This week, the corps has been considering what it has avoided doing for 74 years: busting a gap in the Birds Point levee to flood as much as 130,000 acres and relieve some of the flooding expected when the swollen Ohio River crests near Cairo, Ill., this weekend and surges into the Mississippi at the rivers' confluence.
They haven't been forced to do this in seventy four years. Rainfall and flooding in the area is matching and breaking old records. But that's a story we're used to hearing every year now, isn't it? It may not always be the same region but a "historic" flood disaster is now part of the annual weather report.
This is a point when scientists on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and others get to say "I told you so." More frequent flooding and catastrophic weather events are exactly what they warned us about.
The areas being impacted right now are represented in Congress by modern day Neville Chamberlins who are doing their best to ensure that we don't confront the problem. John Shimkus is touring Illinois flood sites. Yet, as chair of the House Environment and Economy Subcommittee he has become one of the nation's most visible deniers of the science behind climate change. Will he see the connection?
The Missouri side of the river is represented in Congress by Jo Ann Emerson. Earlier in April she bragged about supporting a bill that would bar the US from funding scientific study on climate change by the IPCC. That's the same group which warned that heavy, unpredictable rains would lead to delayed planting seasons and more frequent flooding in the Midwest. Maybe she should have paid more attention to their last report. Her press release stated: "I don’t feel the U.S. taxpayer should be asked to shoulder this burden in addition to the economic damage their policy recommendations would inflict on us.”
At this moment, her constituents are shouldering the burden her anti-science policies would inflict on them into the future. Refusal to deal with climate change will only result in more frequent catastrophic flooding and all of the economic damage that goes with it. Does she want to invest in more clean energy jobs for Missouri or does she want to keep paying even more for flood relief?
Ironically, she doesn't mind asking U.S. taxpayers for help when it's time for the Corps of Engineers and FEMA to deal with the impacts of flooding. I wonder if Emerson and Shimkus are ready to apologize for voting in favor of the Paul Ryan budget that cut emergency disaster funding. It's a shame that people in these districts have to face the consequences of the extremist anti-science, anti-government ideology of their Congressional Representatives.