HURRICANES, CLIMATIC CHANGE & AMERICAN ENVIROMENTAL NEGLIGENCE




USA refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol sponsored by the United Nations and has contributed towards an acute climatic change worldwide but mainly in the Caribbean zone & the Atlantic coastline …




The tragedy lived in the southern states with the devastation of enormous areas of Louisiana in the wake of hurricane “Katrina” left Americans stunned. Not even recuperated from the disaster, another hurricane stormed inland towards Texas. The American Government for the first time felt anew the effects of tragedy on public opinion. Nevertheless, this time, the odds were against the Bush Administration. The efforts to regain credibility have hardly bolstered the President’s popularity ratings.
Farther down south, Guatemala and El Salvador have lived similar disasters just a few weeks after. Again, a hurricane, “Stan” hit the Central American countries and wiped away all that stood in its path. The effects are still visible and their respective governments hardly avail of means to act in such emergency.
If the poor were the hardest hit in the Louisiana area, again the lower social classes of Guatemala and El Salvador are the victims of this new natural disaster. Moreover, an earthquake shook Central America, sowing fright among the already anguished populations.
Sometimes, we ask ourselves just how natural are these disasters. Environmental experts had forewarned about the effects of CFC & carbon dioxide gas emissions. Although this issue was dealt with in successive international meetings sponsored by the United Nations with an agreement reached in Kyoto, the United States has refused thus far to adhere itself to the terms and conditions of the Kyoto Protocol.
The USA alone is responsible for about 25 % of all the world’s gas emissions. Alleging that the signing of such agreement would seriously prejudice American business interests, one US Administration after another has looked the other way to avoid assuming its international responsibilities in relation with environmental protection. The most rabid defender of actual US environmental policy and the increased laxity towards pollution control has been no other than the Bush Administration.
Now, almost a decade after the repeated rejection of any environmental agreement by the USA, America has lived a series of climatic disasters that seem to go beyond that which should be considered “natural disasters”. Perhaps it is time to study whether the US attitude towards the Kyoto Protocol needs to be revised. To keep refusing to accept that US industrial as emissions are affecting the global climate in the American Atlantic down to the Caribbean Sea.
If President Bush wishes to stand steadfast in his stubbornness, then the southern states victims of hurricanes such as “Katrina” will have to live with this new climatic order in that part of the country. What is unacceptable is that stubborn stand prejudices other countries and many other peoples of America, not subject to the President’s whims.
Will President Bush again whisper to another world leader that God told him to take the decision not to sign the Kyoto Protocol, just as he did when he confided to a Palestinian official that God asked him to fight against Islam in Afghanistan and Iraq ?