[annabellish]

>It's OK to just solve the tractable problems in front of us and to get a good couple of decades out of a system.

Is it? Is it really? The point the article is making is that by designing a system which solves the problems in front of them to get a good many decades out of a system, those engineers have actually made other problems worse. I think you're being overly simplistic when you suggest that the problem the article is proposing is that the system requires some rework.

The problem the article is proposing is that fundamental, irreperable damage has been done. We can't un-do that damage. Short term thinking like what you're proposing is, by the vast majority of evidence and evidenced theories, destroying our world and risking the survival of our species. It is not okay to just solve the problems in front of us now if the cost is that all our children die in chaos and poverty--and it looks like the cost is just that.

[bsder]

The engineering is fine.

You simply need to remove 15 million people to somewhere else.

So what is your solution to that?

(The lesson from Katrina is simply that there IS no solution--you have to let things build until a catastrophic event finally forces people out of the area.)