Paying For Harvey, and Now, Introducing Irma

HURRICANE HARVEY was one more on a long list of recent weather events which would seem to strongly suggest that climate change is a reality. With all due respect to Rush Limbaugh and the millions of American conservative Republicans who believe, or say they believe, that global warming is a liberal hoax, extreme weather events are becoming much more common, and we are assured by the scientific community that this trend is only going to get worse. Sea level rise is beginning to flood the East Coast of the U.S., while islands are beginning to sink below the water in the Pacific. Hurricane Harvey did at least one hundred and eighty billion dollars worth of damage, And yet, President Trump is only now planning to introduce an eight billion dollar relief bill to help hurricane Harvey victims. The governor of Texas, a right winger who normally hates using the federal government to help anybody, calls Trump's meager proposal a "down payment". Uh huh. We'll see. By now it should be obvious to everyone that in the very near future, the United States, and everyone else, is going to have to start spending huge amounts of money replacing the stuff that climate change destroys. Trillions of dollars worth. We won't be able to afford to worry about public or private contributions; we will need both, in vast quantities. Since about half the world's wealth goes to military spending each year, the may be a future for the militaries of the world in hurricane clean up Five'll get you ten that Trump's eight billion dollar hurricane assistance bill will get stalled in congress, endlessly debated, with pork being attached to it, until, at long last, a compromise is reached, and a bill is signed. Meanwhile, Trump has drastically cut the budget for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) at the exact time that FEMA is most needed, and will be needed increasingly more in the near future. For don't look now, but there's another hurricane in the Atlantic, a huge one, bigger than Harvey, headed straight for Florida. NO matter where it hits, its going to do billions of dollars of damage. Who's going to pay for it? We'd better decide right now; its already a category five, and it could be another Katrina, Andrew, Sandy, or Harvey. If this one isn't the next one will be, and the next one, and the next one after that.