Tomgram: Bill McKibben on Planet New Orleans
Last week, I took a six-hour drive south to New York City on a day when New Orleans had just gone under water and the President was stumbling to address the nation. The headlines on the morning paper I tossed in the front seat next to me read: "New Orleans Is Inundated As 2 Levees Fail; Much of Gulf Coast Is Crippled; Toll Rises."
I began my day by pulling into a local gas station where I found myself paying $2.67 a gallon for regular unleaded -- in two pit stops that day, I would pour over fifty bucks into the tank of my recently purchased 2003 Subaru Outback. Regretting that I didn't have a Prius, I still felt like a low-level lottery winner, like the last customer to stumble upon a bargain that would never again exist. (Twenty-four hours later, my wife would report that the same station had the same gas for $2.93 -- up 22 cents and rising like mercury on a hot day.)
