more on Katrina, view from afar (Figaro) (fwd)

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: chodge5 () utk edu
Date: September 19, 2005 6:17:18 PM EDT
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: [IP] more on Katrina, view from afar (Figaro) (fwd)




> And, BTW, much less than the more than 35,000 killed by a heat wave
> in Europe two summers ago.
>
> You recall the debate that set off about European heartlessness,
> racism and discrimination? No, neither do I.


IPers might be interested in Philip Klinkner's recent post at PolySigh
http://polysigh.blogspot.com/2005/09/overstating-katrina.html
I think Klinkner is at Hamilton College. The post has a number of very
good links, but the passage I thought worth noting was:

Compare the Katrina tragedy to the heatwave that struck Western  
Europe in
the summer of 2003. We still don't know the death toll from Katrina, but
most indications are that the early prediction of 10,000 plus deaths  
were
wildly off the mark and the actual toll will be less than half of  
that. In
contrast, the 2003 heatwave led to the deaths of 35,000 Europeans. In
France there were nearly 15,000 dead and in Paris alone, 1854 people
perished. Thus, looking only at deaths, the heatwaves were a much great
disaster for Europe than Katrina is likely to be for the U.S.

And like the Bush administration, the French government was  
criticized for
its laggard response to the calamity--including the fact that the prime
minister and health minister were away on vacation when the disaster
struck. According to the Economist, the health minister was criticized
because (shades of President Bush strumming his guitar in Crawford):

His first reaction had been a television interview showing him, in a
T-shirt in the garden of his holiday home in the Var, arguing,  
unworried,
that all was under control.

Nor, like Katrina, was this disaster unforseen. One Paris doctor said at
the time:

Last summer the situation was catastrophic and this year it is worse; we
were not at all prepared. The hospital system is failing.

Finally, most of those that died were from the most vulnerable  
segments of
European society, the elderly, particularly those who were poor and  
lived
alone. This is despite the fact that for several generations, most
European nations have constructed social safety nets to provide for the
care and well-being of their citizens, especially the elderly.

What's the upshot of all of this? The lesson of Katrina and the European
heatwave is that natural disasters can have a devastating impact on even
the most advanced and wealthy nations, and that this impact has  
little or
nothing to do with the governing structure, ruling party, or political
culture of those nations. It is no more accurate to claim that the
heatwave deaths in France are the result of unworkable welfare state or
the indifference of morally lax society, than it is to claim that the
Katrina victims are the result of conservative social policy, racism, or
free market economics.



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