In the last few days, in the aftermath of Sandy, the disastrous storm that destroyed thousands of homes and took away more than dozen of human life in the Northeast, I have faced the loss of power as have some 239,000 people across Lower Manhattan, from Madison Square to the southern tip of the island.
As I’ve been coping with this, I’ve been asked by several people if I think climate change was what caused the hurricane. I feel that people almost expect me to say yes to the question simply because I promote sustainability. But I routinely answer that the link between Sandy and climate change should be carefully observed and should be backed up by credible data. The vague nature of my answer obviously irritated some, and their reaction has been leading me to deeper thinking about this subject.
Climate scientists have warned that more frequent hurricanes may be related to climate change, but they haven’t been able to conclusively confirm a link between the two yet. And I believe that it may still take years to make this link.
Kevin E. Trenberth, a scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., said: “My view is that a lot of this is chance. It relates to weather, and the juxtaposition of weather systems. A hybrid storm is certainly one which is always in the cards and it’s one we’ve always worried about.”
There might be more than a “chance” related to the creation of a monster storm like Sandy, but I would not be able to confirm my perspective on the relationship between the two unless there is a clearer picture supported by scientific data. Yet, it seems that this question is creating a greater division and is serving as a litmus test for someone’s Democratic or Republican affiliation.
A crowd seeking Wi-Fi around a W Hotel in Union Square during the power outage in NYC following Hurricane Sandy.
According to a new poll in the Huffington Post, the two groups that were the least convinced that climate change and natural disasters were related, Republicans and older Americans, also expressed the most certainty that Sandy was not related to climate change. Sixty-seven percent of Republicans and 46 percent of Americans aged 65 and over said that the storm was not related to climate change. Fifty-one percent of Democrats said the storm was related to climate change.
I wonder why and when one of the most urgent issues that humankind is facing today became a political matter. Why do we have to take sides now when millions of people are suffering from lost and damaged homes?
Why can’t we go beyond our political belief or party affiliation to look at the horrendous weather affecting all of the global community and the obvious changes around us? Why can’t our politicians work together in a spirit of bipartisanship to work on solving this problem? Why can’t we collaborate and develop more practical and feasible solutions for our future generations?
It takes a village to raise a child, as they say, and to make a positive impact, I would like to urge everyone to think outside the box called politics.
This week, a few days after Sandy hit, NYC’s Mayor Bloomberg reflected this sentiment by giving an endorsement for President Obama. He says on the Bloomberg site, “One sees climate change as an urgent problem that threatens our planet; one does not. I want our president to place scientific evidence and risk management above electoral politics.”
I hope that the Bloomberg’s pragmatism will be viewed as wisdom and not be taken as another short-sighted political show.
Do you agree or disagree? How was your experience of Sandy?
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