I know to some this may seem like an insane theory, but it’s one that is currently picking up steam as it makes its way through the public conscious. What if Global Warming caused last week’s deadly Minneapolis bridge collapse? At least one former member of the Clinton administration, Joseph Romm, believes so and more are joining him everyday. In a post penned by Romm, he writes, “We are all facing far more extreme heat waves, floods, wildfires, rainstorms, droughts and hurricanes — yet our infrastructure apparently can’t handle the weather we have today, as Hurricane Katrina revealed. If we don’t adopt aggressive actions to prevent catastrophic climate change, we need to seriously climate-proof our electric grid, our levees, and our water and sewage systems.”
At first I wasn’t too keen on blaming such a horrific event on merely the weather, but isn’t that just all a part of human nature? The need to have answers that can be felt, touched, and tasted. I would much rather pick up the paper and read how the reason behind the collapse was something as simple a weak joint or loose support structure. An un-reported barge clipping the supports as it passed underneath the bridge a month ago and eventually leading to a disastrous conclusion would have been much more preferable than…than what?…as of yet the powers that be haven’t given any reason to the causes behind the collapse. Give me an evil corporation, a drunken boat captain, a crooked construction company…somebody to blame the tragedy on and I’ll buy every line of it. Now the more I think about it, I’m moving to the opinion that barring some sort of unseen enemy it is a very really possibility that our reckless attitude towards the environment we live in could be the answer our country refuses to hear.
It’s flooding in New York and Texas. Wildfires rage in the Mid-West. The South has been breaking temperature records everyday for over a week. Could the constant yo-yo effect of our weather from one extreme to the other be weakening our nations infrastructure? Of course it is. Cause and Effect. A bridge is faced by months of above average temps, rains come in flooding the river, high temps return, over and over and over….year after year….and this isn’t supposed to cause some type of decomp in the bridge construction? Global Warming is real and if something is not done soon, we may just be witnessing the tip of a very tragic iceberg.
P.S Regardless of the reasons why it happened, those of us at Repellem would like to extend our sympathies to all the families that were affected by this tragic event. May your hearts be healed by the prayers of a country in mourning.
Buy Repell-em Garbage Bags and keep the animals away!
Related Posts:
August 28th, 2007 at 6:33 am
[…] weeks ago in the wake of the Minnesota Bridge collapse I posted the theory that being kicked around by former President Clinton aide Joseph Romm […]