For complete summary of discussion, please see http://www.wednesday-night.com/Wed1226page2.aspng of the levees and flooding of the major part of New Orleans, Katrina has become probably the greatest natural disaster to touch the U.S. The Governor has asked for federal aid and as of this (Wednesday) evening is hopeful that it is on the way. Looting and violence are increasing, as is the misery of the people taking refuge in the Superdome. The situation in New Orleans has been likened to Pompeii, however construction of a city on a flood plain, or any other mobile geological environment, is a major mistake. [Disgracefully underfunded] efforts by the Army Corps of Engineers to tame the natural processes have proved fruitless. This is not the last time that the area will be hit by a hurricane and one can only wonder: is there any sense in rebuilding in this problem area? [Editor's note: Another dimension of the problem was raised in an excellent piece in the Independent, New Orleans: Loss of wetlands opens floodgates to disaster which points out that "many scientists say the real problem is what has been wrought on the ground in the Gulf Coast region itself. And most serious of all may be the loss of the wetlands along the edges of rivers and near the coast itself, [which]are vital for absorbing and storing floodwaters. But, according to the US Geological Survey, Louisiana has lost 1,900 square miles of wetland in the past seven decades. The draining of the wetlands to make way for roads, malls, beach communities, marinas and condominiums has also meant shrinkage of the shoreline. Louisiana, in fact, loses 25 square miles of coast every year.http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article309471.eceplied to global oil production and have mathematically determined that the world's oil supply would peak shortly after 2000 (Kenneth Deffeyes in his recent book "Beyond oil: the view from Hubbert's Peak" suggests Thanksgiving Day 2005), and then drop steadily thereafter. There will continue to be oil, but Hubbert's Peak is about the end of cheap oil. The problem is compounded by supply problems – the U.S. has not built refinery capacity since 1976. In the view of an oil industry expert at the table, while oil is a finite resource, the ratio between production and proven reserves, has been stable, or even increasing slightly over the last years. [But the capacity of proven reserves is often stated for political purposes and we don't know how much oil is really in the ground.] Predictions of the imminent shortfall of oil have been around for at least 30 years, but somehow this doesn't happen as quickly as the numbers might indicate. On the one hand, the world has shown a capacity to find new reserves and extract proven reserves, and on the other, since the mid-70s there has been an increase in energy efficiency. He adds that of the world's oil reserves, only one-third is in the form of conventional petroleum. Two-thirds – half of which are in Canada – are tar sands. It is of course more expensive, cumbersome and environmentally difficult to extract than conventional oil, but the tar sands will be developed even if oil is at $20-$30 bbl. Current U.S. consumption (250 million people consuming 25% of the world production) is simply not sustainable. Higher taxes on oil companies, while political suicide, would make economic sense. This policy, already in practice in Europe, accounts for better transportation patterns, more fuel-economic cars and concurrently a reduction in CO2 emissions with a positive impact on the environment. Thus it is arguable that the end of cheap oil may accomplish for the environment what other policy tools have been unable to do. However, we have a global economy where everything on Walmart's shelves is shipped from China; the world will need a transformation of the global economy that has been built for 100 years on cheap oil, and that transformation will not be accomplished overnight, or even within a couple of decades. On a more positive note, people are thinking about the future and looking for solutions to their petroleum dependency. "The end of suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream" http://www.endofsuburbia.com/