long from fema, this is a storm the united states has not yet seen and what you say, they are all talking about, albeit not identifying by name, is climate change. will hurricane harvey, when we look back, represent a turning point relative to the way we think about that subject? well, who knows. i certainly hope it will. i mean, it is not something you can prove and i don t think people today in houston as we starting to rip out soggy drywall are thinking about climate change. but something is going on here that we ve never seen before. houston is a city that is used to be flooded. i ve worked in houston for almost four years and we ve had three epic one in a hundred year flood events and this is by some estimates a one in 800 year flood event. something is happening here that we haven t seen before. i mean, i take brock long s quote at face value. this is a storm america has
contribute to superstorms are connected to the oil and petro chemical economy on which the city built its fortune. will this be a turning point of sorts relative to that national conversation? yeah, well nobody can blame houston itself for a global warming. of course not. the oil and gas that houston that texas produces is consumed by all of us. but it is true that something has got to change. i mean, nobody knew when they built miami where it is or houston where it is that we were going to have something called global warming, that we ll have rising sea levels, worsening storms. but it is a reality. and it is inescapable. people talk about something like harvey being an act of god. well the lord helps those who help themselves. and if the society doesn t respond to the worsening damage caused by storms such as harvey,
100,000 homes either damaged or destroyed. 50 dead. a half a million cars destroyed and tons of blame to go around. so what lies ahead given the lack of zoning regulations in houston. and the ongoing battles over climate change that some say energized the storm. well, these two articles on bloomberg caught my eye. harvey wasn t just bad weather, it was bad city planning. by peter coy and christopher flavel and harvey could reshape how and where americans bill their homes. joining me now, bloombergs climate policy reporter and business week economics editor peter coy. peter, any city regardless of the zoning standards and regulations would have been devastated, i know we can agree on that. you said so in your piece. but what is the question that you think needs to be addressed now before we move forward? the immediate action is obviously to save people who are
democrats because republicans hate big government. hey, chicko, i m paying close attention to the debate that i thought was fascinating between golfer christie and senator cruz and remembering what the relative positions were of the parties when it was sandy. and not harvey. and i think people need to be consistent, right? if you re going to take a position relative to one storm, it will be interesting to see if it s the same position when now it s your home state. what s next? smerkonish, why does the media criticize the president of every little thing including his post-hurricane harvey visit. hey, kevin, were you paying attention? i m the guy who said i thought the critiques were bogus, i don t give a damn what melania was wearing when she went to texas. i m thrilled they made the trip and he s going back. he was wearing the same khakis as president obama and george w. bush during hurricane katrina, you re getting me all worked up and i m the one who said so.
still in stress, to get the emergency aid in there, to get people s lives back together. but very soon after that, there has to be a serious conversation about how houston rebuilds. so this doesn t happen again. now, there are two solutions basically. the one is the gray solution that is concrete. that is that culverts, drains, trying to get the water out of there when it lands and the other is the green solution which is to say you can t flush all of the water away. more storms like harvey are coming. you have to have a solution to involve catching the water, when it comes down, and allowing it to be gradually absorbed and gradually flushed out to the gulf of mexico. this is the green solution. that is the the detention ponds, flood control reservoirs and so on. it is expensive because it involves setting aside precious land and that it can t be developed and can t collect property taxes on.