Opinion: Let’s work to prevent climate-related disasters, not just mitigate them
Earl Blumenauer | September 6, 2021 | The Washington Post Online

The Sept. 1 editorial “A ring of concrete and steel pays off” illustrated the challenges we face in dealing with climate-inspired disasters, one after another. It saluted the limited success of the massive $14.5 billion Army Corps of Engineers project for New Orleans but also pointed out that it hasn’t been completed because the land keeps sinking and sea levels keep rising. In his Sept. 1 op-ed, “Fighting over land that’s growing less livable,” Gershom Gorenberg lamented the futility of the Israel-Palestinian conflict and noted that the real issue is whether in a few years it will be possible for anyone to live on the land under any circumstance.

I’ve worked for 25 years on climate, land use and disaster, including some limited success with flood insurance reform. But such nibbling around the edges has become an ill-advised distraction. Compromise and small steps will not put water in the Colorado River Basin or protect homes foolishly built in the flame zone of the urban-rural interface. The only way to minimize the loss of life and property from devastating floods is to engage in basin-wide land use and water policy management, and to stop treating our rivers like machines and wetlands as an afterthought.

We must use the vast sums we spend recovering from disasters to instead employ tools to fight carbon pollution and destructive agricultural forces and industrial practices. We must no longer insulate individuals, businesses and government from the consequences of millions of shortsighted destructive decisions every day. We are in a fight for our very survival, and we should act like it.

Earl Blumenauer, Washington
The writer, a Democrat, represents Oregon in the U.S. House.