It’s easy to overlook the good works that people are capable of.

The levee failure, the severity of the storm, and the degree of the storm surge are also a huge example of the ties between environmental justice movements and anti-capitalist and anti-racist movements, because our culture subjects people who are poor and/or of color to the brunt of the environmental damage that we’re causing. In addition to the sub-par construction of the levees, the destruction of the wetlands in the Mississippi delta also contributed to the magnitude of the hurricane – between the amount of sediment in the Mississippi being reduced by three-quarters by dams, MR-GO preventing sediment from depositing, and global warming causing sea levels to rise, the storm surge was a lot worse. And, of course, global warming causes hurricanes to be more powerful. And the majority of neighborhoods in New Orleans, pre-Katrina, that were most prone to flooding were poor and black.