Food for thought on the Iowa floods
By Brad Johnson

I think Friends of the Earth has a good response:

http://foe.org/

If we don't have honest discussions about our failures of planning and the need to respect climate change when we rebuild, we're all in a heap of trouble.

I hope what I've been writing doesn't sound too much like an "I told you so." That would be upsetting. I've been primarily trying to do two things -- sound the alarm and help people understand that we need to and can mobilize to minimize these kinds of disasters in the future.

Chris, I think, wrote a well-balanced post:

http://bleedingheartland.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=1567

Elanor also did a remarkable job trying to sound the warning about the potential toxicity of the floodwaters, and how because of the Bush administration, we're unprepared to deal with that, as well.

http://www.ethicurean.com/2008/06/19/underinformed-and-underwater/

The Bush administration has been suppressing this kind of knowledge for the past eight years. They should be held accountable. For example, from a report on the climate-extreme-weather link released today by NOAA after years of delay:

http://thinkprogress.org/wonkroom/2008/06/19/global-boiling-report/

"Some short-term actions taken to lessen the risk from extreme events can lead to increases in vulnerability to even larger extremes. For example, moderate flood control measures on a river can stimulate development in a now "safe" floodplain, only to see those new structures damaged when a very large flood occurs."