Hurricane Katrina has killed a host of poor people in New Orleans, and corporate America is her accomplice.

Perhaps corporate America isn’t quite that guilty in this case. But it is in fact guilty.

No, I haven’t been drinking … well, not excessively. How corporate America is guilty in a hurricane situation starts with global warming.

“Hurricanes have grown significantly more powerful and destructive over the last three decades due in part to global warming,” said a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor in a July 31 MIT press release.

He warned this trend could continue.

I feel the study’s author, MIT meteorology professor Kerry Emanuel, is credible. It’s just common-sense that raising global temperatures might cause trouble.

While CO2 emissions have caused global warming and stronger hurricanes, oil companies pay millions of dollars to politicians who later alter environmental laws.

Consider two news stories:

First, a Dec. 19 Associated Press article stated the energy industry gave more than $1 million to President Bush’s inauguration fund. The article states both Occidental Petroleum and Exxon Mobil gave $250,000.

Second, an Aug. 25 Reuters article states, “Bush refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol, the greenhouse gas reduction plan adopted by more than 150 countries.”

Reuters continues, “The Bush administration wants cuts to be voluntary and resists mandatory measures it says would hurt economic growth.”

Reuters also states 40 percent of CO2 emissions come from fossil-fuel power plants.

You can’t tell me the power plants, Bush’s refusal to sign an environmental treaty and corporate contributions are unrelated.

Haliburton certainly has done well by Bush’s little adventure in Iraq. In 2003 contracts alone, they made $4.3 billion according to the Center for Public Integrity, despite being investigated for overcharging. Meanwhile, thousands are dead, no weapons of mass destruction or terrorist ties have been found and Bush can’t tell us when we’re leaving.

But Haliburton is doing fine.

Since 2001, Louisiana officials have asked for less than one-eighth of Haliburton’s 2003 contracts, or under $500 million, to reinforce the levees in New Orleans. They’ve received half.

The Sept. 4 Chicago Tribune reported, “Expanding New Orleans’ levees to protect against a Category 5 storm would cost an estimated $2.5 billion.”

So for about half the money given to Haliburton, New Orleans could have been protected from a storm as bad as Katrina.

But you can’t deny Bush and Haliburton their Iraq “mad-money” or the National Guardsmen who would normally help with a hurricane.

The Tribune reported on Sept. 3, “With many states’ Guard units depleted by deployments to Iraq, Katrina’s aftermath was almost certain from the beginning to require help from faraway states.”

An Aug. 29 Washington Post article revealed 3,000 of the 10,500 Louisiana national Guardsmen are in Iraq. Sufficient numbers of guardsmen finally got to the New Orleans area, but three days after most of the damage was done.

Also consider this: Greyhound has legions of buses.

I looked at the number of Best Western hotels in Louisiana, and there has to be more than 200.

If government and big business were really committed to helping the refugees, they would get every victim into a decent hotel room via a bus.

Maybe corporate America didn’t set Katrina loose. But the CO2 emissions and lobbying against environmental laws helped cause global warming, which makes hurricanes worse.

Money wasted in Iraq and troops used in Iraq could have been used to protect New Orleans.

And I don’t see any displaced persons at the Hilton, the Marriott or the Best Western.

Perhaps George W’s mother, Barbara Bush, explained this elitist culture’s attitude toward New Orleans best.

In the Sept. 7 New York Times she said of Houston’s Astrodome, which held Katrina victims, “And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them.”

Yeah, you live there, lady. You and the corporations may not be guilty in a court of law.

But you do seem heartless.

Columns reflect the opinion of the author and not necessarily that of the Northern Star staff.