The tragedy wrought by Katrina provides a chance to do what Mayor Ray Nagin said George Bush told him after the head-bumping died down last week: New Orleans can be remade into “a shining example for the whole world.”
I don’t know if Bush actually said that, and if he did, it surely wasn’t an environmentally sound renaissance he had in mind. In fact, I’d be willing to bet my mortgage that, when they’re not figuring how to blame somebody else for the lethal federal foot-dragging just witnessed, many in the Administration are pondering schemes to enhance their personal assets via this disaster. “Shining” to them has a distinctly different meaning than what I’m talking about.
Needed is a new city paradigm. Call it Eco New Orleans, a place attuned to the definition of “sustainability” found in the 1987 Brundtland Commission: “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
Not just the city, of course, but the other places blasted by Katrina and Dubyanocchio’s five days of indifference. New Orleans doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and the Eco New Orleans I’m talking about extends for scores of miles in every direction.
Sen. Harry Reid’s off-the-cuff estimate puts the cost of relief and a conventional rebuilding of New Orleans and its Gulf Coast neighbors at $150 billion, $100 billion for FEMA alone, five times more than what FEMA spent on ALL of the nation’s previous Top Ten natural disasters.
Eco New Orleans would be even more expensive, take longer, require forming a plethora of public-private enterprises and demand an innovative politics not only to educate communities to the individual and community benefits of an environmentally sound approach, but also to spur them into providing input into how exactly to implement it. To use a phrase from my youth: participatory democracy.
Yes, not only am I asking that we add billions in public investment at a time when our economy is already shaky and undermined by the costs of war, I’m also suggesting that we add another layer or two of difficulty to a recovery that’s certain to be time-consuming and contentious. And not just contentious between eco-advocates and those who see the environment as a low priority, but among eco-advocates themselves.
Before you angrily reach for your keyboard, let me assure you I’m not forgetting the ongoing human disaster caused by Katrina and our wretched federal leadership. Who knows how many are dead, injured or permanently traumatized? Maybe a million people are homeless and jobless, heavy burdens are being put on states outside the region to deal with evacuees, and the economic troubles that my blogmate Mimikatz has analyzed The Next Hurrah – and bonddad and Jerome a Paris have written about here and here – will be immense. Immediate needs must be met. What happened last week may reverberate economically, socially and politically for a decade or more.
Nor am I promoting a utopian blueprint. If I were, I’d be claiming that solving the region’s environmental problems would eliminate those related to class, race, war, rampant consumerism, crime and the homogenizing forces of globalization that afflict cities from the Gulf Coast to the Heartland.
While some deep ecologists argue that any city with a footprint like New Orleans is, per se, an affront to nature, I’m not in that camp. Although born in a very small Southern town, and a great lover of the outdoors, I cherish the pleasures and interaction that urban life makes possible. As historian Lewis Mumford once noted, despite its many flaws, “the city is the most advanced work of art of human civilization.” For millennia, it’s where people have fled to escape the narrow-minded conventionality that restricts their mental, social and economic well-being. No way would I argue, as might an ultra-green Dennis Hastert, that we should just bulldoze the flood-soaked portion of New Orleans and give it all back to the `gators and wading birds.
New Orleans must be rebuilt. The port at the mouth of the Mississippi is a necessity, and a city is a necessity for the men and women who work the port.
If, however, we as Americans are unwilling to spend the time and money to rebuild New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Coast with environmental concerns taking a front seat, then we’re as self-interestedly myopic as the Administration that couldn’t get its ass out of vacation mode to save people’s lives last week.
Much can be done to shape the damaged Gulf Coast into a model for unstricken regions to emulate, modifying it for their own unique circumstances.
As I said, I’ve got no blueprint. But here are half a dozen places to start:
* Fully fund Coast 2050 – Louisiana Coastal Area Ecosystem Restoration Project:
Who hasn’t by now heard about how the Bush Administration gutted Louisiana’s proposed levee construction and maintenance? The cost of those projects, however, was in the few hundreds of millions. Coast 2050, a proposal developed by politicians, scientists, eco-advocates and other citizens in 1997 and updated as the Louisiana Coastal Area Ecosystem Restoration Project, has a far broader scope than levee building and a fatter price tag: $14 billion (over 30 years) is the estimate of the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers. Bush didn’t like that plan either.
Eco-advocates, the occasional politician like Sen. John Breaux and scientists like Denise Reed, a professor of Geology and Geophysics at the University of New Orleans, have been trying to explain for decades to the environment-is-a-low-priority crowd. “Wetlands act as a storm buffer for hurricanes and other large storms,” Reed says. “With the rapidly depleting wetlands, people that have lived in southern Louisiana can tell that over the last 30 years, large storms now come in faster and the water rises faster, which gives less time to respond and less time to evacuate. In the next few years, it’s going to get worse.”
Wetlands already lost to erosion and subsidence probably worsened Hurricane Katrina’s destruction. About 90 percent of America’s coastal wetlands loss each year occurs in Louisiana, 1900 square miles since 1932, an additional 700 square miles by 2050. If they disappear at even a fraction of this amount, immense harm will be caused to human populations, the infrastructure, the seafood industry, fisheries and wildlife.
Coast 2050 is no radical proposal even though the motivation behind it is grim. As with any plan built by diverse stakeholders, it’s a compromise. My greener side sees some gaps. But the plan is a radical departure from the manic and sometimes maniac human activities contributing to the destruction of Louisiana’s wetlands. It was designed …
…to sustain a coastal ecosystem that supports and protects the environment, economy and culture of southern Louisiana, and that contributes greatly to the economy and well-being of the nation. …
Because natural processes created the highly productive wetlands in coastal Louisiana, reestablishment of these processes is essential to achieve sustainability. Reestablishment does not imply controlling nature but does require constructive use of the forces that formed coastal Louisiana (the rivers, rainfall, and the gulf). Neither does reestablishment imply a return of the coastal system to a pristine condition, because too much has changed for that to occur. The intent is to design restoration strategies based on ecological principles so the future coast will have the productivity and other desirable features of a highly-valued natural system.
* Upgrade refineries:
While it appears that only two of the ten oil refineries shut down by Katrina will be closed for more than a couple of weeks, when operational they are environmental disasters, founded on hundred-year-old technology with a heavy output of pollution. Out of necessity prompted by peak oil, some day in the not-too-distant future, oil refineries will be phased out by bio-refineries or fuel cells or (gawd forbid) Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer’s coal-to-liquid-fuels panacea. But, until we reach that halcyon future, oil refineries need an upgrade to reduce their environmental impact in a process we can call “industrial ecology”
As RedDan explains, “any time you concentrate that much energy, carbon, hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen – volatile chemicals and elements all – into one place at one time, you are guaranteed to get pollution. Period.” So no such process can ever be truly green. But greener refineries would install shielded pipes and conduits, isolated and double barrier-protected towers, tanks, reservoirs, multiple pressure relief and blow-out prevention devices, and so on and so forth – essentially enhanced containment. Greener refineries would initiate more efficient processing and capture effluents and reaction products better. Greener would require better scrubbing and filtering. Greener would involve better oversight, maintenance, training and siting.
Of course, the Bush Administration, never keen on enhancing environmental controls of any sort, takes the view that the solution to America’s so-called refining crunch is to put new refineries on closed military bases with no new environmental controls. So, getting the Administration to press even minor upgrades to existing refineries would be no easy matter.
*Curtail oil and gas drilling in the Delta:
Ever since Katrina struck, many blogs have taken note of Joel K. Bourne Jr.’s almost supernaturally prescient piece Gone with the Water in the National Geographic just a year ago.
The oil industry has been good to Louisiana, providing low taxes and high-paying jobs. But such largesse hasn’t come without a cost, largely exacted from coastal wetlands. The most startling impact has only recently come to light–the effect of oil and gas withdrawal on subsidence rates. For decades geologists believed that the petroleum deposits were too deep and the geology of the coast too complex for drilling to have any impact on the surface. But two years ago former petroleum geologist Bob Morton, now with the U.S. Geological Survey, noticed that the highest rates of wetland loss occurred during or just after the period of peak oil and gas production in the 1970s and early 1980s. After much study, Morton concluded that the removal of millions of barrels of oil, trillions of cubic feet of natural gas, and tens of millions of barrels of saline formation water lying with the petroleum deposits caused a drop in subsurface pressure–a theory known as regional depressurization. That led nearby underground faults to slip and the land above them to slump.
“When you stick a straw in a soda and suck on it, everything goes down,” Morton explains. “That’s very simplified, but you get the idea.” …
The oil industry and its consultants dispute Morton’s theory, but they’ve been unable to disprove it.
Continued exploitation of the wetlands environment for short-term gain by the oil and gas companies is likely to make New Orleans ever more vulnerable to another of the Category 4 or 5 storms that scientists say are on the upswing. This is not to argue against all oil and gas operations in the region. But a more restrictive approach is crucial, with some areas now being drilled redesignated “off-limits.”
* Adopt “smart growth” concepts as regional policy:
The smart growth movement focuses on environment in the broadest possible way: quality of life, design, economics, health, housing and transportation. Principles guiding smart growth include developing a range of housing types; creating walkable, architecturally distinctive neighborhoods; encouraging community participation in decision-making; opting for mixed land uses; making “development decisions “predictable, fair and cost effective”; preserving farm land, open space and natural beauty; providing for a variety of transportation modes; adopting compact building styles; and directing development toward existing communities.
* Rebuild with the National Green Communities Initiative in mind:
The NGCI, in partnership with the Natural Resources Defense Council, is a five-year, $555-million program dedicated to building 8,500 environmentally healthy dwellings for low-income residents nationwide. Money for the projects – like Seattle’s 50-unit Denny Park Apartments comes from city, state and federal housing authorities as well as NGCI’s subsidiary, the Enterprise Social Investment Corporation. Rehabilitation of rental and owner-occupied dwellings is also part of the agenda.
Denny Park will include a metal roof for clean rainwater runoff; storm water detention through the collection of water in landscaping planters; durable 50-year exterior materials (roofing and siding); efficient centralized heating and hot water system; maximum natural lighting; energy efficient lighting and controls; continuous ventilation of bathrooms for moisture control; low maintenance landscaping; and recycling of at least 85 percent of existing building when demolished. All this in an architecturally interesting building, not some green version of a Soviet tower block.
Before Katrina, New Orleans was the fifth most densely populated city in America, filled with low-income neighborhoods that would benefit from an expansion of the NGCI, or, at least, an imitation of it. In addition to those 8,500 green units nationwide, why not 85,000 such units for Eco New Orleans?
* Establish green housing and commercial building standards:
More affluent dwellings in the new New Orleans should also be built or rehabilitated with more than a modest concern for environmental effects. Rigid rules could lead to unintended consequences. But fresh regulations based on a system that assigns “points” for, among other things, energy efficiency, use of green materials, window glazing, siting angles, landscaping could make a big difference regionwide. New housing and rehabs that reach a minimum point threshold would be the only ones approved, but they wouldn’t be required to follow a strict architectural formula, thus avoiding the kind of problems noted by Mimi9 and others in New Urbanism and how to rebuild New Orleans
The Guardian recently published an illustrated example of how one architectural firm handled the building of an eco-home in Great Britain. And, for those who want to go all out – no doubt getting 100 out of 100 points from any city’s green regulators – there’s the Planet Earth Home, described by its designer as “the ultimate self-sufficient home for any location in the world.”
* Implement a distributed energy program:
Louisiana (Alabama and Mississippi) could all benefit from retooling their practically invisible state energy departments. Although each gives lip service to conservation, none has made moves toward developing a renewable energy, conservation-oriented mind-set among its citizens, nor assisting those citizens who already “get it.” Using the experiences of other states from Oregon and California to Texas and Massachusetts, and going a few steps farther, Eco New Orleans should be outfitted with solar electric, gas micro-turbines, combustion turbines, wind turbines, fuel cells and cogeneration systems so the region can begin the march toward independence from fossil fuel that is essential for the planet’s long-term health.
Eco New Orleans should also put considerable effort into community outreach to teach people to become energy smart. A neighborhood “eco-teams would be valuable. Less affluent consumers should have access to subsidies so they can make the change along with everyone else.
For the longer term, the region’s rebuilders could find no better visionary than Steve Silberman. His extensive article in the July 2001 The Energy Web in Wired Magazine is a must-read:
The best minds in electricity R&D have a plan: Every node in the power network of the future will be awake, responsive, adaptive, price-smart, eco-sensitive, real-time, flexible, humming – and interconnected with everything else. …
The smarter energy network of the future, [the Electric Power Research Institute] believes, will incorporate a diversified pool of resources located closer to the consumer, pumping out low- or zero-emissions power in backyards, driveways, downscaled local power stations, and even in automobiles, while giving electricity users the option to become energy vendors. The front end of this new system will be managed by third-party “virtual utilities,” which will bundle electricity, gas, Internet access, broadband entertainment, and other customized energy services. (This vision is reminiscent of Edison’s original ambition for the industry, which was not to sell lightbulbs, but to create a network of technologies and services that provided illumination.)
As I keep saying, I’ve got no blueprint, just an outline combining ideas other people have been thinking about far longer than I. And I’ve left out a lot of issues, both big and small: cleaning up “cancer alley,” mass transit, bike lanes, park development, sewage treatment, zoning issues, farmland preservation and environmental justice. Eco New Orleans cannot, obviously, spring up full-grown. No great changes are ever accomplished overnight. But someday all cities will be “eco” or they will be dead. New Orleans and its battered neighbors have a chance to be pioneers.
[Cross-posted at The Next Hurrah]
Meteor, I cannot thank you enough for this diary. I’ve barely been able to bring myself to post comments the last few days, the news has been so horiffic. I am sure I speak for others as well when I say that this is exactly what we need to hear right now – a vision of the possible, some hope for the future.
You are absolutely right, of course – since we’re rebuilding, we might as well do it right. Unfortunately, I think we’ll first need some massive “renovation” in Washington, to install leadership willing to inspire us all to aim high, and to attract and promote those with the skills and integrity to help us achieve such dreams. That seems almost as distant a goal as the “New New Orleans” you’ve described for us.
To add a few additional ideas, since the city is going to have serious soil contamination problems, it seems appropriate to site an EPA laboratory and field station for the bioremediation of soil contaminants in New Orleans. As we reconstruct the vital barrier islands and tidal marshes so essential to protect the city from the sea, we should make NOLA a hub for research and innovation in the use of wetlands for biological wastewater treatment.
What better tribute to those who lived in poverty and died in misery at the hands of the shortsighted, greedy, and feckless than to rebuild New Orleans to be the finest example of urban planning on earth. America once used to dream such dreams and make them real, inspired by leaders like FDR, JFK, and MLK – and how so many of us ache to make America a nation we can be proud of again!
…Washington would go far to cool my temper these days.
Yessir! Mine too!
Thank you for this diary and all of your work, this time I feel at a loss for words after reading it — you seem to have said it all!
I agree this is an opportunity.
That said, I’m feeling a bit uneasy about how similar this is to what I’ve been waiting for the Right Wingers to do all along. That is, redevelop the city in their image, with little (no) regard to the actual wishes of the residents.
If we knock down all the tiny single family dwellings with the screened and unscreened porches and put up nice brick and glass boxes (like in the illustration above) with no balconies, no porches…
Yes we have a chance to rebuild New Orleans. We can make it a city of the future, rather than just a quicky disaster-rebuild, or a right-wing gentrification project.
But I’d hope the (former) citizens of New Orleans would get a voice in the matter. A city isn’t just a fancy high-density feedlot for people. A city grows and shapes a community and a culture, and reflects the residents’ lifestyles.
While we can ‘go green’ or go ‘eco-friendly’ or go ‘modern/futuristic planned communities’, I’d really like us first and foremost to rebuild New Orleans to the citizen’s expectations of what made their city great, and what made it New Orleans.
I’m not saying that’s incompatible with what has been laid out above. I am saying that we ought to be damn careful not to come across as the eco-green alternative to the right-wing land-grab, nor should we try to force a New York, Seattle, San Fransisco dream city into the bayou.
I don’t think New Yorkers took too kindly to the rest of America telling them how to rebuild the twin towers. For many of New Orleans’ residents, their city has died. Some respect is in order. Let them mourn it for what it was a bit before we tell them to do it over our way from scratch.
Who knows, maybe if its just laid out as an option, they’ll express interest. But right now, I think they’ve had enough rules and “suggestions” from outsiders. They may be more open to honest help.
…involvement – participatory democracy – is so important in this project.
And that Seattle building? It’s not a design for New Orleans, only a way to show that green buildings don’t have to be ugly. Eco New Orleans should make its own design choices to fit in with the city’s history and culture.
Nor did I say New Orleans should be rebuilt from scratch. Those buildings that can be saved and rehabbed, so much the better.
What I hear gearing up, however, is the plywood industry. Talk about cookie-cutter replacements for what New Orleans once was …
Hey, I know you enough to know your heart is always in the right place.
The stuff you added in your comment (preservation, restoration, N.O. Community involvement (say, vs blogger community)) is all good. I think just a preamble on your proposal hitting all those points would set the tone of “an option and offer to help” that I think we all want.
If its a matter of getting Washington DC to put more money into reconstruction to do it “right”, I think that’s something the whole nation can get behind.
It be great if Nagin or a New Orleans resident/representative could get onboard with such a proposal. But I don’t think they’re ready for that just yet, understandably.
and Tacitus makes a strong case for why.
The Mississippi simply does not want to take the long trip to New Orleans anymore. And forcing the water down to NO has contributed a lot to the erosion of the wetlands and the sinking of NO so far below sea level. Yet, the economic costs of allowing the water to take the short route have so far been deemed catastrophic. Is that still the case? Are we doomed by economic and political reality, as well as sentiment, to rebuild NO at the same spot? Is there so much on the line that we have no choice? Is this a smart thing to do?
I honestly don’t know the answer.
You might want to read ‘The End of Nature’ by John McPhee- I can’t recommend it enough- he had all this stuff down YEARS ago-the levees, the Army Corps-the idiocy — and so on.
(sigh)
wise and beautiful as per usual MB-alright I am TRYING dammit- trying and crying– do I get a country music award?
We could also attempt to actually apply modern urban planning ideas to the city, instead of employing wasteful car-centric design patterns that are almost a century old. The twining mess of highways and superhighways found around most American cities are horrendously inefficient. This is an opportunity to design a city that’s both more efficient to travel to and within and more pleasant to live in.
I believe NOLA once had an extensive streetcar system (not sure how much of it remains), so there is a “historical basis” to push for light rail as part of the redevelopment of the city. Tourists love them too, at least in San Francisco, so this is an idea that can be “sold” to the powers with the $$$, I suspect.
And a robust mass transit system can be reconfigured in the event of an emergency to provide a means for the poorest to quickly leave:
I ask you, does that sound like rocket science? What the f@#$ were they doing at FEMA?
Great Idea! I intend to save this and peruse on hard copy, later. I like the feel of something positive for a change.
All the time I read your great article, I could not get rid of the image of the toxic waters being pumped out of New Orleans, right now into Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi. The poisons and the bacteria are being spread. Not an auspicious beginning for Eco New Orleans.
A well-thought out emergency plan would have found a way to strain and filter that poison water. Although I guess in the end the sludge would have to be put somewhere, poison some other landscape.
Watching that toxic brew yesterday being pumped out of the city to go into even wider distribution had me literally feeling sick to my stomach. This is like causing environmental chernobyl(sp)to an even greater area. Does anyone here doubt that Gore as president would have been on top of this environmental carnage and probably already have plans made up for a ‘green’ NO?
I have absolutely no hope that this administration will do anything environmental in planning NO rebirth..why would they start now. The only hope I hold out is that enough people have become of aware of the enormity of environmental hazards and also that new ways of building have to be done.
There have been enough eco-friendly houses, materials over many years as proof this can be done and saves money all around for everyone and into the future.
The American people (and the Iraqi people) have to survive the disaster that is the Bush administration. They give me no hope. Already they have closed down debate on the disaster refusing to even show the Democrats the relief bill. See Susan’s article.
Thanks MB. I need to take the time to read all of this later, but I admire your work – as always.
I fear the administration will not take much time to plan much of anything. Instead, what we’ll see are bandaid solutions – dwellings built as quickly as possible, the levees shored up only to be truly fixed at some later date (who knows when?), stores and businesses reopened hiding environmental problems, an infrastructure patched together – all of these done with speed, not quality, in mind. The Republicans know they’ve lost NO – physically and politically. I doubt very much they’d be willing to spend anything beyond the minimum to restore it. They just won’t care. How can that be avoided?
I suspect we’re going to have to be obstructionist in the short term, as whatever comes out of the administration is not going to represent the kind of ideals MB is espousing.
They will come in and bulldoze entire neighborhoods, and condemn the land using eminent domain and sell it off to “the right people.” At that point we’ll have to have lawsuits to slow the process down. Yes, the buildings may need to be torn down and the land may be contaminated, but do the former residents lose all rights? (We’ll find out what our Democrats in Louisiana are made of now…)
When contracts are let, we’ll have to insist on an open bidding process, or more lawsuits. For every significant act of construction (or demolition of designated historic landmarks, for that matter), we must demand an environmental impact statement, will full public hearings and period for comments, or else more lawsuits. There are plenty of ways to tie things up until the next administration comes in, if they’re planning a fire sale to their “special friends.” (I’m assuming the next administration will be Democratic, or else I’ll be contacting you about subleasing your basement, Catnip – LOL.)
The problem is that we’ll be painted as obstructionist for “not wanting to let New Orleans return to normal,” and “politicizing the recovery to promote an extremist agenda.” So get ready – no good deed goes unpunished by this cabal.
Actually, “environmental health” and “justice during reconstruction” are issues that will provide a good opportunity for several organizations in the progressive left to form coalitions around – with the Democratic party if they’re wise, without them if need be.
This could be one tangled mess!
You keep in touch. I have a couch with your name on it.
…my ideas. But the Democratic Party will not. This has been my lament since around 1967.
Thanks for the great diary and all the links, haven’t followed all of them yet. I’ve been thinking about this from almost day one and wishing we did have a president who was a true visionary. Someone who would work with the NO in particular to have the rebirth retain what makes NO great yet makes it a shining example not only for the rest of the country but the world as to what can be accomplished for people and the environment.
I know one thing that if it’s rebuilt with walking distance stores/shops etc that it should include complete wheelchair access for every store, shop apt. building, home, government buildings, restaurants..everything. There are millions of people in wheelchairs in this country who basically can’t leave their homes that often even if they have money to spend because of access…it just makes sense to have complete access-monetary and the humane aspect of people in wheelchairs becoming part of society in a very real way.
Almost verything you have written Meteior Blade seems to me to be irrelevant.
I know people are talking about re-building New Orleans. They talk about rebuilding Iraq too and the paralells are very striking in a lot of ways.
But the problem is, it seems to be that New Orleans is below sea level. Rebuilding the city is one thing, improving the levees is another, but the city is still below sea level. In order to get it above sea level, (where it started out before they apparently damaged the wetlands around it which protected it,) would mean you would have to fill it in, I suppose it could be done. But can you imagine the difficulties.
It’s pretty clear that with global warming coastal cities are allin trouble. This may just be the beginning. The Ocean levels rise, the weather becomes more unpredictalbe. If they have even a bad storm over there, it’s really going to make it pointless to rebuild/
What insurance company will insure any building in New Orleans? What seriious contractor who is not funded by government money is going to build there?
Now, they just might do a partial rebuilding anyway for political reasons. And all of New Orleans and all of those rebuilt areas and the land will return to the descendant of the WHITE PEOPLE who once ownded them and that is the engine for rebuilding.
Black people and those white people associated and integrated with them are being placed and scattered all over the country. THis isn’t an accident it is a cultural impulse to return to slavery, it is the energy of the times of slavery reborn. We don’t get rid of our past, it is a foundation for the present and it’s ….hell with it I’ll write a diary about it….
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Once again, look at a small, highly populated country like the Netherlands, with striking similarities to the problems New Orleans is confronted with in the Mississippi delta :: a balance between living – economy – nature.
The Dutch build an open Storm Surge Barrier and reclaim land from large lakes and the North Sea. The Dutch have also created one of Europe’s largest wild bird refuge regions. This in addition to existing natural beauty of the coastline, dunes and landscape.
To perform well in Europe’s economy, Rotterdam harbor and the oil refineries outperform any other region within the Netherlands and are a natural asset for the motor of the economy. The link by Rhine river to Germany’s large Industrial Region of the Rhur is essential. The new infrastructure is in place and often after great political battles inside the country.
<click on pic for more …>
Oostvaardersplassen
Nevertheless, the Dutch can be proud of their heritage, although they are never seen to be satisfied. The gas reserves of Slochteren are of course a huge importance to the Dutch budget and export balance.
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Of course!
There are human beings who live in the Netherlands.
They are civil, sensible and aware.
The United States 1/2 racist 1/2 not not so rascist, it is a primitive provincial back water of Earth with a lot of high technology but no one has the brains to use it.
Here the Wall street journal article about whites plotting to take over New Orlean. Returning the land to their white ancestors.
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/WSJ_White_rich_escape_New_Orleans_chaos_dont_want_blacks_poor__0908.ht
ml
oh boy- it was Bill McKibben—duhhhh on me