Seven Generational Ruminations

Carol Bebelle is a writer and poet living in New Orleans and I recently heard her talk (at the Bioneers 2007 conference) about the rebuilding of New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina. She talked at length eloquently about the rebuilding of the city and its culture. A city is more than buildings, it is people and all the things that go into being human beings. She talked of ceremonies and culture and artwork and more that brings the life of humans into a city.

She described New Orleans as being 2 years into a rebuilding process which will take another 8 years to accomplish. Wow.

The area south of New Orleans has the highest wetland loss in the world. This is the wetlands which helped create the disaster wrought upon New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina. Those wetlands had been a buffer protecting New Orleans for generations, but damage done to the wetlands by the Oil and Gas industry is rapidly destroying the wetlands. When Katrina hit the storm surge went right over nonexistant wetlands and directly submerged the city of New Orleans.