Year 4, Month 11, Day 7: God Damn, Well I Declare — Have You Seen The Like?

The Times of Trenton (NJ) talks about the ongoing post-Sandy reconstruction effort:

As the first anniversary of the storm that forever changed the Jersey Shore approaches, the region is looking back at the checkered record of state aid and federal funds that have been delivered to those in need — and the millions still entangled in red tape.

New Jersey officials have done a good job in some areas to address the immediate problems spawned by Sandy. But far too many people are still waiting for the promised help to repair their homes so they can move back to the neighborhoods where they’ve lived all their lives.

Particularly in the northern part of the state, the individual stories are full of uncertainty. Every storm forecast triggers fear for some; others remain displaced living in whatever shelter they can find; and some, who haven’t received the loans they’re counting on, don’t know where to begin picking up the splintered pieces.

New Jersey may be stronger than THE (caps or ital, please) storm, but what about the next one or the one after that?

Climate change is a certainty. And as the polar ice melts, one of the irrefutable effects is the ocean’s slow swallowing of the barrier islands — and its creeping reach from the back bays onto the coastline. An Army Corps of Engineers construction project is expected to begin next year that will result in dunes standing sentry along the 127-mile oceanfront. Communities that had dunes withstood the forces of Sandy better than places without the protection but, eventually, the sea will vanquish the sand.

I’ve got so many letters now, it’s really easy to revise them and crank out new versions. October 28:

Why do we ignore climate change in talking about post-Sandy reconstruction? Several reasons: humans are no good at long-term thinking, and most people simply want their normal lives back as fast as possible. Even though Earth’s climate is changing incredibly fast, most of us simply cannot imagine the lives of our descendants as they struggle to survive in the world we’ve left for them.

Another factor is that simple causality doesn’t apply to a complex system like our climate; we can’t describe single events like Superstorm Sandy as definite consequences of the greenhouse effect, even though our CO2 emissions have loaded the dice for extreme weather.

Last but hardly least is the inconvenient fact that fossil fuel corporations have spent massively to influence politicians and media to avoid reality-based discussion of climate change — because such discussion would highlight the central role of oil and coal in creating the crisis, inevitably impacting their profit margins.

Warren Senders