[lit-ideas] Re: New Orleans... Just forget about it?
- From: "Andy Amago" <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, "lit-ideas" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2005 00:10:04 -0400
What does anybody think of this excerpt from this article? These figures
are the figures I heard early on in the disaster. Robert? Eric?
> The ports of South Louisiana and New Orleans, which run north and
> south of the city, are as important today as at any point during the
> history of the republic. On its own merit, the Port of South
> Louisiana is the largest port in the United States by tonnage and the
> fifth-largest in the world. It exports more than 52 million tons a
> year, of which more than half are agricultural products -- corn,
> soybeans and so on. A larger proportion of U.S. agriculture flows out
> of the port. Almost as much cargo, nearly 57 million tons, comes in
> through the port -- including not only crude oil, but chemicals and
> fertilizers, coal, concrete and so on.
>
>
>
> > [Original Message]
> > From: Andreas Ramos <andreas@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> > To: Lit-Ideas <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > Date: 9/8/2005 6:45:04 PM
> > Subject: [lit-ideas] New Orleans... Just forget about it?
> >
> > Botching the Katrina catastrophe demonstrated that the Bushes had no
idea
> whatsoever how
> > utterly key New Orleans is to America's economic well-being, and their
> lack of action has
> > huge implications to all of our futures.
> >
> > 1. There is no other way to get the American harvest out to the world,
> >
> > 2. No other way to get industrial raw materials in nor products out.
> >
> > 3. The skilled population needed to run the largest port in America is
> out of town.
> >
> > 4. The region is uninhabitable. Homes are gone. The infrastructure to
> keep a population
> > alive is gone.
> >
> >
> > New Orleans: A Geopolitical Prize
> > By George Friedman
> > http://www.stratfor.com/news/archive/050903-geopolitics_katrina.php
> >
> > September 01, 2005 22 30 GMT -- The American political system was
> > founded in Philadelphia, but the American nation was built on the
> > vast farmlands that stretch from the Alleghenies to the Rockies. That
> > farmland produced the wealth that funded American industrialization:
> > It permitted the formation of a class of small landholders who,
> > amazingly, could produce more than they could consume. They could
> > sell their excess crops in the east and in Europe and save that
> > money, which eventually became the founding capital of American
> > industry.
> >
> > But it was not the extraordinary land nor the farmers and ranchers
> > who alone set the process in motion. Rather, it was geography -- the
> > extraordinary system of rivers that flowed through the Midwest and
> > allowed them to ship their surplus to the rest of the world. All of
> > the rivers flowed into one -- the Mississippi -- and the Mississippi
> > flowed to the ports in and around one city: New Orleans. It was in
> > New Orleans that the barges from upstream were unloaded and their
> > cargos stored, sold and reloaded on ocean-going vessels. Until last
> > Sunday, New Orleans was, in many ways, the pivot of the American
> > economy.
> >
> > For that reason, the Battle of New Orleans in January 1815 was a key
> > moment in American history. Even though the battle occurred after the
> > War of 1812 was over, had the British taken New Orleans, we suspect
> > they wouldn't have given it back. Without New Orleans, the entire
> > Louisiana Purchase would have been valueless to the United States.
> > Or, to state it more precisely, the British would control the region
> > because, at the end of the day, the value of the Purchase was the
> > land and the rivers - which all converged on the Mississippi and the
> > ultimate port of New Orleans. The hero of the battle was Andrew
> > Jackson, and when he became president, his obsession with Texas had
> > much to do with keeping the Mexicans away from New Orleans.
> >
> > During the Cold War, a macabre topic of discussion among bored
> > graduate students who studied such things was this: If the Soviets
> > could destroy one city with a large nuclear device, which would it
> > be? The usual answers were Washington or New York. For me, the answer
> > was simple: New Orleans. If the Mississippi River was shut to
> > traffic, then the foundations of the economy would be shattered. The
> > industrial minerals needed in the factories wouldn't come in, and the
> > agricultural wealth wouldn't flow out. Alternative routes really
> > weren't available. The Germans knew it too: A U-boat campaign
> > occurred near the mouth of the Mississippi during World War II. Both
> > the Germans and Stratfor have stood with Andy Jackson: New Orleans
> > was the prize.
> >
> > Last Sunday, nature took out New Orleans almost as surely as a
> > nuclear strike. Hurricane Katrina's geopolitical effect was not, in
> > many ways, distinguishable from a mushroom cloud. The key exit from
> > North America was closed. The petrochemical industry, which has
> > become an added value to the region since Jackson's days, was at
> > risk. The navigability of the Mississippi south of New Orleans was a
> > question mark. New Orleans as a city and as a port complex had ceased
> > to exist, and it was not clear that it could recover.
> >
> > The ports of South Louisiana and New Orleans, which run north and
> > south of the city, are as important today as at any point during the
> > history of the republic. On its own merit, the Port of South
> > Louisiana is the largest port in the United States by tonnage and the
> > fifth-largest in the world. It exports more than 52 million tons a
> > year, of which more than half are agricultural products -- corn,
> > soybeans and so on. A larger proportion of U.S. agriculture flows out
> > of the port. Almost as much cargo, nearly 57 million tons, comes in
> > through the port -- including not only crude oil, but chemicals and
> > fertilizers, coal, concrete and so on.
> >
> > A simple way to think about the New Orleans port complex is that it
> > is where the bulk commodities of agriculture go out to the world and
> > the bulk commodities of industrialism come in. The commodity chain of
> > the global food industry starts here, as does that of American
> > industrialism. If these facilities are gone, more than the price of
> > goods shifts: The very physical structure of the global economy would
> > have to be reshaped. Consider the impact to the U.S. auto industry if
> > steel doesn't come up the river, or the effect on global food
> > supplies if U.S. corn and soybeans don't get to the markets.
> >
> > The problem is that there are no good shipping alternatives. River
> > transport is cheap, and most of the commodities we are discussing
> > have low value-to-weight ratios. The U.S. transport system was built
> > on the assumption that these commodities would travel to and from New
> > Orleans by barge, where they would be loaded on ships or offloaded.
> > Apart from port capacity elsewhere in the United States, there aren't
> > enough trucks or rail cars to handle the long-distance hauling of
> > these enormous quantities -- assuming for the moment that the
> > economics could be managed, which they can't be.
> >
> > The focus in the media has been on the oil industry in Louisiana and
> > Mississippi. This is not a trivial question, but in a certain sense,
> > it is dwarfed by the shipping issue. First, Louisiana is the source
> > of about 15 percent of U.S.-produced petroleum, much of it from the
> > Gulf. The local refineries are critical to American infrastructure.
> > Were all of these facilities to be lost, the effect on the price of
> > oil worldwide would be extraordinarily painful. If the river itself
> > became unnavigable or if the ports are no longer functioning,
> > however, the impact to the wider economy would be significantly more
> > severe. In a sense, there is more flexibility in oil than in the
> > physical transport of these other commodities.
> >
> > There is clearly good news as information comes in. By all accounts,
> > the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, which services supertankers in the
> > Gulf, is intact. Port Fourchon, which is the center of extraction
> > operations in the Gulf, has sustained damage but is recoverable. The
> > status of the oil platforms is unclear and it is not known what the
> > underwater systems look like, but on the surface, the damage - though
> > not trivial -- is manageable.
> >
> > The news on the river is also far better than would have been
> > expected on Sunday. The river has not changed its course. No major
> > levees containing the river have burst. The Mississippi apparently
> > has not silted up to such an extent that massive dredging would be
> > required to render it navigable. Even the port facilities, although
> > apparently damaged in many places and destroyed in few, are still
> > there. The river, as transport corridor, has not been lost.
> >
> > What has been lost is the city of New Orleans and many of the
> > residential suburban areas around it. The population has fled,
> > leaving behind a relatively small number of people in desperate
> > straits. Some are dead, others are dying, and the magnitude of the
> > situation dwarfs the resources required to ameliorate their
> > condition. But it is not the population that is trapped in New
> > Orleans that is of geopolitical significance: It is the population
> > that has left and has nowhere to return to.
> >
> > The oil fields, pipelines and ports required a skilled workforce in
> > order to operate. That workforce requires homes. They require stores
> > to buy food and other supplies. Hospitals and doctors. Schools for
> > their children. In other words, in order to operate the facilities
> > critical to the United States, you need a workforce to do it -- and
> > that workforce is gone. Unlike in other disasters, that workforce
> > cannot return to the region because they have no place to live. New
> > Orleans is gone, and the metropolitan area surrounding New Orleans is
> > either gone or so badly damaged that it will not be inhabitable for a
> > long time.
> >
> > It is possible to jury-rig around this problem for a short time. But
> > the fact is that those who have left the area have gone to live with
> > relatives and friends. Those who had the ability to leave also had
> > networks of relationships and resources to manage their exile. But
> > those resources are not infinite -- and as it becomes apparent that
> > these people will not be returning to New Orleans any time soon, they
> > will be enrolling their children in new schools, finding new jobs,
> > finding new accommodations. If they have any insurance money coming,
> > they will collect it. If they have none, then -- whatever emotional
> > connections they may have to their home -- their economic connection
> > to it has been severed. In a very short time, these people will be
> > making decisions that will start to reshape population and workforce
> > patterns in the region.
> >
> > A city is a complex and ongoing process - one that requires physical
> > infrastructure to support the people who live in it and people to
> > operate that physical infrastructure. We don't simply mean power
> > plants or sewage treatment facilities, although they are critical.
> > Someone has to be able to sell a bottle of milk or a new shirt.
> > Someone has to be able to repair a car or do surgery. And the people
> > who do those things, along with the infrastructure that supports
> > them, are gone -- and they are not coming back anytime soon.
> >
> > It is in this sense, then, that it seems almost as if a nuclear
> > weapon went off in New Orleans. The people mostly have fled rather
> > than died, but they are gone. Not all of the facilities are
> > destroyed, but most are. It appears to us that New Orleans and its
> > environs have passed the point of recoverability. The area can
> > recover, to be sure, but only with the commitment of massive
> > resources from outside -- and those resources would always be at risk
> > to another Katrina.
> >
> > The displacement of population is the crisis that New Orleans faces.
> > It is also a national crisis, because the largest port in the United
> > States cannot function without a city around it. The physical and
> > business processes of a port cannot occur in a ghost town, and right
> > now, that is what New Orleans is. It is not about the facilities, and
> > it is not about the oil. It is about the loss of a city's population
> > and the paralysis of the largest port in the United States.
> >
> > Let's go back to the beginning. The United States historically has
> > depended on the Mississippi and its tributaries for transport. Barges
> > navigate the river. Ships go on the ocean. The barges must offload to
> > the ships and vice versa. There must be a facility to empower this
> > exchange. It is also the facility where goods are stored in transit.
> > Without this port, the river can't be used. Protecting that port has
> > been, from the time of the Louisiana Purchase, a fundamental national
> > security issue for the United States.
> >
> > Katrina has taken out the port -- not by destroying the facilities,
> > but by rendering the area uninhabited and potentially uninhabitable.
> > That means that even if the Mississippi remains navigable, the
> > absence of a port near the mouth of the river makes the Mississippi
> > enormously less useful than it was. For these reasons, the United
> > States has lost not only its biggest port complex, but also the
> > utility of its river transport system -- the foundation of the entire
> > American transport system. There are some substitutes, but none with
> > sufficient capacity to solve the problem.
> >
> > It follows from this that the port will have to be revived and, one
> > would assume, the city as well. The ports around New Orleans are
> > located as far north as they can be and still be accessed by ocean-
> > going vessels. The need for ships to be able to pass each other in
> > the waterways, which narrow to the north, adds to the problem.
> > Besides, the Highway 190 bridge in Baton Rouge blocks the river going
> > north. New Orleans is where it is for a reason: The United States
> > needs a city right there.
> >
> > New Orleans is not optional for the United States' commercial
> > infrastructure. It is a terrible place for a city to be located, but
> > exactly the place where a city must exist. With that as a given, a
> > city will return there because the alternatives are too devastating.
> > The harvest is coming, and that means that the port will have to be
> > opened soon. As in Iraq, premiums will be paid to people prepared to
> > endure the hardships of working in New Orleans. But in the end, the
> > city will return because it has to.
> >
> > Geopolitics is the stuff of permanent geographical realities and the
> > way they interact with political life. Geopolitics created New
> > Orleans. Geopolitics caused American presidents to obsess over its
> > safety. And geopolitics will force the city's resurrection, even if
> > it is in the worst imaginable place.
> >
> >
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