Remember when I wrote this?
*thinking back*
Man, that was really awesome and hilarious hyperbole. *sigh* *boobies*
Today, as if on cue, we get this:
Iowa flooding could be man’s fault, experts say
Where some blame days of rain, others point to an altered landscape
You can't make this shit up any more. A meteor could take out New York City tomorrow, and days later some "expert" would come in and explain how the damage could have been mitigated if a city hadn't been constructed there in the first place. Damn you, progress! DAMN YOU!!!!!
As the Cedar River rose higher and higher, and as he stacked sandbags along the levee protecting downtown Cedar Falls, Kamyar Enshayan, a college professor and City Council member, kept asking himself the same question: "What is going on?"
As the Cedar River rose higher and higher, a college professor and City Council member kept asking. . . "What is going on?"
Digest that. Marinate in that. Swim in it like a duckling. Marvel at the sheer fucking stupidity of it. Realize that ANYONE can be a college professor and ANYONE can be a City Council member. . . and ANYONE can be a full throttle moron. From this point on, any ridiculously stupid statement can be referred to as spouting a Kamyar.
The river would eventually rise six feet higher than any flood on record. Farther downstream, in Cedar Rapids, the river would break the record by more than 11 feet.
Enshayan, director of an environmental center at the University of Northern Iowa, suspects that this natural disaster wasn't really all that natural. He points out that the heavy rains fell on a landscape radically reengineered by humans. Plowed fields have replaced tallgrass prairies. Fields have been meticulously drained with underground pipes. Streams and creeks have been straightened. Most of the wetlands are gone. Flood plains have been filled and developed.
Um, yes, plowed fields, you know THAT PRODUCE FOOD, have replaced tallgrass prairies. The pure cheek of us humans, developing land to grow crops. THE GALL! Draining fields with underground pipes. How dare we be innovative! Streams and creeks. . . straightened! STRAIGHTENED! HORRORS! Flood plains have been filled. . . and DEVELOPED.
One wonders what Kamyar would have to say about the human influence on California wildfires. Or, hey, remember the 2005 tsunami? Imagaine how many lives would have been saved if no one lived in coastal areas.
"We've done numerous things to the landscape that took away these water-absorbing functions," he said. "Agriculture must respect the limits of nature."
People elected this guy. Remember that. Could we please, PLEASE get some common sense in this article? PLEASE?!
Officials are still trying to understand all the factors that contributed to Iowa's flooding, and not everyone has the same suspicions as Enshayan. For them, the cause was obvious: It rained buckets and buckets for days on end. They say the changes in land use were lesser factors in what was really just a case of meteorological bad luck.
THANK YOU! Good God, in my home town of Harmony, Minn. alone (about three miles from the Iowa border), it rained nearly 10 inches in two days. It was unprecedented. It was crazy. With that kind of rainfall in the Midwest, the soil eventually says "hey, you know what? I'm pretty saturated. You can rebend all the streams and creeks you want; hell, you can even try re-establishing flood plains. But, you know what? I'm flooding your ass, and there's NOTHING you can do about it."
You know what? I'm done with this. The basic gist is: "If humans just weren't so doggone human and alive on this planet, this never would have happened. . . maybe."
Newsy.
Posted by Ryan at June 19, 2008 08:10 AM | TrackBackI want to know who is at fault for Jupiter's hurricane.
Posted by: Autumn at June 19, 2008 09:51 AMI blame Alexander the Great for that one.
Posted by: Ryan at June 19, 2008 09:53 AM3 words, Hannibal, Alps, Elephants.
Think about it.
Stumble It!
