Louisiana, Louisiana
They’re tryin’ to wash us away
They’re tryin’ to wash us away
Randy Newman’s song became a kind of anthem for survivors of Katrina, but it actually was inspired by the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, which occurred after months of heavy rain made Old Man River rise to record heights and breach multiple levees.
Nearly 30,000 square miles were flooded, more than 500 persons killed, more than 700,000 left homeless, and damages exceeded $1 trillion (in today’s dollars).
No one thought to blame the worst flood in U.S. history on global warming, much less hold the oil industry responsible for it.
Nor does Newman make any mention of global warming in his song, recorded in 1974, at which time the big concern among persons delighting in doomsday scenarios was not global warming but global cooling and the imagined imminence of a new ice age.
Of course, Bill de Blasio (nee Warren Wilhelm Jr.) was a mere teenager when Newman’s song came out – and not even alive at the time of the big flood. If he’d been around back in 1927, however, you can bet he’d have been one of the first scheming opportunists trying to take political and financial advantage of this natural disaster.
Just look at the lawsuit the Big Apple’s top banana filed against major oil companies, seeking to assess monetary damages for clean-up costs associated with Hurricane Sandy.
“The City of New York, along with liberal mayors and trial lawyers across the country, want to extract billions of dollars from a handful of oil and natural gas companies based on the entirely unproven claim that those companies are responsible for climate change and global warming,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said last week as the targeted companies asked a federal judge to throw out the suit.
“We all depend on affordable, reliable energy,” Paxton observed, “and a handful of profitable energy companies should not be forced to defend themselves in costly, unfounded lawsuits.”
A ruling in de Blasio’s favor would be an unnatural disaster.