I had dvr'd some shows on NBC tonight. Instead, I got a special on Sandy. Out of the hour show, about 10 minutes was spent on a discussion of climate change. At least it is starting to slip into the conversation, even if those doing the talking seem to be tip-toeing around actually naming it as such.
At about 40 minutes in, there was this exchange between Brian Williams and Jim Cantore of the Weather Channel:
Brian Williams:
What’s causing this new normal? Once you invite the ocean to go across the Jersey shore once you invite the ocean into lower Manhattan, it’s hard to say no the next time.
Jim Cantore:
No it isn’t [unable to make out]. Weakened the shoreline big time here, Brian. Let’s hope another big winter storm doesn’t come along here as we go through this winter or we’re going to weaken it even further. I mean, [closes his eyes] when you just try and wrap your arms around this storm…let’s do it first with the satellite picture and take a look at the size of this thing. If you look at what’s happening here on the east side of the storm, winds spin counter-clockwise, the southerly winds, the warm tropical air has come all the way up into southeast Canada, while the cold air has come all the way down into Florida and then back up here into NY. That’s a distance of 1500 miles. That’s a flight from NY to Dallas, so about a 3 hour plane ride to take you from the top to the bottom of the storm. So, it is just absolutely huge. And, what we’re seeing in the atmosphere, Brian, especially at the high latitudes, are what we call these blocks, or these traffic jams, and they’re big, and they’re having impact on storms, and they’re having impact on weather. You can never blame a single weather event on climate change, but these signals that we’re seeing, that are changing directions of systems coming out the tropics, like Sandy, are something that have us scratching our heads and wondering, if this is the new normal, we are in for a lot of trouble down the road.
Brian Williams:
Well, you mentioned climate, what can you say, since so many people are asking and emailing, what can you say about climate and this?
Jim Cantore:
You can say that, if we are going to start setting up these high latitude blocks, if we’re going to continue to see the warming signals that are very evident…I mean, you don’t need a 100k years of data, let’s just take 30 years…the climate is changing clearly, and what you can say is, if we are going to continue to see these signals, we are going to continue to see extreme weather events, one right after the other, whether they be tornadoes, droughts, floods or hurricanes.
Video of Bloomberg [Love the woman doing the sign language. She is very animated and entertaining to watch]:
What is clear, is that the storms that we’ve experienced in the last year or so around this country and around this world are much more severe than before. Whether that’s global warming, or what, I don’t know, but we’ll have to address those issues.
Video of Andrew Cuomo:
Anyone who says there’s not a dramatic change in weather patterns, I think is denying reality.
Ben Strauss, Climate Center
We’re seeing more and more extreme weather events, leading to greater and greater economic damages. And, I’m very suspicious that climate change is an important player for many of these.
There was also some talk about the aging power grid and that this is the third storm in a year that has devastated it in the NE:
Narrator:
From governors to mayors, there is a growing consensus that this is part of a new normal.
A bit of irony, I thought: the show I had set to record was called "The New Normal," so every time I paused the recording to type what was being said, this was the show name I saw across the bottom of the screen.
Clark Gellings, Electric Power Research Institute:
Says building a power grid that can withstand these storms is just not economically feasible.
It would be nearly impossible to make the investment that would be necessary to say that we could be 99.999% reliable. We make some rationed decisions and we make a few compromises. We do that on behalf of the consumers that are served in the industry because, if you were to gold-plate the power system, no one would be able to afford electricity.
Who is this guy? Wouldn't this make the argument that the electric grid should be owned by "We the People?" Think what a wonderful jobs program this would be!
Brian Williams to Harry Smith:
So, is that the choice, either gold-plate it, or doing what we’re doing in the northern suburbs of NY tonight. We’re putting wires back up, next to trees, that, and guess what those trees are going to do in the next storm…they’re going to fall down and take down the wires. So, we’re going to spend it over time anyway
Harry Smith:
There is that choice being made and, in the short term, there are talks about getting together with municipalities and saying, ‘Can we cut down trees together so that it’s not as bad next time?’ Cause you’re right, just last fall, we did this all over again. Twice last fall.
Brian Williams:
And, with our politics, we can’t agree that it’s Tuesday.
Sorry, Brian, although I've always kind of liked you it seems to me that your profession has a lot do with politics being in that state.
Harry Smith:
Right, so how do you agree to figure out a way, with government help, or not with government help, to go ahead and do that simple thing of at least cutting down the trees? Now, on the other hand, you had 14 feet, that was the wave height that the water came into Manhattan. Never happened before. More than 2 feet higher than anything in history. Impossible to plan for things that never happened in history before.
Honestly, Harry, you really had nothing to offer in this interview.
Isn't it sad that this sad little bit in an hour long news piece is the best I can come up with to find a little encouragement that maybe we as a country will begin to have these conversations?