What have we learned as a species in the past 200 years about our planet? Have we got it through our thick skulls yet that placing communities near the tropic oceans is a dangerous gamble? Face the fact (and this has been said before, many times) that the greater the population of humanity, the greater the odds of obscene casualities when a natural disaster, like a hurricane, hits hard. As I write this on Labor Day weekend, another monster storm, Gustav, I tearing up the Gulf of Mexico, soon to plow into the US coast.

When apocalyptic Katrina hit New Orleans a few years ago, it looked like the Crescent City was sinking forever into history like Atlantis. Much to my surprise, the city repopulated to some degree and that accursed convention center went back into business. Now I don't blame people for wanting to go back to their homes, but should we not, as a people, be learning lessons about where and where not to set up our cities? Certainly a below-sea-level metropolis should have our eyes rolling in wonder at the absurdity! Instead, we spend millions on levees that nature can take out again with a certain amout of water pressure.

And then there are beachfront resorts like Miami, Atlantic City, Cancun, etc., ad infinitum. We complain when storms move beaches and change the maps of the coasts. Not to mention mourning the death of those caught in the surge of a hurricane. Well, what if we moved the resorts 20 miles inland and had high speed mag-lev trains to take bathers to unpolluted seashore parks in good weather? No more riuned real estate, just beaches that are a little different every year, the way it has always been. And hey! Lookit! That sounds like a "green" solution too!

Another advantage surfaces if we relocate cities inland. Economically, think of the billions (trillions, maybe?) in insurance losses from the Katrina disaster. I remember predicting those claims being made and that many would end in default. It proved to happen. Would we be in better shape economically in 2008 if there were no coastal homes existing to be decimated?

Yeah, it is unrealistic to ask our culture to shift all cities inland, I guess? But what do you think it would take to actually convince people to do it? How many more lives? Maybe it will take Hurricane Gustav to teach us some more lessons.