wetlands

Recently I wrote about planting trees in Lebanon, Israel and Palestine as a way to promote economic and environmental stability, preserve water resources, and to sequester carbon as a way of dealing with global warming. I got lots of replies, particularly on Daily Kos, and will in the near future revisit that issue both to try and get more people donating to plant trees in the region, and to discuss some of the issues brought up in my last diary.

But today I want to discuss another way of possibly addressing global warming through carbon sequestration, and to definitely mitigate some of the problems global warming will mean for coastal areas. I want to discuss the preservation and restoration of wetlands.

Since the Katrina disaster I have become aware of the critical role wetlands play for protecting coastal regions from damage from large storms. One of many reasons why the damage to the Gulf Coast from Katrina was so bad is the degradation of wetlands by human activity. Too often these regions have been seen as a luxury and expendable in the name of progress. But the truth is wetlands are a major buffer zone between storms and storm surges from the ocean and settled coastal regions. A summary of the many vital functions played by wetlands can be found here. And a good summary focused on Louisiana can be found here. But a couple of quotes will suffice for now:

Many months after Katrina hit America's Gulf Coast, exposing the racist incompetence of the Bush Administration as they left thousands of poor, black American citizens to die, I talked to a former co-worker of mine from Mississippi whose parents lost a great deal in Katrina. She talked of her mother's post-traumatic syndrome and the way inadequate insurance payments were made and inadequate help came from the government and many people simply couldn't afford recovery and so had to sell cheap to real estate developers who were aiming to build luxury hotels. Her story, which I cannot do justice, was a pretty damned good summary of much of what is wrong with America under Bush and the extreme right wing branch of the Republican Party...the one that promised to reduce government until it could be drowned in a bathtub. Seemingly they didn't care that thousands of Americans would drown in the process.

Even as Katrina refugees are being faced with eviction from their trailers by a government that STILL doesn't give a shit about them, one tiny hopeful milestone has been reached...and we can help expand that tiny glimmer of hope. From Habitat for Humanity:

Habitat for Humanity reaches a milestone in the hurricane-recovery effort with the construction of its 500th hurricane-recovery home along the Gulf Coast.

Just months ago, Habitat for Humanity and the Operation Home Delivery program marked the anniversaries of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, a commemoration that acknowledged the historic storms’ destruction and looked ahead with hope to continued progress along the Gulf Coast. Now, Habitat has reached a significant construction milestone in that recovery effort: This week, the walls were raised on Habitat’s 500th hurricane-recovery home, just outside Mobile, Ala.