built that’s sturdy, anchored to the ground, and constructed at least in part by Haitians?

The Haitian side of the island of Hispaniola has been deforested. Forget about building with wood.

Forget, too, about trailers as long-term shelter solutions as with Katrina: Too much bulk to ship, too many people to house. At first, panelized buildings of wood, foam, metal or plastic could be shipped in containers from abroad. Then factories could be set up in Haiti to build panel homes using local workers who had lost their livelihoods. Homebuilding would be the beginnings of economy rebuilding. But who will pay?

Ultimately, the decisions for reconstruction will need to be from the Haitian government, not the US or the UN. But advice should be offered anyway.

Haiti wasn’t the only news this past week.

A once shoe-in for a vacancy in the US Senate went on vacation in the middle of her campaign. The seat went to an unknown who believes in universal health care for his state of Massachusetts, but not for the nation. He doesn’t believe in global warming either, making it more difficult for Obama to pass climate legislation this year.

The Senate is not the only place where climate legislation is in trouble. The Supreme Court, in deciding that corporations and unions had the same free speech rights as people, opened the door to massive campaigns by fossil fuel companies to remove politicians in favor of mitigating climate change. Global warming believers, from state houses to both houses of Congress, could be replaced with skeptics.

Whether the planet is being warmed by people, or by some as yet unexplained natural cycles, it is still getting warmer.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Climatic Data Center, the 2000-2009 decade is the warmest on record. Further, global land and ocean annual surface temperatures through December tied with 2006 as the fifth warmest on record.

(Still, Mr. President, take only a few small steps this year on climate. If people are angry about health care they’ll be really angry about the possibility that energy bills could rise. Use the power of executive order whenever you can to support zero emission technologies. Use the bully pulpit to promote the same. Develop a plan for future legislation that caps emissions but rewards – not punishes – everyone for making emission cuts.)

With coal and oil not going away any time soon, a new, more appealing, approach to emission cuts is needed.

According to the US Geological Survey, Venezuela has twice the oil as previously thought and nearly twice as much as Saudi Arabia. However, the oil in the Orinoco Belt is more tar-like than the sweet crude that’s typically made into gasoline and diesel fuel. Still it’s not impossible, only more expensive, to make petrol from the heavy oil.

The question is, are Americans willing to support what amounts to a socialist dictatorship by the purchase of the South American nation’s major export?

Links:

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Climatic Data Center
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/?report=global