Climate Reality Smacks, But What Change Ahead?

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http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/11/01-0


Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York visited Breezy Point. (Michael Appleton for The New York Times)


Climate change is here. It has teeth. And now—with millions still out of power and a region reeling four days after Hurricane Sandy ripped through the Northeast—the nation is realizing that nature is not going to wait as elected officials get permission or find the courage to begin speaking out about how they plan to deal with the impact of a climate in dangerous flux.

As The New York Times reported Wednesday, the warnings about rising sea levels, storm surges and the city's vulnerable infrastructure came again and again:

For nearly a decade, scientists have told city and state officials that New York faces certain peril: rising sea levels, more frequent flooding and extreme weather patterns. The alarm bells grew louder after Tropical Storm Irene last year, when the city shut down its subway system and water rushed into the Rockaways and Lower Manhattan.

Despite the warnings, little or nothing was done. Now, as half the city remains crippled by power outages and a hobbled public transportation system, talk is getting serious about how one of the world's iconic cities—a major financial, cultural, and transportation hub—can transform itself for what climate scientists are calling the "new normal" of global warming and its destruction siblings, climate change and extreme weather.