Le Temps: Katrina - the most serious test for the US economic course in recent years

Hurricane "Katrina" will have huge consequences for the United States. Basically - economically, but politics will be affected, the Swiss Le Temps believes. "The disaster struck oil refineries, which a quarter of all the oil consumed by the economy consumed in the world arrives. And this happens at the moment when the price for the barrel reached the highest mark, and the discontent of the unpredictability of the energy policy of the White House is much more than ever," the publication says. (Transfer of an article on the website inopressa.ru .)

Katrina hit the region, least protected from floods and consequences of climate warming. It is not so important to American citizens whether the scientists are right in assessing the causes of what happened, but they know that the risk is real, but it is not taken seriously by the president who continues to believe that the era of cheap oil promises only good and should continue. Not only is he mistaken: everyone says that the available oil reserves and the oil production regions are becoming less reliable, the publication points out.

Even oil companies do not hide that they are already preparing for the “post -post” era and intend to fight against carbon dioxide emissions. But the president, who remains a prisoner of old conservative schemes, slows down with the adoption of measures and, in response to the fears of scientists, casts doubt on climatic forecasts that publish the authoritative universities of the country.

Its defenders pretend that they are supporters of pragmatic policy, and they say that you need to wait until the progress of science and technology will allow you to change the course and priorities. These words could support the illusion while the barrel was cheap, and the threat of oil dependence loomed very far. The Americans see that in reality there is no energy "plan B", although the spirit of the law on energy provides that the White House should prepare it.

Even Ronald Reagan was more consistent: he wanted to deprive the oil cartel of subsidies and again provide the market with the opportunity to prepare for a change in the energy course. On the contrary, George Bush, like a negligent student and pseudoliberal, increases subsidies to the oil cartel and allocates only crumbs to search for new, renewable energy sources, which kills all the will to change the course in the bud.

“Worse, its administration is fighting against the most elementary measures to increase energy efficiency, the adoption of which are many states and large industrial companies. This is no longer an ideological position that has certain reasons, but a person’s policy, blinded by a 50 -year -old abundance of cheap oil,” Le TEMPS sums up.