Can Sandy Help Jolt America Out of Climate Change Denial?

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/environment/can-sandy-help-jolt-america-out-climate-change-denial


Never has a hurricane been more aptly, if tragically, named than Sandy, the superstorm that flooded New York City and battered much of the East Coast. At press time, the storm had killed at least forty-three people and caused an estimated $32 billion in damages to buildings and infrastructure—figures expected to increase in the coming days as emergency personnel pick through the wreckage—and left 8 million homes without electricity.

Sandy is short for Cassandra, the Greek mythological figure who epitomizes tragedy. The gods gave Cassandra the gift of prophecy; depending on which version of the story one prefers, she could either see or smell the future. But with this gift also came a curse: Cassandra’s warnings about future disasters were fated to be ignored. That is the essence of this tragedy: to know that a given course of action will lead to disaster but to pursue it nevertheless.

And so it has been with America’s response to climate change. For more than twenty years, scientists and others have been warning that global warming, if left unaddressed, would bring a catastrophic increase in extreme weather—summers like that of 2012, when the United States endured the hottest July on record and the worst drought in fifty years, mega-storms like the one now punishing the East Coast.

Hurricanes are fueled by hot ocean surface temperatures. The Atlantic Ocean is about five degrees Fahrenheit hotter than usual this fall, and as Katharine Hayhoe of the University of Texas has noted , about 15 percent of this extra heat is directly due to global warming. The flooding unleashed by Sandy is especially destructive, Kayhoe adds, because global warming has caused sea levels in the New York region to rise by one foot over the past century.

[Eddie Haskell]

1. The elephant in the room can no longer be ignored.

But it would be nice if the next one hits Texas.

[GliderGuider]

2. Sure it can! Just watch.

Sorry to be so cynical, but I see no reason to think that we will do anything more than pay lip service and wring our hands. Actually doing something would require people to change their way of living, which won't happen until after the shit hits the fan.

[marions ghost]

3. Sea Level rise began abruptly in 1987

http://www.vims.edu/newsandevents/topstories/boon_slr.php

We've had long enough to avoid the issue. Time to face it?