Warned!

http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2010/01/links-for-2010-01-15.html#comment-6a00d83451b33869e2012876ebbdf7970c

anne said...

There is a selective conservative theme that has quickly emerged on the Haitian tragedy that blames Haitians for the tragedy, not the tragedy occurrence but the severity of the tragedy. The blame is and will be increasingly on Haitian culture.

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I saw a link on msnbc.msn.com last week, that Haitians "had been warned" about the possibility of an earthquake. I I am not surprised that some conservative scum are blaming Haitians for their tragedy. I would be extremely surprised if it were otherwise.

Of course, scientists have been warning us for more than 20 years of the dangers of global warning. And what are we doing about it? Very little. The difference is, we have the resources to do something. We have been warned for years that California is overdue for a severe earthquake, but people continued to move there. If I mention it to people I know (who are conservatives) who moved there, they respond to me scornfully.

Scientists have warned us that the New Madrid is likely to be the cause of a devastating earthquake for several states, but I haven't heard that this has resulted in changes in building codes.

We were warned years ago that our fishing was unsustainable and that we were damaging the oceans with pollution, but we ignored that.

etc, etc, etc,

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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34877690/ns/technology_and_science-science/

By Rick Callahan
updated 6:06 p.m. ET, Fri., Jan. 15, 2010

INDIANAPOLIS - Scientists who detected worrisome signs of growing stresses in the fault that unleashed this week's devastating earthquake in Haiti said they warned officials there two years ago that their country was ripe for a major earthquake.

Their sobering findings, presented during a geological conference in March 2008 and at meetings two months later, showed that the fault was capable of causing a 7.2-magnitude earthquake — slightly stronger than Tuesday's 7.0 quake that rocked the impoverished country.

Though Haitian officials listened intently to the research, the nearly two years between the presentation and the devastating quake was not enough time for Haiti to have done much to have prevented the massive destruction.

"It's too short of a timeframe to really do something, particularly for a country like Haiti, but even in a developed country it's very difficult to start very big operations in two years," Eric Calais, a professor of geophysics at Purdue University, said Thursday.

Their conclusions also lacked a specific timeframe that could have prodded quick action to shore up the hospitals, schools and other buildings that collapsed and crumbled Tuesday, said Paul Mann, a senior research scientist at the University of Texas' Institute for Geophysics.

At the time of the earthquake, which the international Red Cross estimates killed 45,000 to 50,000 people, Haiti was still trying to recover from a string catastrophes. In 2008 alone, it was hit four times by tropical storms and hurricanes. The country also suffers from a string of social ills including poverty, unstable governments and poor building standards that make buildings vulnerable in earthquakes.

"Haiti's government has so many other problems that when you give sort of an unspecific prediction about an earthquake threat they just don't have the resources to deal with that sort of thing," Mann said.

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http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2010/01/david-brooks-says-intrusive-paternalism-is-the-answer-for-haiti.html

The blog concerned "David Brooks selectively quoting the development literature."
Brooks calls for Intrusive Paternalism in Haiti.

A comment to this blog included some letters to the editor in reply to Brooks article, including the following:

To the Editor:

David Brooks’s analysis of what went wrong in Haiti misses the mark. Blaming cultural forces before financial forces is absurd.

Haiti spent its early existence handcuffed by crippling reparations to France — a penalty for rejecting the shackles of slavery.

At the peak of this debt, Haiti was paying 80 percent of its national budget to foreign creditors. After the debt was “paid off,” a string of brutal dictators — many propped up by the United States — ransacked the country’s coffers.

Haiti never had a chance, and blaming cultural factors, like vodou, is counterproductive.

Michael Falco
New York, Jan. 15, 2010