A prayer for infrastructure investment

Last updated on: July 28, 2011 at 5:52 pm by Fred Clark

A prayer for infrastructure investment 2011-07-28T17:52:14-04:00 Fred Clark

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From The Atlantic: “Another Dust Bowl?”

After a spring filled with reports of devastating floods and tornadoes, another climatological disaster is taking shape. Fourteen states across the south, particularly Texas, are facing a lethal combination of record heat and low precipitation. The Office of the Texas State Climatologist reports that this past June was the hottest June in recorded history. Twenty-five Texan cities broke heat records. Meanwhile, water supplies are drying up and crops are dying. …

One consequence of this dry, hot weather: More water main breaks.

Water main breaks are not just a winter event in Topeka, Kansas. Recent spells of dry, hot weather have city crews out frequently to repair broken lines and restore service.

Topeka city spokesman Dave Bevens [said] that the city was on pace to have between 550 and 600 water main breaks in 2011. A typical year would produce roughly 400 breaks in the city.

That’s the sort of thing that makes you think maybe it’d be a good time for a massive reinvestment in our crumbling national infrastructure.

But where ever would we find the millions of workers who would have to be hired for such an undertaking?

I mean, sure, the American Society of Civil Engineers just released a study showing that deferred maintenance of America’s transportation infrastructure cost the country more than $129 billion in 2010.

But those same engineers also say that fixing those problems would cost about $94 billion a year. And where are we supposed to get that kind of money? We simply can’t afford to save each American household $1,060 a year, or save the 180 million hours in travel time the ASCE says we’re wasting due to our crumbling transportation infrastructure.

In Oklahoma and Texas, they’re taking a less labor-intensive approach to responding to the drought. As Bruce Prescott reports, “Governors Seek Prayers for Rain, Deny Climate Change“:

Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin is using her bully pulpit to call Oklahomans to pray for rain.

More than 40 percent of Oklahoma is experiencing an exceptional drought, the most severe category measured by climatologists.

Currently, 58 percent of Oklahoma is facing either an extreme or an exceptional drought. Meanwhile, a record-setting heat wave continues throughout the state with no end in sight.

Oklahoma needs rain. So does Texas.

Seventy percent of Texas is in the category of exceptional drought.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry issued a call for prayer in April, but those prayers have not been answered. In fact, the drought in Texas is much worse than when Perry issued his call for prayer.

Both Fallin and Perry are among the prominent politicians who are skeptical about the scientific evidence for anthropogenic climate change.

The drought is awful and praying can’t hurt. It obviously shouldn’t be states’ only response, but it can’t hurt.

What can hurt is blithely ignoring future droughts and inviting calamity by pretending to be “skeptical” about science.

I realize there’s an ethical dilemma here. Gov. Perry and Fallin have taken a lot of money from companies promoting anti-science climate denialism. That money entails an implicit quid pro quo. For Perry or Fallin to stop denying the facts at this point, after already accepting this money, would be almost like stealing. And stealing would be unethical. (“An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought.”)

One does wonder, though, how long Govs. Fallin and Perry can continue denying climate change in the face of, you know, a changing climate.

Climate change is making the need for a massive reinvestment in our infrastructure more urgent, but even without the effects of climate change, that need becomes more urgent every day because so much of our infrastructure is really, really old.

A major Bronx water supply line burst this morning … flooding Jerome Avenue for several blocks near 177th Street, halting traffic, disrupting subway and bus service, and damaging two nearby gas mains. … Speaking at a news conference, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said it was not clear why the pipe, which was installed in 1903, had burst. “It has been doing yeoman’s work, but unfortunately, after 108 years, it’s not,” he said.

There’s only so long you can try to save money by putting off fixing the roof. Then it starts to get really expensive really fast.

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