CW6-2501

From Environmental Technology

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A) This article discussed both points of view on the issue of rebuilding in areas we pretty much know are going to get hit by weather that's going to knock things down. It seems as though the article was leaning toward the direction of these people are nuts, but maybe that's just me projecting my own feelings on what was written. It is very easy to say that these folks just need to pack it up and move away, but if someone told me I would have to relocate because they were pretty sure New Madrid was going to do its thing, they might have a fight on their hands. My poor self, with many other financially unstable people, would be just sitting their between a rock and a hard place. That's not to say that the government should have to bail me out everytime my house gets knocked down by a natural disaster, especially if I keep putting myself in the path of hurricanes. Now, building multi-million dollar hotels and homes in the paths of hurricanes falls into the catagory of people with too much money doing whatever they feel like and expecting help when they get stuck up the creek without a paddle. People on huge money making ventures who loose their shirts because they took a very risky gamble illicit very little sympathy. The article states that the populations in these areas is projected to go up. Sigh. Maybe there should be a grandfather clause. If they are aleady there, they'll get help. Anybody coming in after, well, Ivan, no help. "They" are predicting that hurricanes are just going to get nastier and come to visit more often, so if you move to these areas because of the beauty, you should have to deal with the consequences.

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B) This article highlights some of the problems surrounding becoming too dependent on sources outside of our own country for energy needs. Someone else's national problems become your problem very quickly when you depend on them for vital resources. China is under a communist government so their internal energy suppliers are not as, note the as, profit driven as ours are. Our own president recently touted his own little energy initiative but took it back a few days later. We as a country are going to be in real hurting status when the competition with China for non-renewable resources really gets going. I think the populations of many countries are really going to have to be hit hard in the pocket book before any real changes are made especially when it comes to oil consumption. I'm not sure about some of the things China is doing to help with pollution. I'm sure they have brilliant scientists working on the Carbon Dioxide emmission problem, but storing it underground just doesn't sound like a good idea.