Tropical Storm Rita is making a bee-line for the Gulf of Mexico. The Gulf’s surface temperatures are practically searing. Here’s a bit from the Oil Drum:

Some time before Hurricane season we posted a reference from the UK where one of their submarines had been measuring Arctic ice. It found that one of the driving forces for the Gulf Stream, the Odden ice shelf, which used to grow out into the Greenland Sea from the Arctic ice cap each winter, had stopped forming. As a result it no longer melted in the spring driving cold water down to the bottom of the Atlantic, and thereby helping power the Gulf Stream. In consequence with the GS running slower less heat is being taken out of the Gulf and sent North.

While I do not have the original reference to hand, the Times has an equivalent story, that describes what has occurred.

With more heat left in the waters of the Gulf, this provides additional power to hurricanes that enter that body of water, with consequences that we have seen in Katrina, and, sadly, may now begin to expect from Rita. It also means that the winters in Western Europe may not be as pleasant in the future. Which given some of the depletion rates from the supplies in the North Sea, and the inability of Russia to significantly increase exports, may be giving the British Government, among others, a bit of heartburn right now.

The disruption of the Gulf Stream has long been the global warming doomsday scenario–and now we’re actually seeing it happen. It’s making the Gulf of Mexico a veritable factory that turns any cyclone that enters into a major hurricane, and it will likely mean a very cold winter in Europe. In the long run, we’re talking about the end of the modern European climate from this. In the very short term, we’re talking about the possibility of Rita as Katrina’s sequel.

They fully intend to rebuild. That can’t start until you pump it out and tear everything down. People can’t come home until new homes are built. Meanwhile, that toxic brew of chemicals, sewage, flood water and corpses threatens to become a massive epidemic. And, there are still some people in there who can’t be rescued until it’s pumped out. So, it’s possible that he was being earnest about his concern for human lives.

Obviously no one cares about the environmental effects … but then, this is the Gulf. Dumping all of that in the Gulf is like pissing on a 10-foot tall pile of dung. Just a toxic lugie in the putrid ocean.

I say that without irony, though it is mostly a statement of disdain for how low a bar the American Presidency has historically set.

9/11 was the kind of event that, while relatively small in itself, can set many things in motion. The pebble that sets down the avalanche, if you will. Few yet recognize it as such, but 11 September 2001 marked the beginning of the last war.

That alone was enough to set us marching towards collapse. Now Katrina–an event that also seems like a catalyst, but of a very different kind. We’re watching cascading failures in real time–economic failures, humanitarian failures, ecological failures, infrastructural failures, policy failures, administrative failures, energy failures. It is precisely the kind of event that hits civilization in it’s Achilles’ heel.

Things are happening fast now. The news frightens Giuli. I tell her not to be frightened. The more quickly it happens, the more quickly it will end. And once it is over….

Well, we have a choice on what to focus on. We can focus on the fact that we will soon face the greatest tribulation any animal has ever endured. Or we can focus on the fact that we will soon become the first of our line in dozens, and sometimes hundreds, of generations … to be free.

I remain an optimist. I choose to focus on the promise of what lies on the other side, not the storm that is brewing now.

Then what’s the rush to pump it out?

-Jim

And not even - we’re not even talking about human lives now; We’re talking about human property.