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Climate Advocates Call on the President to Reflect and Take Action on the Fourth Anniversary of Katrina
WASHINGTON, D.C. — International climate activists floated two roof tops in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool early Thursday afternoon in anticipation of the fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. One of the roofs read, "HELP—The Water Is Rising." The 30 ft. banner behind the roofs declared, "Prevent the Next Katrina, Restore the Gulf, Stop Global Warming."
Saturday's anniversary of Katrina's landfall coincides with the 100-day countdown to the much anticipated Copenhagen climate negotiations.
"Needless to say, many New Orleanians have placed their hopes in Barack Obama. We see the effects of man-made disaster every day. Climate change is the number one long-term threat to life facing New Orleans." said Esquizito, a New Orleans jazz and blues performer and Katrina survivor working with the climate advocates. "We’re all waiting for President Obama’s leadership," he said.
Katrina made landfall in southeast Louisiana on August 29th, 2005. 80 percent of New Orleans was under water and at least 1,836 people lost their lives, making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in the history of the United States.
The group of concerned youth called attention to the anniversary of Katrina and the necessity of bold US leadership at the UN climate negotiations in Copenhagen this December to pass a fair, ambitious, and binding global treaty that will prevent environmental disasters of the catastrophic magnitude of Katrina in the future. According to the climate advocates, a fair, ambitious, and binding treaty includes full funding for international adaptation, so that vulnerable areas can adapt to climate threats.
A statement by the Pew Center for Global Climate Change further expresses the link between Katrina and global warming: "It would be scientifically unsound to conclude that Katrina was not intensified by global warming. A reasonable assessment of the science suggests that we will face similar events again and that powerful storms are likely to happen more often than we have been accustomed to in the past."