To the editor:

I have to say some harsh words. I could condemn those who weren’t better-prepared to help the Gulf Coast people. Instead I want to say harsh words about what we should do after we rescue the living and bury the dead.

New Orleans should be abandoned. It is below sea level. The city is sinking because of what we have done to the Mississippi wetlands. The sea is rising, slowly now, as Greenland, Antarctica and the Alpine glaciers melt. If we resolve to rebuild, to keep it, we will fight an expensive losing battle to keep the sea out for centuries to come. Let the drowned birthplace of jazz be a memorial to our poor choices.

The connection between carbon dioxide and a climate is not a controversial question of climate recording, it is a physics no-brainer as simple as the similarity in the way light energy is processed by CO2 in the air and by glass when your car sits in the sunlight. We can expect a lot more of the same, even if we clean up our act tomorrow. The misery and expense of the Gulf Coast is a sample. The greenhouse gas problem must be solved.

Adrian Melott,

Lawrence