I lived in New York for nearly twenty years. Time and again, we were told a massive shitstorm of a hurricane or tornado would hit. It never did, despite – given that inclement weather give me a day off from school – my rain dancing efforts to the contrary.
When I first heard about Hurricane Sandy, my thoughts drifted to these many false alarms over the years, when a power outage was the worst possible outcome. I thought of nights willing the lights to go back on: that way, my computer or TV would fire back to life, my cellphone would begin to charge, and I would be provided with a respite from what, at the time, seemed like a stint of boredom that would never cease.
Now, living two thousand miles away, surveying images of humans thrown on a stretcher, victims of the wrath of Hurricane Sandy, I find myself with a greater appreciation of eternity.
As I flip through dozens of photographs depicting the widespread obliteration of my city – taxis flipped over, waves crashing over hot dog stands, citizens shimmying along the few dry surfaces (relatively speaking) that remain – I can’t but wonder if Sandy wasted time as she journeyed up the Eastern seaboard by watching The Day After Tomorrow. Her actions in flooding entire city blocks and stripping facades off apartment buildings seem stripped straight from the script of that – at the time, but presently to a lesser extent, laughably unrealistic – piece of cinema.
As much as we’d like, this is no big-budget fantasy film: this time, as Sandy wreaks havoc, the costs are real – human lives scattered amongst thousands of gallons of water, fallen trees, and innumerable shreds of debris.
Eventually, all will be well. Power will return to the Empire City, its citizens and its neighbors. So will normalcy. Yet, as a part of the country generally immune to this sort of weather is now at the mercy of it, I can’t help but ask the eternal question, reframed:
How can anyone viewing image after image of entire city blocks underwater dispute the reality of climate change?
How can people still hold fast to notions of “disputable science” and a “lack of a consensus?”
It boggles the mind.
Still, perhaps there’s a way we can help.
Next time you come across such a misanthrope, show them a few photos of today’s aftermath. They say pictures are worth a thousand words – and since some of these subjects might not have the attention span (or reading ability) to digest that many in one sitting – let the visuals do the talking. Show them pictures of the FDR Drive submerged under several feet of water, of trees protruding into one side of a child’s bedroom and out another, of cars crushed, flipped upside down, and piled on top of each other. Show them the world’s greatest city – the financial foundation for our nation and the globe – ripped apart by a god (or if you don’t believe in such a thing, a climate system) that will no longer tolerate our offensive lack of giving a shit.
The evidence you put up for cross-examination might be circumstantial, the sample small, and our power of prevention marginal, but the consequences are no less real.
There is no greater threat to society, democracy or the environment than tolerated ignorance. By educating those who know no better, perhaps we might drown this ignorance in a flood of contempt and enlightenment, and foster (yes) an environment in which those who deny are considered those who enable, lambasted as malcontents not worthy of the earth they are so proud to offer up to the false gods of “freedom” and “a natural course.”
As a wise man once said, if we continue to take these people seriously, and follow their logic to its natural conclusion, we might as well decide not to extinguish a raging fire.
Indeed, those who deny the affects of our actions on our climate – instead chalking it up to “God’s Will” – may not be directly responsible for this storm and the inevitable future ones to follow, along with the death and destruction nature has wrought and will continue to. Nevertheless, it would difficult to argue they haven’t lent a helping hand.
So squash this bug. Then, maybe one day, mother nature will decide not to drive her heel down and return the favor.