With Friends Like These. . .

Newley posted an article re: this poster from Friends of the Earth. Newley's already eloquently covered the issue of oversimplification, but I found something else rather odd. On the FOE website, they have an email campaign associated with this poster that allows you to send a form email to unnamed leaders "at all levels of government" about the dangers of global warming and hurricanes and the various actions that should be taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Interestingly, none of those actions include anything to actually reduce human vulnerability to such storms. All the greenhouse gas mitigation in the world would do nothing to reduce the vulnerability of cities like New Orleans to hurricanes. Now I can only assume that FOE knows this, particularly given the fact that in their statement re: Hurricane Katrina, dated September 7th, they attribute the damages in New Orleans to failed flood control measures, and make no mention of global warming whatsoever. So why the mixed messages? Because, I imagine, a campaign featuring deadly megastorms is more sexy and more scary (and thus attracts more donations), than a campaign featuring more robust engineering for flood control projects overseen by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. In short, it's about money.