Hurricane Sandy Teaches--Do We Listen?

Ok, the short answer is no.  We are not a people to anticipate.  We like to let history repeat itself.  What is familiar is comforting for some I guess.  And others are just making so much money  they don’t really care how much they are screwing it up for everyone else for all time.

How long past time is it to talk about global climate change?  Andrew Cuomo thinks that the time to stop is upon us.  Chris Christie can’t stop praising the POTUS even though we are on the eve of a contentious election.  They can both see a role for ‘Big Government’ this week.  And the list will undoubtedly go on as the future unfolds.  After all, climate specialists have been talking about this for years, often losing their jobs because the message they brought was not one that was well received.  But Hurricane Sandy is unlikely to be the last threat to Manhattan as time goes on—they were lucky to dodge Irene, and it is time to start planning for the future of coastal cities.  It is time to talk about updating the infrastructure of our power system to make it less vulnerable to storms.  It is time to prepare—something that democracies have gotten exceedingly poor at doing.

The problem with carbon emissions is that as the tundra warms up over the northern climes, the carbon emissions that are stored in there will be seeping out at a rate that exceeds our production AND we haven’t slowed our own use of carbon emitting energy.  AND we want to mine more of our own—at the expense of fresh water, no less.  That is the precious resource of the next generation, and we freely throw it away  while we complicate the problems that are already close at hand.  The GOP still sees oil as the pathway to energy independence—which will come back to haunt us all in the end, but in the short run it has slowed the progression of growth in wind and solar.   I hope and pray that Congress can get back to the job of planning for our country’s future and not attend to the needs of their biggest donors.