Thread by @torrHL

"#HurricaneIda Is a Manmade Disaster -

The same fossil fuel industry whose emissions helped intensify the storm also modified the Louisiana coastline to make it more vulnerable to flooding."

newrepublic.com/article/163470…

"Ida was the perfect storm of the climate change era—not just in terms of meteorology but also in terms of geography, history, and victimology."

"This storm brings the climate crisis full circle, unleashing the wrath of a world warmed by fossil fuels on the very state that is the site of some of the fossil fuel industry’s greatest crimes."

"Granted, you might not know this from watching cable news.

General Russell Honoré, the retired commander who steered the military’s response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, told the Weather Channel just before Ida made landfall that..."

"...anything built by man can be destroyed by Mother Nature”—as if Mother Nature alone were to blame for this particular storm."

"It’s true that the Gulf Coast has long attracted epochal hurricanes:

The Last Island hurricane ravaged the state’s coast in 1856, and the devastating Hurricane Camille traced almost the same path as Ida in 1969."

"Both of these storms struck before significant global heating had gotten underway.

But while Ida may recall those ancient storms, things are different now.

Louisiana is a different place, and Mother Nature behaves in a different way."

"It is impossible to talk about Ida without talking about the climate crisis."

"The first way Ida reflects climate change is in its stunning growth trajectory, which horrified many weather experts well before it made landfall.

Ida exhibited what is known as “rapid intensification.”

"When a tropical cyclone passes over warm water, the surface energy of the water lifts up into the vortex and acts as fuel for the storm.

The warmer and deeper the water, the faster the storm grows and the more powerful its peak winds become."

"The brutal irony of the whole affair is that these companies still enjoy incredible status in Louisiana."

"Ida made its earliest landfall at Port Fourchon, a marine complex that services 20% of the nation’s oil supply; given the potential for hurricane damage to affect gas prices, it's a safe bet that officials will devote extensive early resources to restoring the port’s operations"

"Although most oil production in the region has moved offshore, Louisiana is still a stronghold for the petrochemical industry, and the swath of land the hurricane traversed is home to an estimated 600 refineries and chemical plants;"

"there are dozens of these plants along the spine of the Mississippi River in Plaquemines Parish and hundreds more in “Cancer Alley,” the cluster of polluted refinery towns between New Orleans and Lafayette."

"Even in a place like Pointe-Aux-Chenes, many people work for the fossil fuel industry in some capacity, for instance on the tugboats that bring oil barges up the Mississippi."

“Because of climate change, such rapid strengthening is happening more often as hurricanes pick up more energy from ocean water that is warmer than before.”

nytimes.com/2021/08/29/cli…