Talk:Hurricane Katrina/Alternative theories page history
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| Hurricane Katrina |
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| 2005 Atlantic hurricane season |
| General |
| Impact |
| Relief |
| Analysis |
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Following the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina, various conjectures were put forward suggesting that Katrina was not an ordinary natural event. Some relevant articles are:
- Hurricane Katrina, for details on Katrina's meterological development.
- Tropical cyclone, for scientific discussion on the formation of tropical storms in general, including information on potential causes of the recent increase in cyclone intensity, such as global warming.
Global warming
Some have suggested global warming may be either directly to blame for Katrina, or have made events of that type more likely. See long-term trends in tropical cyclone activity and effects of global warming on weather.
Some scientists and critics have stated that global warming was responsible for the raise in ocean surface temperatures that caused Katrina to go from a tropical storm to a devastating hurricane as it crossed the Gulf of Mexico between south Florida and New Orleans.[1][2] There have been related statements by Germany's environment minister, Juergen Trittin, [3] and by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr..[4] "Although Katrina began as a relatively small hurricane that glanced off south Florida, it was supercharged with extraordinary intensity by the relatively blistering sea surface temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico," wrote Ross Gelbspan, a journalist and author of several books on global warming. [5] Other scientists acknowledge the possible long term effects of global warming on cyclonogenisis, but attribute the strength of Hurricane Katrina to a 12 year cycle. [6] [7]
Precipitation hitting the US from hurricanes increased by 7% over the twentieth century [8]. The duration and wind speed of tropical storms has increased by 50% in the last 30 years. The measures are "very well correlated with the surface temperature of the tropical oceans" [9].
Assertions of supernatural causation
Various religious leaders have suggested that Hurricane Katrina was sent as a punishment for the City of New Orleans, or the Southern United States, or for the United States as a whole. A variety of past actions are blamed, from the legalisation of abortion and homosexuality to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and future changes in political policy are recommended:
- Kuwaiti Minister Muhammad Yousef Al-Mlaifi says Katrina is One of the Soldiers of Allah
- Repent America director Michael Marcavage claims Katrina caused by decadence
- Avner Bosky: Katrina and Gaza: is God speaking in New Orleans? (asserting that the hurricane is God's punishment for U.S. pressure for Israel to withdraw from Gaza)
- The controversial Reverend Fred Phelps gives his explanation for Katrina
- Some say natural catastrophe was 'divine judgment' (article originally from the Washington Post, as carried on the Houston Chronicle site, also reposted on the ExChristian.net site)
Speaking from Jackson, Mississippi, in a interview with the American Family Association's AgapePress, the Reverend Bill Shanks of the New Co venant Fellowship of New Orleans celebrated the effects of Katrina:
New Orleans now is abortion free. New Orleans now is Mardi Gras free. New Orleans now is free of Southern Decadence and the sodomites, the witchcraft workers, false religion [...] God simply, I believe, in His mercy purged all of that stuff out of there -- and now we're going to start over again. [...] It's time for us to stand up against wickedness so that God won't have to deal with that wickedness. [10]
These responses immediately placed Hurricane Katrina, and particularly the devastation of New Orleans, in a line of events which have been taken as examples of divine retribution for supposedly immoral acts. Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church has made many claims that natural disasters and terrorist attacks are punishment for human actions that contravene Biblical proscriptions. In the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on New York City, televangelists Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson suggested that God may have ceased protecting the United States as a result of secularism, feminism and the sexual revolution.
Criticism of conjectures
Most religious leaders stridently reject such claims. One Christian response to claims that the flooding of New Orleans was divine retribution might be to point out that, according to Genesis, God promised Noah that he would not punish via deluge again. Critics of claims of supernatural causation in the past have, as well as pointing to scientific explanations, accused those making such claims of being religious fundamentalists and trying to exploit tragedies in an attempt to influence political decisions.
Assertions of the use of weather control technology
Some observers have asserted that a country or hostile organization used technology to intensify Hurricane Katrina to impact the United States' ability to produce petroleum-based fuels and natural gas, thereby causing a severe adverse economic impact.