Here's what we know. New Orleans is built in a "bowl." New Orleans is slowly sinking. The earth is warming (let's not get into the human cause debate). The oceans may well be rising. Hurricanes are a natural phenomena that aren't going away. Hurricanes are only a "disaster" when people are in the path of one. Hurricanes are nature's way of sweeping away the old to make way for the new. Here's what we need to do. It is time to abandon New Orleans. Just salvage what we can, clean up what toxins we can, implode the high rises, blow up the levies and return the area to nature. Let the city go the way of Atlantis. We are spending far too much money and wasting far too many lives living in places where we simply shouldn't be living. Since New Orleans will have to be rebuilt practically from scratch, why not rebuild it somewhere safer? Yeah, yeah, yeah, too much history, too much heritage, too many memories, how can we just walk away from one of this country's most famous cities? It's not like it would be the first time. Archaeologists uncover lost cities all the time. But we won't. We are just too stubborn, too short-sighted and too wealthy a nation to give up on a city and do the common sense thing. So, let's call in the Dutch. Learn how to hold back the sea properly. And start handing out wooden shoes.
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