Last week we gave a lot of attention to New Orleans here. That made sense since so many of us were there for the GA and, let's face it, it was easier to give folks site visits 10 minutes from the French Quarter rather than hours away. But the story of the Gulf Coast recovery after Katrina, Rita, BP et al (they've really gotten shafted these past 5 years) is broader than NOLA, bigger than Lousiana, stretching across 5 states from Texas to Florida.
So last wednesday, Mae & I set off for the Mississippi coast to visit with friends, connect with partners, and plan for this winter, when JFSJ will be taking several service learning groups to work in Gulfport & Biloxi, two adjacent coastal cities.This area was hit hard by Katrina, and hasn't always gotten the resources for some of it's poorer residents to recover.
1st stop, Gulfport, where we visited with Mrs. Dorothy McClendon of the Soria City Civic Association, and also a Gulf Coast Fellow. She's working to preserve a historic black neighborhood in Gulfport, and particularly focusing on the lack of quality youth programs and educational services (we'll be helping with afterschool reading programs). I think Mae was a little horrified when - as we toured the community in our rental car with Mrs. Dorothy showing us where they hope to establish an after school center - a Gulfport police car pulled aside to inquire if we were lost, and then, having assured him that I knew where we were, he tagged along a block behind us for the duration, until we (literally) crossed over the railroad tracks into the more upscale beachfront area.
On down the beach to Biloxi. Stopped briefly at Beauvoir, the Jefferson Davis home, where the Confederate flag still flies to honor their president, and where the state of MS is building a Presidential library (because it's good for tourism of course). Mae is horrified again (check out the music on their site), I'm not since I've been there before (and have maybe spent a little more time in the deep south).
Finally, we're in East Biloxi. 1st we're visiting with Sharon Hanshaw at Coastal Women for Change, another of the awesome
Smart piece over at Bridge the Gulf by Chasidy Fisher Hobbs of Emerald Coastkeeper this week arguing that "a full recovery of the gulf coast must include an investment in a clean, renewable energy future" an analysis we agree with. She writes, in regard to the BP spill:
If anything good did come from this disaster, it is the increased awareness of just how much our economic health is dependent on our environmental health. Merely the perception of oil blanketed beaches was enough to cause economic destruction statewide, even though we were much luckier than our neighboring Gulf states.
Some folks have been preaching this very idea for years. Regrettably, the sermon typically fell on deaf ears, and we were considered "job hating environmental wackos" by those who have perpetuated a long, drawn out war of economic development versus environmental health.
The White House blocked efforts by federal scientists to tell the public just how bad the Gulf oil spill could have been, according to a panel appointed by President Barack Obama to investigate the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.
In documents released Wednesday, the national oil spill commission's staff reveals that in late April or early May the White House budget office denied a request from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to make public the worst-case discharge from the blown-out well. The Unified Command — the government team in charge of the spill response — also was discussing the possibility of making the numbers public, the report says, citing interviews with government officials.
The big "C word" (that would be censorship) is getting tossed around.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not naive. Administrations of both parties are bound to bend the story to their interests. And, when you get to the voting both you have to judge the performance of a politician in the totality, and in comparison to his opponent. But really now, really (as they are won't to say on SNL)! Does this square with the President's public message? Is this what one does when you want to keep the pressure on the company, to bring to bear public outrage?
And then folks wonder why liberals are less than energized about the coming elections. Unless of course this entire story is one big plot to repress the base vote, hmmmm....
As of this afternoon the WH hadn't commented on the story.
UPDATE: 6:38pm, NBC news is running with this story. Government was "overly casual" about the numbers & took BP's word on the estimates. WH says "worse case data" was "publicly available."
Five years after Katrina and 4 months after BP, all is not well in the Big Easy. A recent Kaiser Foundation report is being hailed by the Times-Picayune as evidence that the city is moving in the right direction, but Lance Hill from the Southern Institute for Education and Research sees a darker picture in the data. He writes:
Some of the responses were broken out by race and they provide some useful insights into the difference of opinions between black and white storm victims and the different ways they continue to experience the impact of the storm.
Check out this video of Tracy Kuhns, a member of the Gulf Coast Fellowship's 1st cohort, and organizer/leader of Louisiana Bayoukeepers. Filmed this June, she talks of the struggles that shrimpers and other residents of Louisiana's coastal communities - out of work, losing their businesses, environmental and personal health impacts - are dealing with after the BP spill.
With props to the Gulf Coast Fund (our partners and collaborators in creating the Fellowship) who filmed this as part of the Bridge the Gulf Project a storytelling initiative promoting cultural survival, environmental justice, and sustainable development in Gulf Coast communities.
In the wake of BP more Americans are begininning to wake up to the terrible cost of our energy policies: degredation of Lousiana's bayous, destruction of ocean habitats, energy dependency, etc... Now, a fascinating piece in today's NY Times re Portugal's "leap" to renewable energy usage.
Five years ago, the leaders of this sun-scorched, wind-swept nation made a bet: To reduce Portugal’s dependence on imported fossil fuels, they embarked on an array of ambitious renewable energy projects — primarily harnessing the country’s wind and hydropower, but also its sunlight and ocean waves.
Today, Lisbon’s trendy bars, Porto’s factories and the Algarve’s glamorous resorts are powered substantially by clean energy. Nearly 45 percent of the electricity in Portugal’s grid will come from renewable sources this year, up from 17 percent just five years ago.
While it does make President Obama's goal of 25% by 2025 look a bit piddling, it underscores a larger issue in America's political system, one that Paul Krugman discussed yesterday in his column: the inability of our nation to invest in the infrastructure we need for our future.
These two issues are deeply connected, and the solution gets at ways to create good jobs that will help dig us out of this recession. In a previous era, American political leadership created good union jobs that built the energy infrastucture that made the mid-20th Century manufacturing economy take off; things like the Hoover Dam and the Tenessee Valley Authority.
We need a new national initiative to invest in our future in a way that will bring us out of our present. As Portugal's minister of economy and innovation notes:
With the fifth anniversary of Katrina coming up later this month, the Louisiana Justice Roars blog helpfully provides this disturbing (and also hopefull) update of the facts on the ground. The report was compiled by a collaboration amongst local academics, in cluding Lance Hill from Tulane who has met with many of our service teams over the years, and Davida Finger from Loyola, a Jewish New Orleans native a human rights attorney who came back to her hometown after the storm and has been a leader in the local just recovery movement.
In sum:
The challenges of post-Katrina New Orleans reflect the problems of many urban and suburban areas of the US - insufficient affordable rents, racially segregated schools with falling populations, great disparities in income by color of households, serious pollution from remote uncaring corporations, and reductions in the public services like transportation. Katrina made these more visible five years ago and continues to make a great illustration of the US failures to treat all citizens with dignity and our failure to achieve our promise of liberty and justice for all.
Three of every four oil and gas lobbyists worked for federal government. With 600 lobbists who have very close relationships to DC, proposals to enact new restrictions or curb oil use have stalled amid concerted Republican opposition and strong objections from Democrats in oil-producing states.
"Religion, at its worst, can be used to eliminate human agency and responsibility. Texas Governor Rick Perry invoked a morally deficient appeal to religious language last month when he called the Gulf oil spill “an act of G-d.” While we can debate G-d’s presence in the world, we need not debate the issue of human responsibility and culpability.
"A primary charge of the Jewish social justice tradition is the demand that we learn both how to limit our damage and how to hold ourselves and others who cause damage accountable."
