One guy who doesn't put much stock in science or scientists is our Governor, Bobby Jindal. When you're representing Big Business and pandering to one of the poorest and most undereducated states in the nation, facts and data...well, the less heard about those the better. Get outta the way egghead.
Which brings us to the spewing oil in the Gulf, and Jindal's plan to build sand berms to protect our coast. Sounds great on the face of it. And when he had James Carville and Mary Matlin with him screaming for Obama to do something, it gave me pause. But now, an article in the LA Times by Julie Cart points out some of the problems with the plan. For one thing, the berms will take at least 9 months to complete; they won't survive even a mild tropical storm; and the dredging may actually increase wave activity.
Best of all, none of the plan was done with the input of scientists here in Louisiana.
Coastal scientists and oceanographers were brought in this week to present their views on the berm proposal to state and federal responders. Many said they were frustrated, wondering why their expertise was not brought to bear sooner. "You cannot do this without some sort of reasonable quantification as to what will happen, Stone said. " I understand we are in a jam right now, but, good Lord, we have sophisticated computer models that can do this in a matter of weeks.… It's sort of unconscionable that we've gone well over a month without scientific input."
Wha? Could this all have been just window dressing to make the Governor and his buddy the whore monger look good, and by implication the President look bad? Was Carville played? I dunno, but you can read the article for yourself here.
Look, I can't leave you with this cynical negativity on a Monday. Here's Jerry Lee Lewis in a sack race.
No comments:
Post a Comment