For those who have not been following the news lately, a recent article reported the following: A large tropical storm attributed to “unseasonable rainfall” slammed into the coast and moved inland, leaving many dead or missing, tens of thousands of residents evacuated or homeless, and government disaster response agencies struggling to provide food, shelter, and other critical services.
According to the article, “disaster response teams helped to move people to higher ground in rubber boats and nearly 100 shelters were opened … to accommodate people fleeing the flood zone.” Trains and other transit systems were closed; some communities were completely cut off from help; and to make matters worse, more intense rain was expected later in the same week.
News reports about Hurricane Sandy? Actually, no. This news came from an article by Agence France-Presse about Cyclone Nilam, which struck the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu just a week after Sandy unleashed similar catastrophe on the eastern United States. Nor was this an isolated incident in India. In September, the Agence France-Presse article continued, “two million people were forced to flee their homes in the north-eastern state of Assam after floods triggered by heavy monsoon rains.”
The point, of course, is not to minimize the horrible loss of lives, damage to homes and other property, and suffering that the residents of the northeastern U.S. have endured due to Hurricane Sandy. Relief efforts should continue if not expand. Public disaster relief funding should be expedited. Private parties should donate to the Red Cross and other independent sources of relief.
The juxtaposition of these twin storms, however, does raise a serious question:
What is the connection between these two proximate events? Extreme weather events are a function of a large number of variables, and scientists are careful not to attribute any specific event to climate change or any other factor. The mainstream scientific community is virtually unanimous, however, that climate change is likely to increase the likelihood of storms like both Sandy and Nilam.
We cannot say with certainty that climate change caused either storm, but we can say with reasonable certainty that climate change made both more likely, and increases the likelihood that more storms like them will follow in the years to come. Disaster agencies around the world, and the United Nations, have reported a significant increase in recent years in extreme weather events of all kinds (storms, floods, droughts, tornadoes), and staggering damage tolls from those events. While there is ample evidence of climate change based on U.S. trends alone, the data are far more compelling if we look beyond our borders.
Perhaps the scariest thing about the magnitude of damage caused by Hurricane Sandy—and Hurricane Katrina before it—is that they demonstrated the vulnerability of a country that one would think would be among the most prepared and the most resilient in the world to natural catastrophe. Even more loss of life, property damage, and human suffering can be expected when similar climate-induced extreme weather events strike regions of the world that are more vulnerable than the United States. Other nations have even more low-lying terrain, fewer disaster relief resources and less developed response systems, more vulnerable homes and public infrastructure, and poorer populations with smaller reserves of food and money.
In traditional foreign policy, countries focus primarily on their own national interests. In many respects, global climate change negotiations have followed that trend. (“Why should the United States agree to emissions cuts if China does not?” “Will we get more from the bargain than we give?”) The real lesson of Sandy and Nilam is that we’re all in this together as a global community. When weather catastrophes are linked to changes in the global climate, and strike opposite sides of the world with such fury in two successive weeks, we can no longer afford to think solely in terms of national interests.
Rabbi Hillel, the famous first century B.C. Jewish religious leader, wrote: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And when I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?” No nation can be expected to ignore its own interests, for who else will? But given the global nature of the climate problem, neither can we afford to consider only those interests. And if not now, when? The elusive global consensus on how to address climate change is long overdue.
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Robert Adler | November 16, 2012
For those who have not been following the news lately, a recent article reported the following: A large tropical storm attributed to “unseasonable rainfall” slammed into the coast and moved inland, leaving many dead or missing, tens of thousands of residents evacuated or homeless, and government disaster response agencies struggling to provide food, shelter, and […]
Rena Steinzor | November 15, 2012
This post is based on an article I wrote with Anne Havemann entitled “Too Big to Obey: Why BP Should Be Debarred,” published in the William & Mary Environmental Law & Policy Review. Attorney General Eric Holder and his lead prosecutor, Lanny Breuer, are deservedly running a victory lap in the immediate aftermath of their […]
Matt Shudtz | November 15, 2012
In January, USDA issued a proposed rule that would allow poultry slaughter facilities to increase the speed of their slaughter and evisceration lines as part of an effort to “modernize” the slaughtering process. Today, I attended a meeting of the National Advisory Committee on Occupational Safety and Health (NACOSH) and asked for the committee’s help […]
Rena Steinzor | November 14, 2012
Judging from President Obama’s first term, the job of White House “regulatory czar” could prove of out-sized importance these next four years, with the head of an office few know exists ending up with the power to trump the authority of Cabinet members throughout the government. Cass Sunstein, the former occupant of the position, was […]
Robert Verchick | November 13, 2012
Last weekend my son took part in a set of Boy Scout activities with his local Delhi scout troop. On the grounds of the former residence of the U.S. ambassador, the boys prepared a kabob lunch, practiced fire making, and even built a Medieval-style trebuchet. But all I could think about were the little striped […]
Catherine O'Neill | November 8, 2012
The current debate surrounding Washington State’s sediment cleanup and water quality standards provides another example of regulated industry calling for “sound science” in environmental regulation, yet working to undermine it. Industry has worked to delay updates to water quality standards based on the most recent scientific studies, despite the fact that the current standards are […]
Rena Steinzor | November 7, 2012
President Obama’s reelection holds the possibility of great progress for public health, safety, and the environment — if, and only if, he recognizes the importance of these issues and stops trying to placate his most implacable opponents. The weeks leading up to the election brought powerful reminders of two of the challenges at hand: rising […]
James Goodwin | November 5, 2012
Internal EPA emails obtained by CPR though a FOIA request reveals that representatives from one or more of the EPA’s peer agencies second-guessed a critical scientific finding undergirding the EPA’s then-pending draft final rule to tighten the ozone standard, claiming that ozone is not associated with mortality impacts. The EPA’s final proposal rightly disregarded the […]
Robert Verchick | November 2, 2012
The most solemn commitment borne by an elected official is to promote the public welfare and keep the citizenry safe. As New York City struggles to rebound from one of the fiercest storms in memory, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg rose to that occasion with an urgent call for government at all levels to forcefully address […]