Sunday, Sept. 23, 2018 | 2 a.m.
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OK, I know you’re obsessed about sex and the Supreme Court. But the hurricane flooding in North Carolina has been terrible. Let’s give it some serious thought right now.
Particularly when it comes to ways the government screwed up. First lesson is easy. Coastal flooding is getting way, way worse because of global warming. So obviously we’ve got to join other nations in combating this universally recognized threat.
Hahahahaha.
Yeah, yeah. President Donald Trump does not believe in climate change. Who among us can forget the time he claimed the whole idea was a Chinese plot to ruin American manufacturing?
Maybe he’ll evolve. After all, Trump does occasionally show some concern for nature. When he visited North Carolina on Wednesday, he particularly inquired about the well-being of the state’s Lake Norman. (“I love that area — I can’t tell you why, but I love that area.”)
Well-informed observers did note that there happens to be a Trump golf club on Lake Norman’s shores.
The president came in for some criticism when, while distributing free hot dog lunches, he told one flood victim to “have a good time.” It is absolutely true that our commander-in-chief tends to babble. But in the grand scheme of things, this would seem to rank much lower as a problem than, say, ignoring the rising oceans and exploding weather systems.
If we’re not going to do anything to keep the waters from encroaching, the least the government can do is to stop developers from building housing on the growing flood plain.
North Carolina seemed to be thinking along these lines when it commissioned experts to figure out how much the sea level was likely to rise over the next century. They concluded the water could go up by as much as 39 inches by 2100.
“We were ready to step up to the plate and take a hard look at this long-term problem ...” one scientist told New York Times reporters.
Go, North Carolina!
“... and we blew it,” he concluded.
Whoops. State lawmakers basically ordered the government to ignore the study.
Some North Carolina politicians are still struggling to get this right, and it would obviously be helpful if they got some encouragement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is supposed to be our go-to expert on climactic disaster. FEMA is also the place to look if you want to reform the federal flood insurance program, which is currently underwriting developments in the wrong places, water-wise.
Right now, FEMA is being run by Brock Long, who seems to have been spending a lot of his time making a 400-mile commute from his home to his office in Washington, using government vehicles. And much of the rest explaining why this is a good plan.
Well, on the plus side, Long lives in North Carolina. At least he can contemplate the flooding on his way to and from work. Let’s hope so, since you’re paying for the drive. And the aides he sometimes brings along and who stay in nearby hotels. Maybe there should be a rule requiring that government officials who insist on bringing staffers home with them have to put their helpers up in the family guest room.
Finally, we’re getting to the moment — a high point in all stories about the environment in North Carolina — when we discuss the hog lagoons.
Hog lagoons are basically huge bodies of pig poop. The waste is treated with bacteria that turns it pink. I flew over one of these suckers, and if you ever want to experience what it feels like to soar above what appears to be a large lake of strange-smelling Pepto-Bismol, this is the ticket.
The good news on the hog-lagoon frontis that North Carolina farmers, officials, and even some of the Big Pork corporations that created the whole system, have been working to get it under control.
A lot more could probably be done faster if, say, the federal government put big money into closing down hog farms in flood plains. The farmers, you will be happy to hear, are pretty enthusiastic about getting compensation to transition into some new crop that does not create lakes of manure in their neighborhood.
“As we look toward recovery, we look toward fully funding the lagoon buyout program,” said Maggie Monast of the Environmental Defense Fund.
The Department of Agriculture has actually been some help. But what are the chances we’ll see the Environmental Protection Agency spring into action? The EPA, you may remember, was until recently headed by Scott Pruitt, the guy with the affinity for first-class air flights and using siren-and-police-light motorcades to get through traffic when he was on his way to dinner.
God, will we never get a Cabinet member who likes to take the occasional bus? Now Pruitt is gone and the EPA is run by Andrew Wheeler, a former coal industry lobbyist who was also an aide to Sen. James Inhofe, the biggest global warming denier in the history of Congress.
Not much to hope for there. How do you get these people to focus on the environment, even if it’s just for flood-prevention purposes? Maybe North Carolina could declare the entire state a Donald Trump golf course.
Gail Collins is a columnist for The New York Times.
