Sandy Said

Many environmental advocates, including the World Ocean Observatory, have warned of this possible scenario often, warnings met with denial, skepticism, cynical subversion, and return to the conventional ways. We have questioned the tipping point by which public attitudes would shift. Was it the Indonesian tsunami? Was it the earthquake in Japan? Was it Hurricane Irene just last year?  No, none of these were enough to bestir a serious conversation about climate and its impact on what was happening to the ocean.

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Superstorm Sandy. The devastation to the eastern United States is incomparable to any prior physical event in the history of the nation.  While the death toll is moderate, the damage to New York City, other major eastern cities, to the coast from North Carolina to Maine, to the regional transportation and distribution infrastructure, to port facilities along the reach of the Atlantic seaboard, to nuclear plants forced off-line, and to the natural environment, coastal and inland, inundated with relocated debris and waste is, as the Governor of New Jersey stated, “incalculable.”

Preliminary calculations by insurance estimators, however, immediately placed the cost in the billions.  And that just to cover what actually is insured. In addition, there will be national, state, and city public funds that will be diverted to restore damaged public services, and then there will be those things that will be simply lost. The economic recovery from recession will be affected no doubt; markets, manufacturing, and trade will be disrupted; the national election may be influenced; and the lives of thousands will be distracted and diverted by a recovery long beyond the initial resolve to endure and survive catastrophe. Look at New Orleans post-Katrina, or the Gulf communities devastated by the BP oil spill to see how they have still not recovered.

Scientists, some politicians, and many environmental advocates, including the World Ocean Observatory, have warned of this possible scenario often, warnings met with denial, skepticism, cynical subversion, and return to the conventional ways. We have questioned the tipping point by which public attitudes would shift. Was it the Indonesian tsunami? Was it the earthquake in Japan? Was it Hurricane Irene just last year?  No, none of these were enough to bestir a serious conversation about climate and its impact on what was happening to the ocean, to temperature, acidity, sea level, shifting current, polar ice, or extreme weather events that have become more and more frequent and severe.  The conversation, arranged around the reality and responsible prediction of changing climate, has been subverted by a torrent of propaganda financed by those who profit from the status quo, a force as focused and powerful as the flood waters of Sandy, sweeping away all obstacles and inhibitions. Climate was barely mentioned in the presidential campaign. This research and models have been rejected, denied in favor of corporate demand for short-term financial return.  No one will admit to or act on the logic of connection between fossil fuel emissions and changing climate, just as no one will admit to or act on the connection between low corporate and individual taxes and public deficits, the lack of government resources to protect its citizens from the consequences of such behavior in its myriad forms. Chevron, the global oil company, has contributed $150 million to influence the American election, the largest such contribution ever. Add to that similar “investment” by ExxonMobil and the rest and you have a massive intervention in the presidential outcome with only one purpose: to keep things advantageous and unregulated for corporate returns. Perhaps they should contribution in comparable amounts to the rebuilding of New Jersey?

We have asked the question before: what will it take for us to admit and respond to climate change as a formative force for our time? When this edition of World Ocean Radio is broadcast, the American election will be over, and so I cannot be accused of asking for a particular vote. But, in the context of the results, ask yourself: did you or I vote for or against our future interests? Did we vote for or against our individual health and equitable well-being? Did we vote for or against a commitment to our social needs and to the financial capacity to fix our roads, educate our children, train our workers, assure our security, and protect us against natural phenomena like Sandy, challenges that require real money, centralized planning, innovative organization, and complicated defenses that cannot be met by individual states or private organizations like the Red Cross? Did we vote to kick the can a few years down the road or did we vote for our future?

Sandy called our bluff. She said: let’s see what happens when I become a perfect storm that cannot be isolated in one far away place, that cannot be denied as an irrelevant, inconsequential event, touching only a few, that cannot be explained as an accidental arrangement of causes for which the victims have no responsibility. She said: let’s show them the true power of Nature, up front and personal, no Hollywood animation, but the real thing, angry and indifferent to who we are or what we own, and see how deep their denial really goes, how bad and how long they really want to mess with me.

The recovery from this storm must now begin the process of building a new relationship with the ocean through new values, new structures, and new solutions for how we live and work along the coast and how we engage and respect the natural world we live in. We must not revert to what was, but build what must be given the realities of changing climate.

Sandy said, "Change your ways, people; get smart, take me to heart, think ahead, embrace change, and remember I’ve got sisters and brothers waiting back home."

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Peter Neill, Director of the W2O and host of World Ocean Radio, provides coverage of a broad spectrum of ocean issues from science and education to advocacy and exemplary projects.