I was alone in my bedroom in Brooklyn as the wind howled and tree trunks tore apart outside landing on my neighbor's front stoops.
I watched from my window as Hurricane Sandy stormed through America's northeast, killing at least 60 people in its path. Although I had declined several invitations to weather the storm with friends, I quickly realized, I wasn't alone. It became hard to ignore the elephant in my room with me -- Climate Change.
Climate change is kind of like racism. Nobody really wants to talk about it, but it is as critical as it is constructive that we have that conversation now. Whether politicians, pundits or polls bring it up or not, like racism, we all know climate change is real. We all know it threatens our peace, security and the very unity of these United States of America.
Still, perhaps because we need it, we are gifted sharp reminders.
"My party is full of racists," Colin Powell's former chief of staff, Retired Army Col. Lawrence Wilkerson reminded us just the other day, "the real reason a considerable portion of my party wants President Obama out of the White House has nothing to do with the content of his character... and everything to do with the color of his skin, and that's despicable."
What may be more despicable than racism in this context is denying its existence. Just like those who deny our climate is changing, and that we, with our drills and in our drivers seats, are directly contributing to the change.
Sandy submerged much of Lower Manhattan underwater, cut millions off from electricity, subways are not running for at least several days, airports are closed, tunnels are flooded, transformers are exploding and fires breaking out. It should come as no surprise that the MTA described it as "the worst disaster in the history of the 108 year old subway system."
ConEd, New York's utility company, described the damage and destruction done to its power systems, as "unprecedented in scope."
Yes despite these unprecedented realities, we remain a polarized, nation. Politics often get in the way of the important conversation we should be having. But Mother Nature isn't really concerned with picking sides in politics. What she is probably concerned about is why our politicians have been ignoring her for so long.
Seeing Gov. Christie and Obama working together as they respond to the superstorm is encouraging. Since Sandy, they both have exchanged compliments in recent days, but it was not so long ago that Gov. Christie was railing against Obama for saying that the government has a role to play in helping people build businesses.
Imagine if New Jersey and New York had to rely on state resources for disaster relief as Romney continues to suggest?
But putting politics aside is imperative because the people affected by this storm are do not belong to one political party. As Bill Clinton reminded us, they are being told the same things.
"All up and down the east coast there are mayors, many of them Republicans, who are being told you gotta move these houses back away from the ocean," Clinton said. "You got to lift them up. Climate change is gonna raise the water levels on a permanent basis."
For the first time since I was born - September 1984 - the presidential and vice presidential debates ignored the threat of climate change, which is both the greatest challenge of our time and a sobering and serious national (and international) security threat. If you don't believe me, ask Sandy, or the scientists, or for that matter, our Secretary of Defense.
"The area of climate change has a dramatic impact on national security. Rising sea levels, severe droughts, the melting of the polar caps, the more frequent and devastating natural disasters all raise demand for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief" - Secretary of Defense Leon PanettaAs Sandy smashed into the New Jersey coastline with 80 mph winds, I was on Twitter staying up to date on the latest developments from the region. I would eventually quote one of Obama's acknowledgements of climate change.
@ASE
Stevo, from South Florida responded to me on Twitter:
@PapiTerra
He shared the following tweet from Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California, who in his Twitter bio claims to be a former speechwriter for President Reagan.
@DanaRohrabacher
People like Rohrabacher are a big part of the problem because they prevent us from having a serious and comprehensive conversation about observed changes in our environment and how they are affecting millions and millions of Americans.
The arctic is melting faster than most scientists predicted. The extent of Arctic sea ice coverage hit a record low in 2012. Rapid decreases in the sea ice means the polar ice sheets might be melting more rapidly than previously predicted, introducing vast amounts of water into our oceans. The ongoing rise in average global temperatures, which contributes to the rapid melting, is largely linked to the burning of fossil fuels. China has recently overtaken the US as the top greenhouse gas emitter in the world.
About a month ago, a Chinese icebreaker became the first ship from China to cross the Arctic Ocean, a move that highlights Beijing's aggressive ambitions in the remote region where new trade routes appear likely to open up. China also recently applied to become an observer at the Arctic Council, made up of Russia, Canada, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark and Iceland.
But its not just China that is looking at the potential economic opportunities created by the melting ice caps. As the Arctic sea ice coverage hits a record low this year, a new Gold Rush may be emerging with many countries including South Korea looking to invest in drilling opportunities for oil and gas as the Arctic economy start to grow.
For the U.S. alone, the economic potential from the energy and mineral resources is in the trillion of dollars. But the geopolitical and environmental cost is likely to be of unimaginable proportions.
I do not know the specifics behind the science on climate change, but I do know if we continue to act on the premise that there are no consequences to our actions, to our industrial growth, to our carbon emissions, the next Sandy will come sooner and stronger than any of us would like.
I understand that profit motivates everyday Americans and our politicians. Romney himself is perhaps epitomizes that persona. But pursuing profit and prosperity without taking time to process the potential negative effects to our environment and national security is a profound mistake.
When Romney ridiculed President Obama for his efforts of fighting global warming by saying, "Oh, you're going to turn back the seas.", his arrogance was certainly on full display.
When it comes to climate change, like Romney, we could all use some humility and a willingness to learn more about the challenges we face. After all, we share this planet, and its natural resources with many species. Climate change does not just alter the patterns of diseases in humans, it has the power to disrupt the delicate balance of our ecosystem, which we are all mutually dependent on for survival.
Follow Ahmed Shihab-Eldin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ase
Actually, people like you are the real problem, because they prevent our society from waking up and putting and end to this scam that affects millions and millions of Americans.
What is your science education and professional experience that somehow leads you to believe that you understand climate science better than the experts at the National Academy of Sciences?
What did you ever win?
Fake climate science "skeptics" are "enemies of Democracy":
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I’ve recently been involved with other scientists and scholars in Utah trying to stop the spread of outright lies, half-truths, abuses of data, and distortions about climate change. Much of this disinformation is coming from (or through) some Republican members of the Utah Legislature, and the other Republican (and some Democratic) members have swallowed it hook, line, and sinker...
Climate change is not just a global or national issue – it will also be played out at the state and local levels…
In addition, I’m a Republican myself, and it galls me that my own party has locally fallen for a bunch of conspiracy theories and scientifically incompetent trash. In my opinion, something has to be done to save the party from disaster in the long run…
Democracy depends on accurate information being readily available to the public, and I see people who propagate such disinformation campaigns as enemies of Democracy.
http://bbickmore.wordpress.com/about-this-blog/
"I do not know the specifics behind the science on climate change,".
Typical of your opinion, which is counter to scientific fact and empirical evidence, is the very next comment:
"I do know if we continue to act on the premise that there are no consequences to our actions, to our industrial growth, to our carbon emissions, the next Sandy will come sooner and stronger".
Here is a little inconvenient fact: it has been 7 years since any major Atlantic basin hurricane (Cat 3 or higher) has struck the coast of the US. Gore, Hansen, libcelebs, and the libmedia (HuffPo included) told us the exact same thing you said above after Katrina. And then we broke a 100 year record for consecutive days without a major Atlantic basin hurricane hitting the coast. That record is still running, and since the next season won't start until 6/1/13, it will be extended another 6-9 months at least.
Sandy wasn't even a "hurricane" when it struck.
Storms much stronger (cat 3 and higher) have struck the mid-Atlantic and New England over the last 125 years. There was far less human population, development, and insured/uninsured property values in the way of those storms than today.
I am sorry to advise you that ideology will not change the laws of physics and economics, no matter how hard you try.
No it isn't, your carefully worded obfuscation rhetoric that would have readers believe otherwise notwithstanding.
Top hurricane experts agree that Atlantic ocean warming will lead to a greater frequency of more powerful hurricanes, if it has not done so already. (And per the study I linked to downthread it has done so already.)
Carbonicus: "we broke a 100 year record for consecutive days without a major Atlantic basin hurricane hitting the coast. That record is still running"
That's a classic example of how to mislead through carefully-worded obfuscation rhetoric.
Sandy was massive in size -- it was ~1,200 miles in diameter -- and thus massive in power.
Carbonicus: "I am sorry to advise you that ideology will not change the laws of physics and economics, no matter how hard you try."
Science denier irony never ends.
What is your science education and professional experience that somehow leads you to believe that you understand climate science better than the experts at the National Academy of Sciences?
I'm not a science graduate and don't claim to understand climate science better than the National Academy of Sciences. I can tell you a few things that I do know.
I know that in my country the 'leading' Climate Science research centre at the University of East Anglia had a lot of their emails released a few years ago.
It seems they did not know why the forecast global warming due to CO2 was not showing up the way their computer models said it should. In the words of one of their US correspondents, Kevin Trenberth, in 2009 ""The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't".
The UEA's Prof. Phil Jones said " "I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (i.e, from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline." (The decline in the increase of global temps).
There was evidence of them breaking the laws of my country to hide data from people making legitimate requests for that data to be shared. There was evidence that the data sets they used were so manipulated, altered and patchy that they were unfit for purpose.
I would go on but there is a 250 word limit.
I also know the BBC long ago gave up impartiality in reporting on climate science affairs, in 2005 in fact. They now only give weight to the AGW Global Warming theories. I know because they admitted it, even though this is a breach of their charter. I resent this because UK law makes me pay tax to keep the BBC in the style they've become accustomed to. The style where they present biased evidence to me about climate science, cover up Paedo entertainers operating in their own premises, cosy up to certain political parties and lambast others.
In 2000, Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit of the University of East Anglia, said within a few years winter snowfall will become "a very rare and exciting event". "Children just aren't going to know what snow is."
I know that here in London's suburbs where snow had been fairly rare for the 45 years I've lived here, we've had snow in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 and the forecast is for another cold winter ahead.
I know that 30,000 + scientists (a 3rd have Phd's) put their name to the Oregon petition urging US politicians to reject policies based on concerns over global warming. I know this is more scientists who have put their name to the IPCC reports.
Shocking.
http://www.swemson.com/upl/Cooling.jpg
And the next we're being roasted alive:
http://www.swemson.com/upl/Warming.jpg
Just about everything we've been told has been a lie. The polar bears were disappearing because they were being hunted to extinction. They became a protected species a few decades back, and their numbers have more than quadrupled since then.
And contrary to what everyone thinks, warming poses no threat to the polar bears, or, frankly, to just about any living creatures:
http://www.swemson.com/upl/nrb.bear.jpg
Throughout man's history, our species has always thrived during the earth's warm periods, and suffered & starved during the cold periods for one simple and obvious reason: Crops don't grow well when it's cold!
CO2 is not a pollutant. Without it nothing would be green.... NOTHING!
And CO2 is not carbon.... Just as H2O in NOT hydrogen
It's all a big lie folks....
http://www.swemson.com/upl/agw.jpg
fs
Science denier talking points never die, no matter how many times a stake has been driven through their hearts.
For example, even in the 1970s there were far more papers supporting global warming than global cooling., incessant science denier propaganda that would have one believe otherwise notwithstanding.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XB3S0fnOr0M
False.
You can't even parrot Romney's repeatedly-debunked claim correctly.
----------------------------------------
Fact check: Are half of 'green' energy firms helped by stimulus out of business? ...
In fact, of the 28 funded projects -- involving 23 companies -- listed in a 2012 congressional report, only four involve businesses that were either sold or are not in operation.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/04/politics/fact-check-green-energy/index.html
And America ain't going vegetarian. And vegetarianism won't save humanity or the planet.
Think in geologic terms. Livestock GHGs aren't harming anyone or anything. Nor are human GHGs. 16 years with no statistically significant warming and GHGs continuing to rise. 7 years without a major hurricane hitting the US Atlantic basin coasts.
Empirical evidence says you are wrong and the computer models are wrong.
Guess again.
As Foster and Rahmstorf document in "Global temperature evolution 1979–2010":
"When the fluctuations in temperature over the last 32 years (which tend to obscure the continuation of the global warming trend) are accounted for, it becomes obvious that there has not been any cessation, or even any slowing, of global warming over the last decade (or at any time during this time span)."
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/6/4/044022/fulltext/
In 1972, two scientists – George J. Kukla (of the Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory) and R. K. Matthews (Chairman, Dept of Geological Sciences, Brown University) – wrote the following letter to President Nixon warning of the possibility of a new ice age:
Um..
You meant that as a joke, right?
You are talking about 40 years ago.
The better part of a half-century.
Do you think that maybe science has advanced over the past 40 years?
Also:
In the 1970s far more scientific studies supported global warming over global cooling in any event --mass media hype back then and incessant science denier propaganda today that would have one believe otherwise notwithstanding.
Here are a bunch of those denial talking points like the one you just repeated, all broken down by type of persuasive meme behind them: http://grist.org/series/skeptics/
So where do all these arguments against the science come from? http://www.publicintegrity.org/2008/09/30/3047/global-warming-heated-denials
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Homogeneous record of Atlantic hurricane surge threat since 1923
Abstract
Detection and attribution of past changes in cyclone activity are
hampered by biased cyclone records due to changes in observational
capabilities. Here we construct an independent record of Atlantic
tropical cyclone activity on the basis of storm surge statistics from
tide gauges. We demonstrate that the major events in our surge index
record can be attributed to landfalling tropical cyclones; these
events also correspond with the most economically damaging Atlantic
cyclones. We find that warm years in general were more active in all
cyclone size ranges than cold years. The largest cyclones are most
affected by warmer conditions and we detect a statistically
significant trend in the frequency of large surge events (roughly
corresponding to tropical storm size) since 1923. In particular, we
estimate that Katrina-magnitude events have been twice as frequent in
warm years compared with cold years (P < 0.02).
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/10/10/1209542109
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/downward/index.html
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/resource-2476-2008.02.pdf
http://www.ivm.vu.nl/en/Images/bouwer2011_BAMS_tcm53-210701.pdf
"Across both normalization methods, there is no remaining trend of increasing
absolute damage in the data set, which follows the lack of trends in landfall frequency or intensity observed over the twentieth century."
Also the Landsea study you cited is from 1996. Since then Landsea has concluded that while his (older) analyses did not find an observed historical linkage that per the science there is a physical linkage that that global warming likely leads to stronger hurricanes.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204840504578089413659452702.html
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/10/10/1209542109
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/knutson-et-al-nat-geo.pdf
ftp://texmex.mit.edu/pub/emanuel/PAPERS/EOS_mann_emanuel_2006.pdf
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/moist_convection_prt.htm
http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2318
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101025152249.htm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071204121949.htm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070830105911.htm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2009/0109-global_warming_causes_severe_storms.htm
Link two: Read page two of link Tropical Cyclone Projections/Frequency
Link three: Admits it is just guessing if you read it.
Link four: Has been proven to use faulty assumptions and methodology.
Link five: meaningless liberal opinion.
Links six through nine: Liberal sell your story site no concern on accuracy. Universities have come to rely on ScienceDaily to spread news about their scientists’ findings to a wider audience. And through ScienceDaily’s email newsletters and RSS newsfeeds (offered freely to both commercial and non-commercial web sites as well as individuals), news about these important discoveries is further amplified.
Martin Hoerling, a meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said Sandy wasn’t boosted by global warming -- the storm merely revealed natural forces at work.
“Great events can have little causes,” he told the New York Times. “In this case, the immediate cause is most likely little more that the coincidental alignment of a tropical storm with an extratropical storm.”
As for Sandy, Andrew Weaver, a climate scientist with Canada’s University of Victoria, said climate change didn't make an ordinary storm extraordinary.
"The ingredients of this storm seem a little bit cooked by climate change, but the overall storm is difficult to attribute to global warming," Weaver told the Associated Press.
And besides, a storm would have no idea if the globe warmed or not... October was very cold, and the AMO in this part of its cycle transports more gulf stream heat north. Between the two, you get good temperature contrast, which is what powers hurricanes. Same pattern as some of the huge east coast storms of the 1950's. So don't be surprised if we get 10 years of storms like this before things settle down. Right now we are WAY overdue for a major hurricane strike in the USA, it has been a century since zero majors have hit the USA in 7 years +. More extreme in the sense that the frequency is at a minimum. So the witch burners are partially correct.
Dr Mann, of climate change hockeystick fame, was quoted in Science News Magazine that the politicians have taken over Climate Change for their own benefit.
All the while, Americans continue with their greedy wasteful lives, complaining about the high price of gasoline. If it were actually possible to "fix" climate change, we are going about it the wrong way.
Democrats controlled the White House, Senate, and House of Reps from 1/20/09 until Nov. 2010. If they'd have wanted to bring a vote to the floor of the Senate, they'd have done so.
Reid recognized it was a loser and HE chose not to. This wasn't about Republicans. You are simply, unequivocally, wrong.
Provide the quote and a link, please.
1954 Carol (cat 3 when hit New England. would've done around $30 billino in damage in 2012 $)
1960 Donna (cat 3 when came ashore 2nd time in New England. would've done around $50 billion in damage in 2012 $)
1972 Agnes (cat 1 when came ashore in New England, would've done about $35 billion in damage in 2012 $)
There are others dating back to the late 1700s. How long have you lived there? Most of the meteorologists who said they NEVER saw this before weren't alive then.
Just because you didn't know doesn't mean some of haven't studied it.
Another example of liberal double standards and liberal soft racism for political gain.
it takes a lot to educate the liberal robots that exist here.