Though hindsight lets us peruse history with 20/20 vision, it's rare that we can predict -- or even imagine -- the future. This morning, the Army Corps of Engineers may have bucked that trend when that motley construction crew, best known for building the Panama Canal and channelling the Mississippi through concrete levees, blew up one of those very levees near Wyatt, MO.
Following weeks of record rainfall and tornadoes, the Mississippi river continues to swell, exceeding flow rates last seen in 1927, and endangering downstream cities from Cairo, Il (which has already been evacuated) to Memphis, TN and other populated areas along Old Muddy.
It seems only natural that the Army Corps would blow up a levee to save millions of people downstream from rising waters -- but there's a cost, too: 130,000 acres of rich farmland, 100 homes and 2,800 now homeless in the areas surrounding the levee. That land, like the small island atolls in the Maldives, is ground zero for climate change.
A hotter planet means clouds hold more moisture -- and when those coulds dump, they flood rivers, farmland, houses and people's lives. The choices we can make now, to switch to renewable energy, and make buildings and transportation efficient, will not only help get us back to 350ppm of carbon in the atmosphere, but create jobs, wealth and security in America.
If we don't stop dumping carbon into our atmosphere, the choices we'll have to make in the future will look more like the morbid one that played out in Wyatt, Missouri today: flood millions in cities downstream, or ruin thousands of acres of land and ruin livelihoods upstream.
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