William Irwin Thompson Quotes

New Orleans has to learn to live with water rather than in fear of water, and we need a master plan that shows us how to do this. It's so critical that we send a signal to everyone in the country that we're serious about rebuilding New Orleans.

You can't vote that water out of the city of New Orleans.

Invite the best and brightest to compete for a grand prize to come up with designs, including new zoning, building codes and so forth, for New Orleans that could make it safe from water, and let the state and city pick the plan that works best for Louisiana.

After the destruction of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the shutdown of much of New York City by Sandy in 2012, and now the devastation wrought on Texas by Harvey, the U.S. can and should do better.

Venice, Italy, survives 365 days out of every year in water; New Orleans can survive a few days of water if it has to.

Considering the dire circumstances that we have in New Orleans, virtually a city that has been destroyed, things are going relatively well.

The answer to New Orleans's levee woes is painfully obvious: money and willpower.

Hurricane Katrina exposed the harsh reality that we have been skating on thin ice when it comes to this country's energy concentrations on the Gulf Coast.

As cities have grown rapidly across the nation, many have neglected infrastructure projects and paved over green spaces that once absorbed rainwater.

There's no way New Orleans will ever be the city it was. I think it will have half the population. They may create a sort of Disneyland at the French Quarter for tourists. The rest I don't know.

Administration policies seem to tacitly encourage those who live below sea level in New Orleans to relocate permanently, to leave the dangerous water's edge for more prosperous inland cities such as Shreveport or Baton Rouge.

We've had hurricanes in Florida forever. And the question is, 'What do we do about the fact that we have built expensive structures, real estate and population centers, near those vulnerable areas?'

We owe it to the flood victims of New Orleans to give them truthful answers as to why this event took place and to assure our citizens that tragedies like this will never happen again.

What was once a 100-year flood will happen every 3 to 20 years. And truly catastrophic storms will do damage unimaginable today.

We must maintain strong building codes, strengthen flood insurance programs, and forcefully acknowledge the reality that rising sea temperatures caused by made-man climate change are negatively impacting our way of life. This should be a bipartisan task that finds support with bipartisan solutions.

State ownership of flood control efforts will not completely eliminate the problem but can substantially reduce it.

Climate change knows no borders. It will not stop before the Pacific islands and the whole of the international community here has to shoulder a responsibility to bring about a sustainable development.

Preparing for climate change has to be a national priority backed by tens of billions in federal investment. Lives are on the line.

It is impossible for Bangladesh alone to take action against the rising sea level, as it has been a cumulative effect of global emission in which Bangladesh does not have any role. It is the responsibility of global community to address this issue as urgently as possible.

We not only need a rapid transition to a low-carbon economy that prevents the most cataclysmic consequences of global warming, we need real dollars and real planning for coastal protection to combat the consequences that are already inevitable.

If the sea level rises 6 inches, that's a big deal... we can't mitigate that; we can't stop it. We've just got to stop building vast houses on seashores and go back a little bit.

One can only hope that America, and other countries, will not need more natural persuasion before taking to heart the lessons of Hurricane Harvey.

Typhoon Haiyan showed the entire world how vulnerable the Philippines as well as other developing countries are to natural disasters.

The climate is changing. That's not the debate. The debate is how do we know what the ideal surface temperature is in 2100?

As the former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and former governor of New Jersey, I have witnessed the impact of climate change firsthand.