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Last week’s Bloomberg Businessweek made news with its cover.

That title, “It’s Global Warming, Stupid”, created waves post-Sandy’s devastating storm surge waves and certainly upset those who the magazine’s editor directly challenged as “stupid”.

With great uncertainty as to the political reality in America come tomorrow, the title suggests something beyond the connection of Global Warming and severe weather events. When it comes to American electoral politics and tomorrow’s political reality, most people don’t seem to realize that ‘it’s the climate, stupid’.

This post won’t seek to analyze or detail every aspect of meaning for this, but let us consider …

• If, as most predict, President Obama wins reelection, a telling (and decisive) moment might have been the effective Federal response to Hurricane Sandy’s devastation, the President’s calm and capable engagement (to the point of earning (and receiving) praise from major Romney surrogates, like Governor Christie).  Thus, perhaps, President Obama might owe global warming’s impacts on extreme weather events for tipping the election.
• Related, almost certainly, to the magazine cover:  independent New York Mayor Bloomberg’s endorsement, just last week, heavily emphasized the stark differences between President Obama and Mitt Romney (and their respective parties) on climate change issues.  Did Mayor Bloomberg’s endorsement carry any weight in these final, frantic, days of the election season?
• The two parties have been united in their determined climate silence. The Obama White House determined, back in early 2009 (if not earlier), that talking about climate change was a losing political issue and thus focused on “green jobs” and discussed solar/wind/other clean energy without any serious discussion of climate-change issues.  The Romney campaign team seems to clearly understand that the climate science denial required to win the Republican nomination plays poorly with the majority of Americans.  While Mitt played to the anti-science friendly audience at the Republican National Convention with a joke about climate change, his advisors seem to clearly understand that President Obama’s responding line at the Democratic National Convention played much better with the electorate (especially undecided voters).  What Republican operatives seem to understand better than Democratic Party political operatives:  a forceful and thoughtful Democratic Party engagement on climate issues increases Democratic Party base enthusiasm, sways independent voters, and is essentially irrelevant to Republican base voters.  Combining taking the wrong lessons from the 2009 Cap & Trade fight and ‘micro-targeting’ efforts to win coal-supporting voters in Pennsylvania and Ohio, Democratic political ‘pros’ seem to have coordinated with Romney’s political advisors to keep climate change off the Presidential political landscape.
• Today will almost certainly end with the Republicans continuing to hold the majority in the House of Representatives.  The DCCC’s climate silence has, in fact, even been more stunning than the Obama-Biden campaign’s.  Analyzing tight race situations and examining smart climate change political engagement, a very reasonable question to ask:  Would serious discussion of climate change throughout the election year have flipped enough seats to have Nancy Pelosi return as Speaker of the House in 2013?  And, with that in mind, should it be a central focus for 2014?

As for that last bullet discussion, consider 2012 in the United States when it comes to climate disruption:

• Massive record breaking heat waves across most of the United States, with hot temperature record after hot temperature record falling almost too fast for the computing systems to keep track.  Unless we have a shockingly cold November and December, this will likely go down as the hottest year in U.S. temperature records. (And, remembering that this is ‘global’, amid what is going to be one of the hottest years (if not hottest) in global recorded temperatures.)
• The major drought, which continues despite Sandy in many states, devastating agricultural production with billions of dollars of economic impacts.
• The Derecho that did damage through much of the Mid-Atlantic and shut down the Federal government.
• Record-breaking wildfires, worsened by climate disruption driven droughts and trees sickened in part due climate change driven conditions.
• Hurricane (‘Frankenstorm’) Sandy’s devastating impact across a large swath of the eastern United States, with mounting numbers of dead (both directly and indirectly during clean-up and deaths due to inadequate heating/otherwise) and perhaps more than $50 billion of damage.

Consider the situation in spring 2012, politically, as Mitt Romney fought for and won the Republican nomination with an embrace of anti-science global warming denial.  The Democratic Party, as a political entity, engaged in climate silence.  And, for month after month, since then, the nation underwent searing climate disruption influenced (caused …) conditions while the Democratic Party continued diligently to engage in climate silence.  And, on the eve of the election, a massive storm influenced (caused …) by climate disruption create massive damage and seized (legitimately) the nation’s attention.  And, the Democratic Party — as a political entity — remained locked in its determined policy of climate silence.  Climate Change — the respect for and understanding of science, the need for government as a tool to respond to such large challenges, the relationship of climate change to a need for changed energy policies and practices, etc … — is one of the most glaring differences (even more than taxes, for example) between the two political parties.  With heat waves, drought, Derecho(s), wildfires, hurricane, and other climate disruption-related events hitting the vast majority of Americans in 2012 and growing numbers of Americans understanding the links between climate change and extreme weather events, Democratic Party political operatives left this glaring difference between the two parties on the cutting room table because they (seemingly) failed to understand that not just is this an important issue, not just is this a basic moral and ethical issue, but that discussing and engaging on climate issues is a winning political issue for the Democratic Party and Democratic Party candidates.

With a home for a Democratic Congress to support President Obama come January 2014, let us hope that Democratic Party political operatives learn this critical lesson from the 2012 election season.

Representative Steve King (R-IA-5) has made quite a name for himself over the years for many reasons, such as his violent case of anti-science syndrome.  This author remains particularly stunned, months later, with King’s gleeful bragging about wasting taxpayer money.

Many Americans had their eyes open with what some term as the “King foot-in-mouth disease” in the past week as Representative King made what easily ranks as one of the most heartless statements by a major politicians as millions of his fellow citizens suffered amid the devastation post Hurricane Sandy. Some nickname Steve King “The Emperor of all Morons” with comments like the one that he made about aid to Hurricane Sandy victims:

“I want to get them the resources that are necessary to lift them out of this water and the sand and the ashes and the death that’s over there in the East Coast and especially in the Northeast,” King said during a Tuesday evening debate in Mason City, Iowa. “But not one big shot to just open up the checkbook, because they spent it on Gucci bags and massage parlors and everything you can think of in addition to what was necessary.”

It is hard to believe that any Iowan (whether farmer, manufacturer, teacher, retiree, or otherwise) is proud of or thrilled with the attention that King brought to the state like the following:

King’s comments got under my skin — as they did many Americans — and a thought came to me:

What would Iowans have thought if Steve King were a Congressman from Long Island and made some comment about farm disaster aid?

Just imagine Iowan farmers looking at brown fields amid a devastating heat wave and drought (like 2012) and turning on their TV to hear thoughtful Representative Steven King (R-NY) pontificate with thoughts along the lines of “Well, I’m all for providing aid to these farmers but we better have someone following up on every check to assure that they’re not buying alligator-skin boots or an air-conditioned tractor …”  Have to believe that this would ring pretty sour to Iowans’ ears.

The Golden Rule provides a pretty good rule of thumb:

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Iowans have put Steve King into a position where his voice is listened to, even when he so insults fellow Americans facing desperate situations.  We should all hope that no members of Congress are so disdainful of Iowans’ needs in times of disaster as King  has been of citizens of New York, New Jersey, and other Sandy victims, but Iowans should keep in mind what they “do unto others” by electing Steve King to his soapbox.

The option remains to take King off his throne and send thoughtful Christie Vilsack to Washington instead.

If that occurs, American commentators and comedians will have to look elsewhere than Iowa’s Fourth District for outrageous statements that provide reason for outrage and comedy.

This guest post comes from Dean Baker who, in a sane world, would be on (or chairing) the White House Council of Economic Advisors.  Who knows, perhaps there is hope that the United States will turn to sanity in Sandy’s wake on climate change and other issues …

When Gov. Romney gave his acceptance speech at the Republican convention he quipped that President Obama wants to slow the rise of the oceans and that he, by contrast, wanted to help American families. It would be interesting to see if Romney would care to repeat this line today.

Perhaps he wants to tell the people of New York and New Jersey who have seen their homes — and in some cases lives — destroyed by the rise of the oceans, how silly President Obama is for taking steps to counter global warming. These people will surely get a good chuckle from the Governor’s sense of humor as they wait to have to electricity restored or their home rebuilt.

It is remarkable that the Democrats have not been harsher in holding Romney in contempt for his comments in these final days leading up to the election. Imagine if the shoe were on the other foot.

Imagine a world where we had not seen the Sept. 11 attacks and a Democratic challenger to President Bush’s reelection in 2004 had mocked the money that Bush had spent on defenses against terrorism. If the country had then been hit by a terrorist attack in the week before the election would the Republicans be shy about going after their challenger’s bad sense of humor?

Beating up Governor Romney is not just a question of cheap politics. Global warming is serious business. Over 100 people died last week in New York and New Jersey because of Hurricane Sandy. People have been and will be dying all around the world because of weather events related to global warming.

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This guest post comes from meteorologist Paul Douglas.  His simple, powerful, and straightforward conclusion is one that we hope American voters follow this Tuesday.

elect politicians who still respect sound science.

Were you impacted by “Nor’easter-cane” Sandy?” Statisticians will debate whether it was a 1 in 100 year storm — or something worse. Insurance companies will calculate how many tens or hundreds of billions of dollars were lost. It will be a big number, probably the most expensive storm clean-up and recovery in American history. It’s “media hype” until it injures your loved ones, cuts the power, floods your home, or shuts down your small business.
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This guest post comes from scientist FishOutOfWater.

The north Atlantic ocean is heating faster than all the world’s oceans because of the increased flow from the Indian ocean to the Atlantic ocean.The rapidly strengthening greenhouse effect produced by exponentially increasing human emissions of greenhouse gases is affecting earth’s climate unevenly. The North Atlantic ocean is heating the fastest of the world’s oceans. The rapidly increasing heat content of the north Atlantic ocean is fueling the rapid increase in weather related disasters in the United States. This increase in disasters is not a cyclic phenomenon. Because the north Atlantic is at the end of the great “conveyor belt” of the global circulation of salt and heat – the thermohaline circulation – it accumulates heat the fastest of the oceans when the earth is heating up. Since 1995, the north Atlantic has been heating at a record rate.

Gulf Stream loop ahead of Hurricane Sandy, Oct. 25 sensed by very high resolution radiometry. Sandy’s record low pressure was fueled by record oceanic heat content.

Likewise, because of its deep connection to the Arctic ocean, the North Atlantic cools the fastest when the earth cools. In fact, the north Atlantic and Arctic oceans are treated as a single entity by some models. The extreme sensitivity of the Arctic ocean and the north Atlantic to slight changes in the earth’s radiation balance make the north Atlantic, north America and western Europe very sensitive to changes in global average temperature. That is why minor orbital variations brought continental glaciers to north America and Europe. Minor changes in radiation balance were amplified by increasing amounts of snow and ice. This quirk of climate and geography makes the United States is the global hypocenter of climate change.

Superstorm Sandy has awakened NBC into asking the right questions to the right experts. This 2 minute clip gets the basics of the connections of climate change to extreme weather right.

Hurricane Sandy 3:40pm EDT Oct 27. Sandy can be seen interacting with a cold front running from the Florida panhandle to Lake Ontario. Sandy was a hybrid tropical/frontal storm at this time, maintaining its strength despite very strong wind shear.

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In 2005, just a week after Katrina hit New Orleans, blogger Meteor Blades outlined a plan for rebuilding New Orleans in a smart, sensible, leading-edge way: Eco New Orleans: ‘A Shining Example for the Whole World’. Meteor Blades began this must read (especially now, again) discussion:

The tragedy wrought by Katrina provides a chance to do what Mayor Ray Nagin said George Bush told him … : New Orleans can be remade into “a shining example for the whole world.”

Even as we are just in the opening days of recovering from Frankenstorm Sandy, with fellow Americans killed by this climate change-influenced severe weather event and millions of fellow Americans without power, we should look not to “rebuild” (as we have already heard from multiple politicians) what was (damaged or destroyed by Sandy) but to recreate a built infrastructure more resilient to mounting climate chaos and a built infrastructure that lessens humanity’s stress on the planetary climate system to reduce the likelihood and extent of future impacts.

Meteor Blades merits credit for the seriousness and quality of his : Eco New Orleans post, as it provided a very serious outline of measures to take with explicit examples of benefits to derive from them. In this post, I will not even hint at targeting the same level of detail but, instead, will simply put down some markers for consideration while opening the door for continued discussion (whether in comments or otherwise).

Basic principles that should guide reconstruction efforts and resources

• Resources should not go to rebuilding with duplication of same vulnerabilities. Sadly, too many of our (limited) resources post disaster situations have gone to ‘rebuild’ to then find the same disaster occurring over again. For example, houses in flood plains that have, in essence, been flooded out multiple times. Sandy was an extreme, “unprecedented” event — however, climate change is making such events more likely and potentially more severe. Does it make sense to rebuild homes, essentially, at sea level or should such buildings be ‘recreated’ with lower vulnerability to rising seas and storm surges?
• Rebuild “green”, with better public transit access, more energy efficient buildings, onsite clean energy generation (combined heat power, solar, wind, geothermal, etc …)
• Target 100% low-carbon electrical system. This should include a major commitment to the offshore wind system but shouldn’t stop there as there should be a significant portion as distributed power. This can range from existing options (such as rooftop solar and small scale wind) to emergent systems (such as enhanced geothermal and small modular reactors). As part of this, the building code should shift (immediately) to requiring rebuilt structures to generate 20 percent of power onsite (with clean energy systems) and have that figure, for new buildings, go up 2.5 percent per year. (E.g, after four years, 30 percent onsite power.) (Imagine if those blacked-out areas had enough self-generation capacity to support basic needs…) And, create a backfit requirement for fostering a move toward more efficient built structures that produce at least some of their own energy requirements. And, for every kilowatt of capacity that a building falls short of this target, have a set fee (perhaps, to start, $3.50 per watt or $3500 per kilowatt) that will be provided to the local community for building community clean energy systems.
• Green Public Buildings, especially schools.
• Invest in infrastructure, energy, transportation, otherwise. For example, investing in ‘smart grid’ will reduce the likelihood of large-scale blackouts as the grid will isolate problems rather than enabling cascading failures
• Target ‘passive’/natural flood management, with parks, green spaces, otherwise more able to handle flooding inundations. (Note: not much help against nine foot storm surges on top of a high high tide …)

This post started, somewhat unfairly, invoking MB’s excellent 2005 work. While the above doesn’t pretend to provide “the” answers, we should immediately reject those who shallowly call for “rebuilding”. We should look to work like the New York Climate Action Plan for the elements of action to recreate for the 21st — not rebuild for the 20th — century. We don’t wish to and we can’t afford to “recreate” as things were, because they were built in and for a 20th century climate system. Instead, we need to recreate for 21st century realities and do so in a way that lessens our impact on the climate system and lowers the risks from future extreme weather events.

NOTE: There are millions of our fellow citizens suffering. While 10s of millions suffered disruption (for example, my day without power), that disruption is meaningless in face of real travails from dealing with death and injury, dealing with destroyed / heavily damaged homes and communities, uncertain economic prospects, and otherwise. These communities and people need immediate help — whether medical care, food supplies, batteries, shelter, or otherwise. Sadly, climate-driven Sandy has provide a starkly clear statement as to the need for and value of “Big Government”. Gladly, the Republican anti-tax mania haven’t succeeded in drowning government in the bathtub (yet) and FEMA is able to act. Even so, individuals can provide tangible aid through donating to organizations on the ground (not by doing photo-op supply drives a la the Ryan-Romney Potemkin Village charity events). Our hearts, thoughts, and dollars are with our fellow citizens dealing with Sandy’s devastation on their communities and their lives.

Bloomberg Business
week’s cover provides some stark truth as New York remains battered by Sandy’s damage.

The editor’s tweet might just be one of the best tweets to date:

Our cover story this week may generate controversy, but only among the stupid.buswk.co/PIUzUl via @bw

— Josh (@Tyrangiel) November 1, 2012

Josh Tyrangiel is, again, the magazine’s editor.

As for that stupid, evidently the Republican base believes that the best defense against catastrophic climate chaos is to chant, loudly, “USA, USA” as a way to drown out scientific knowledge.

From Think Progress:

Mitt Romney stood silently as an activist interrupted the GOP presidential candidate’s event in Virginia Beach, Virginia on Thursday afternoon, to ask why he’s been ignoring the connection between climate change and Hurricane Sandy. The former Massachusetts governor quietly smiled, while the man held up a sign that read “End Climate Silence,” and resumed his stump speech without ever addressing the issue:

MAN: Romney! What about climate? That’s what caused this monster storm! Climate change!

ROMNEY: [silent]

CROWD: BOO! USA! USA! USA!

Watch it:

To the right is the Utne November-December 2012 issue cover (drawn and released prior to Hurricane Sandy).

The cover refers to the “Confronting Climate Change” section with the following articles:

Time to Get Crazy
We might be doomed by climate change, but we should fight anyway by Chris Hedges, from TruthDig

This Crisis Needs A Movement
Using people power to combat the new climate change by Bill McKibben, from Solutions Journal

The Power of Nature
A vision of the future where we live as one with the earth by Gitte Larsen, Søren Steen Olsen, and Steen Svendsen, from ISSUES

Gardening Beyond Reason
The simple act of getting your hands dirty by Darren Fleet, from Adbusters
Online Only: The Man-Made World of 2112
Realizing our collective and technological potential by Søren Steen Olsen and Steen Scendsen, from ISSUES

Looking at this cover, was (is) Utne magazine the latest Cassandra — an ignored voice providing warnings (accurate warnings) above devastation and disaster to come.  And, was Hurricane Sandy (the diminutive of Cassandra) the near real-time epitomization of the disasters to come that Cassandra Utne was/is warning all of us about?

Bill Clinton laid out the issue of the differences betweeen Mittens and President Obama when it comes to climate change and the risk to the United States from extreme weather events like Frankenstorm Sandy:

I was actually listening closely to what the candidates said in these debates. In the first debate, the triumph of the moderate Mitt Romney. You remember what he did? He ridiculed the president. Ridiculed the president for his efforts to fight global warming in economically beneficial ways. He said, ‘Oh, you’re going to turn back the seas.’ In my part of America, we would like it if someone could’ve done that yesterday. All up and down the East Coast, there are mayors, many of them Republicans, who are being told, ‘You’ve got to move these houses back away from the ocean. You’ve got to lift them up. Climate change is going to raise the water levels on a permanent basis. If you want your town insured, you have to do this.’ In the real world, Barack Obama’s policies work better.

From health care to immigration to Climate Change,

“in the real world, Barack Obama’s policies work better.”

Hat tip Buzzfeed and to RL Miller (who let me know about the comments).
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Like billions of others around the world in recent years and this year, Americans have been experiencing “unprecedented” after “unprecedented” weather event. Along with my neighbors, in the Washington, DC, area, I have yet again battened down the hatches for an “unprecedented weather event” (Snowcapolyse, Derecho, Heat Waves, …) that has offices closed, kids home from school, potential power outages, and store shelves emptied. (Note: photo to the right is the grocery store closest to my home, with shelves emptied by people heeding warnings to be prepared for a multiple days without power.)

What we are seeing has been referred to as a ‘climate on steroids’. Bicyclists have won the Tour de France without using steroids but Lance Armstrong won seven with … Professional baseball players have wowed me with home runs without using steroids but flooded the stands with homers in the steroid era … Blizzards, wind storms, droughts, floods, hurricanes occurred throughout the millenia before humanity’s impact on the climate became significant but records are tumbling as humanity continues to pack the climate system with a variety of ‘steroids’, especially greenhouse gases from fossil fuel use.

Too few fundamentally understand the linkage between humanity’s activities and increasing climate disruption.

Too many people fail to understand how “unprecedented” after “record” after “unprecedented” weather event are within the predictions that have come from climate scientists, whose work to understand the impact of human activities on the climate lead us to an understanding that a warming planet will drive climate disruption.

One reason: meteorologists, weather forecasters, and TV weather reporters hesitancy to use the words “climate change” when discussing “unprecedented” weather events. This occurs for a variety of reasons:

• The difference between the immediacy of weather and the general trend of climate;
• The scientific challenge of “attribution”, as people tip toe around the issue because they don’t know how to express “it is hard to understand this weather pattern without including climate change, which has put a thumb the scales to create the conditions for worsening the event.”
• The reality that most people don’t think in a systems-of-systems manner and that human-driven climate change is simply a ‘factor’ influencing any specific weather event.
• The difficulty of injecting ‘long term’ issues into the discussion when seeking to warn people that it is time to empty the grocery store shelves.
• Meteorologists tendency to look to the problems of short-term weather forecasting models (and, as a consumer, when looking at “weather.com” stating that my zip code has a 15% chance of rain at that specific moment while looking outside the window and seeing a massive downpour) and falsely projecting this to assert problems in climate modeling. This is one of the reasons why too many weather forecasters deny the science related to climate change.
• Fear of vocal climate denialist attacks when a meteorologist speaks honestly and forthrightly about climate disruption to help people connect the dots.

Through 2012, with massive breaking of record hot temperature records, massive wildfires, substantial damage to the agricultural system due to droughts, the Derecho, and otherwise, a growing number of meteorologists have broken through the climate silence and forecast the facts.

And, this is true with Hurricane Sandy, as science-aware meteorologists help place Frankenstorm within a larger context.  For example, on Friday, meteorologist Eric Holthaus wrote this amid a discussion of Sandy’s potential impact on New York City:

With National Geographic reporting that sea level rise is already accelerating at three to four times the global rate in the Northeast due to climate change, impacts are expected to be worse than if the same exact storm would have hit several years ago.

A simple truthful statement that helps inform people that climate change is increasing our risks from extreme weather events.  It doesn’t take much to include truthful information about climate change in discussions of extreme weather events. While watching, with rapt concern about Sandy’s potential impact on my community, The Weather Channel, a notable item: zero discussion of climate change amid the fleeting leaps from one weather besieged reporter on a beach to another.  The absence of comments like Holthaus‘ leave watchers, at best, partially informed.  To discuss weather events as “unprecedented” and “record-breaking” without connecting the dots to climate change’s (pdf) influence on the situation does not represent truthful reporting.

Thus, you should consider as untruthful those who discuss (especially those who have the opportunity for long analytical discussions explaining events) extreme weather events without raising how humanity’s thumb on the scale through climate change.

The following video of the Queen of Denial seemed relevant for those meteorologists and weather forecasters who fail to discuss climate change (or, even worse, reject the global scientific consensus on the subject) …

NOTE:  Highly recommended, Mike Tidwell, Hurricane Sandy: The worst-case scenario for New York City is unimaginable. Mike wrote most of this years ago and, like those who warned of potential hurricane impacts on New Orleans’ in the decades before Katrina, this merits reading even as we watch with concern Sandy’s impact on New York City.  Also, Joe Romm, How Does Global Warming Make Hurricanes Like Irene More Destructive?