Haiti and the global warming connection

I have three comments on last week’s earthquake in Haiti. One, I hope you’ll consider giving to a Haitian relief fund. Ten dollars, $50, $1 million, give what you can.

Haiti, the first independent nation in Latin America, which gained its freedom from the French in 1804 in a slave-led rebellion, is also this hemisphere’s poorest country, with a per capita income of $400. Hampered by widespread political corruption over the decades and few natural resources to trade with, it has never overcome its oppressive beginnings. Perhaps we can help.

Two, I find it reprehensible that political pundits on the far right and left would use a natural disaster such as this to score points with their followers. On the right, there were those who discouraged folks from donating to the Haitian relief effort through the White House, saying, in essence, that to do so would aid not only the Haitian people, but also the Obama administration.

On the left, there were those who said Obama was wrong to tap former President George W. Bush to lead the U.S. relief effort with former President Clinton. A number of liberal pundits skewered Bush for his performance after Hurricane Katrina and said that he would only wreck the relief effort in Haiti.

This is no time for politics. Obama was right to tap a Republican and a Democrat to lead the nation’s collection of private-sector donations for Haiti. What is most important is that aid flow quickly to Haiti — and then steadily for a long period of time.

Third, Haiti gives us all a window into how vulnerable the poorest nations are to natural disasters. There were no high-tech solutions to the search-and-rescue effort, just people furiously digging through rubble by hand as mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles died in the debris beneath them.

Before the quake, a 7.0-magnitude monster, I had intended to write about global warming. Then I thought I should write about Haiti. Then, I thought, I should really write about both.