The Prosperity Factor

Hurricane Katrina and the Bhola Cyclone that hit Bangladesh in 1970 were both highly destructive category 3 hurricanes. But while our Hurricane Katrina was responsible for less than 2,000 deaths on the Gulf Coast of America, the Bhola Cyclone killed somewhere between 300,000 and 500,000. Why the difference? I would strongly submit here that it was the prosperity of America that created a) a superior (albeit far, far from perfect) infrastructure and b) a superior (again, albeit far, far from perfect) response to the tragedy. I would also strongly submit that it is prosperity and economic development which give us the much better chance of dealing with climate change (long term) than those crazy types of crony capitalism and deficit spending spree approaches and discredited prevention measures such as the Stern and Gore proposals. The only thing that those two latter strategies will accomplish is make us poor, very poor.