We All Live In New Orleans Now

“The Bush administration is ignoring reports from its own agencies that say every coastal city in America - from New York to Los Angeles - could become a New Orleans within a generation or two. The flooding, storm damage, death toll and economic ruin we are seeing in the Crescent City could become an annual occurrence in some other U.S. city spread across some other American coastline.”

Mike Tidwell maintains that while committing to “the detailed restoration scheme that has been on the table since the 1990s to literally re-engineer the coast” is the only responsible way to restore New Orleans, “even this multibillion-dollar coastal rehabilitation effort will be in vain unless we immediately address another facet of the law of unintended consequences: global warming.”

Mike Tidwell is the author of Bayou Farewell: The Rich Life and Tragic Death of Louisiana's Cajun Coast, a book that got very little media attention when it came out in 2003 but now seems to be of great interest to every journalist in America. As a result, since Katrina struck, Tidwell has been on Meet the Press, CNN (three times), Fox, MSNBC, CBS, NPR, and other networks. He lives in Takoma Park, MD (in an older home where he and his family have reduced their greenhouse gas emissions by 90%).