Until yesterday, any sentence with the words "Brooklyn" and "cyclone" in it generally referred to Brooklyn's local minor league baseball team, the Brooklyn Cyclones. All that was blown away yesterday, literally.
In a parody of Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, here in Brooklyn we closed our eyes tight and chanted, "there's no global warming, there's no global warming." But as hard as we tried, the tornado came any way.
This house - the one in which I live and keep the LCG Communications office - escaped damage, but the now famous Brooklyn cyclone (an F2 on the tornado scale) touched down yesterday not more than five blocks away from here in Sunset Park.
While it's true that sometimes weather just "happens," things are starting to add up in a very bad way all over the world and right here in the NY region. There's nothing like seeing your neighborhood torn up to bring the bigger picture home. Just ask the folks in New Orleans.
First it was a pounding spring northeaster right before Easter. Then we had a whale - yes, a whale - that got "lost" in Brooklyn's Gowanus Canal. The whale subsequently died. And, of course, the heat has been nearly unbearable this summer in NYC. And now, a tornado in Brooklyn.
My block is uphill, about 5 blocks or so from NY Harbor. The neighbors and I have always laughed about having waterfront property some day, but now we're laughing through gritted teeth.
And yet, there are right wing adherents who are totally in denial about our changing weather patterns.
Here, just for fun, are a few comments about the Brooklyn tornado from some of the right wing sites: ". . . how long before global warming is blamed for this? A device to measure the fraction of a second has yet to be designed." "OMG, global warming! Bush's fault!" "How many endangered Central Park polar bears were killed? If none, why not?" And these are some of the more intelligent comments. I left out the unintelligible and racist ones.
While we struggle with the international and national ramifications of global warming, there are some changes that many groups right here in the NYC area are advocating now.
On the heels of the tornado, a relatively new City-wide coalition called S.W.I.M. (Storm Water Infrastructure Matters) has renewed its call for faster action to collect and stop storm water from overflowing streets and washing sewage and pollution into our waterways.
They've developed an entire platform which includes items like mandating multi-agency cooperation in New York to increase community friendly storm water management practices such as:
-Urban Forestry (green streets, natural areas, parkland, street trees)
- Wetland management policy
- Green roofs
- Permeable pavement
- Rainwater harvesting
- Rain gardens
- Community gardens
We will all have to come to terms, in very real ways, with this new global warming reality, sooner or later. Many cities across the US are starting to deal with it, but it appears that some people won't be convinced until a tornado - or worse - slams into their neighborhood.
While you're thinking about all that, if you're in Brooklyn, go see the original Brooklyn Cyclones baseball team play. A lot more fun than Mother Nature's version.