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The Big Easy
Tue Mar 18, 2003
Listen in RealAudio 
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 Bryan Yeaton and this is The Weather Notebook's weekly segment on
global climate change.
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 three 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, well, damp.
Also, 1,500 square miles of wetlands surrounding New Orleans are not there anymore. They've
been filled in. So, gone is one barrier between the city and coastal storms like
hurricanes.
To compound the problem, Louisiana ranks number two in energy use among the 50 United States.
By itself, Louisiana accounts for one percent of the world's carbon dioxide production.
New Orleans is looking to remedy the problem. The mayor's office has assembled a task force
to look at the facets of global warming. The 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. Our series on global climate change is
supported by the New England Science Center Collaborative and the Roy A. Hunt Foundation.
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