Hurricane prediction
on Nova broadcast January 25, 2005, predicting the catastrophic effects of a Hurricane like Katrina on the city of New Orleans. (thanks to Jost for the tip). Give the streaming video a minute to load. It's worth watching. Nova believes that better scientific measurements and predictors of hurricanes will allow for more accurate weather prediction and speedier and more efficient evacuation. While it's chilling in its accuracy, the televisual documentary is incredibly glib: social issues are not addressed. New Orleans seems to be populated exclusively by hurricane experts and party-goers on Bourbon St. More importatnly, there is not a mention among the many genial experts and local officials interviewed about the question of poverty and race added to the mix of a natural catastrophe.
Why is this important? Because not all citizens of the US have access to private transport. When the mayor of New Orleans issued the call to evacuate, he assumed that everyone owned or had access to private transportation. In addition, I think being marginal and poor in this culture tends to make you very skeptical about all forms of authority since the system does not work for you to begin with -- so you would have a tendency to ignore official order. This refusal to heed the order to evacuate turns out to be a kind of last stand of sovereignty: and "I'm not going to listen to you."
So in a sense, even though the science of NOVA is probably much sounder than say the science of Animal Planet predicting a plague of killer bees in American suburbia, its style and format encourage cynicism and half belief on the part of the non-specialist, the average person like me. How many times have we seen middle class Americans shudder in the media about some disaster or the other, alien invasion, Armageddon....all of it seems like superstition. But it masks the disaster that has already happened, - the political disaster in Washington, the social disaster for the poor and especially for the millions of disenfranchised poor African Americans who depend more than anyone on social infrastructure and public services. In light of Katrina, we see how malicious neglect of public institutions punishes the most vulnerable among us, but also how the anti-government forces that have taken over government have dismantled the federal agencies upon which we all depend in times of crisis.
Why is this important? Because not all citizens of the US have access to private transport. When the mayor of New Orleans issued the call to evacuate, he assumed that everyone owned or had access to private transportation. In addition, I think being marginal and poor in this culture tends to make you very skeptical about all forms of authority since the system does not work for you to begin with -- so you would have a tendency to ignore official order. This refusal to heed the order to evacuate turns out to be a kind of last stand of sovereignty: and "I'm not going to listen to you."
So in a sense, even though the science of NOVA is probably much sounder than say the science of Animal Planet predicting a plague of killer bees in American suburbia, its style and format encourage cynicism and half belief on the part of the non-specialist, the average person like me. How many times have we seen middle class Americans shudder in the media about some disaster or the other, alien invasion, Armageddon....all of it seems like superstition. But it masks the disaster that has already happened, - the political disaster in Washington, the social disaster for the poor and especially for the millions of disenfranchised poor African Americans who depend more than anyone on social infrastructure and public services. In light of Katrina, we see how malicious neglect of public institutions punishes the most vulnerable among us, but also how the anti-government forces that have taken over government have dismantled the federal agencies upon which we all depend in times of crisis.
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