The Weather Notebook: Rough Times for the Big Easy

Rough Times for the Big Easy
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Dave Thurlow, Host

New Orleans - NOAA Photo Collection
For those of you who live in New Orleans, your city has just received a dubious designation. The Big Easy has been named the US city most at risk from the potential effects of global climate change. Hi, I'm Dave Thurlow and this is The Weather Notebook.

This designation comes courtesy of a report entitled "Cities at Risk" by the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, based in Toronto. The council works with state and local governments to develop strategies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

New Orleans has a couple of factors contributing to it's highest-risk designation. First, the city lies 3 feet below sea level, dykes and floodgates holding back the surrounding Mississippi Delta. If temperatures increase and sea levels rise 10 inches in the next century, as is predicted by some, New Orleans would become um.. damp.

And, 1500 square miles of wetlands surrounding New Orleans are not exactly there anymore. They've been filled in. So, gone is one barrier between the city and coastal storms, like hurricanes.

Now to compound the problem. Louisiana ranks number 2 in energy use among the 50 states. By itself, Louisiana accounts for 1 percent of the world's carbon dioxide production. Not exactly a sound contribution for a city in such an unsound position.

Now obviously New Orleans isn't pleased with their status. The mayor's office has assembled a task force to look at the problems of global warming. The immediate goal is to reduce the city's energy use by 20 percent and improve hurricane and flooding evacuation plans, in hopes of moving down the at-risk list.

The Weather Notebook is underwritten by Subaru, the beauty of all wheel drive with major support provided by the National Science Foundation.