This past Thursday, September 1, 2005, four days after Hurricane Katrina hit the United States Gulf Coast, I found myself lecturing to Cornell undergraduates about the relationship between wetland loss in Louisiana and the severity of the hurricane’s effects on the coast. I also found myself decrying the disconnect between what scientists know and the legitimate use of science in policy decisions. The likelihood of the devastation the Nation is now witnessing, as well as how to mitigate it, has been known by wetland scientists, coastal engineers, and scientists studying the physics of hurricanes for decades. That knowledge is based, not on opinion, but on data and fundamental scientific concepts acquired and tested against the rigorous standards that the scientific community exerts on its members. To ignore such knowledge, and worse, to relegate all science to the category of just another interest group, and decrease federal funding for it, is to court the disaster we have now before us.
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