In the 2012 presidential election, climate change was not a prominent agenda issue for either President Obama or Governor Romney-until Hurricane Sandy washed ashore. The topic never came up in the presidential debates. President Obama did not mention it because he was accused of promulgating regulations that had stymied business expansion and slowed recovery from the Great Recession. Governor Romney did not mention it because he had been an advocate of a proactive government policy on global warming while Governor of Massachusetts (2003-2007). However, during the brutal Republican primaries, Romney reversed his position to appeal to the ultra conservative Tea Party Republicans. He did not want to call attention to that reversal during the general election.
Just before the election, the populous East Coast saw a live Climate Change Production named Hurricane Sandy. Millions of New Englanders lost power-some for weeks. According to FOX Business (Smith 2012) insured property losses exceeded $20B and economic damage exceeded $50B-exceeded only by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
In contrast to President's Bush's lackadaisical and incompetent response to Hurricane Katrina, President Obama responded quickly and forcefully. In the aftermath, the mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, endorsed Obama for President. Bloomberg asked conservative pundits, Tea Party Congressmen, and other climate change skeptics to explain two hurricanes and a freak October snowstorm in a single year to his suffering constituents. The Republican Governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, stood at the President's side and enthusiastically thanked him for the help of the federal government.
In contrast, the 2012 hurricane season was devastating for Governor Romney. First Hurricane Isaac interfered with the Republican National Convention in Florida where he was nominated; then Hurricane Sandy made him look opportunistic regarding his reversal on the climate change issue, while she made Obama look presidential--on the ground, at the scene, being hugged by a grateful Republican governor.
Still conservative businessmen, like the Koch Brothers, and the philosophical brethren in Congress, whose elections they finance, deny the reality of climate change. Under the fear mongering banners of job losses, double dip recession and oppressive government regulations, they assert that one super storm, such as Hurricane Sandy, does not prove global warming. They are right, of course. In any context, one event cannot prove a pattern. However, Hurricane Sandy was more than an isolated event. The melting of the Arctic ice cap is not a one-summer phenomenon. It has been progressing with increasing speed as the climate has been warming for decades. In November, the National Climate Data Center reported that October 2012 marked the 332nd consecutive month that global land and ocean surface temperatures were above the 20th century average for that month. In 2007 ships actually began crossing the Arctic Ocean through the "Northwest Passage"-the shortcut to the Far East that Columbus tried to find 500 years ago.
Hurricane Sandy's destructive power was accentuated by the one foot rise in sea levels that has resulted from the gradual melting of the Arctic ice cap. So even in the unlikely case that Sandy was a random meteorological event, the extent of damage must be laid at the feet of global warming.
There has been international consensus on climate change for over a decade-except in the United States. According to a Brookings Institute poll (Borick et.al. 2011), in 2010, 80 percent of Canadians believed that global warming was a serious concern. In contrast, only 58 percent of Americans felt that way. A longitudinal term Gallup poll (Newport 2010) of Americans showed an even more dramatic public opinion shift away from concern with global warming. Between 1998 and 2010 the number of Americans who felt the "seriousness of global warming is greatly exaggerated" rose from 30 percent to 48 percent.
The Koch Brothers efforts to diffuse the issue of the effects of carbon dioxide emissions succeeded-at least until Hurricane Sandy. Koch Industries has huge investments in coal production and in oil production and the pipelines to deliver it. They funneled grant money to a few scientists, like Richard Muller at the University of California-Berkeley, to dispute the reality of global warming, or at least dispute the impact of human activities on changing temperatures. Thus, they prevented a 100 percent scientific consensus. Because it appeared that scientists disagreed, American citizens had an easy way to deny climate change and avoid life style changes.
However, in mid 2012 Professor Muller reversed his position because, as he said in a July 28th New York Times Op-Ed, his Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) project had just determined that the earth was getting warmer and that human activities were to blame. A few months later, Professor Muller (with Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels) wrote "The Frackers Guide to a Greener World." In their November 11th Wall Street Journal Op-Ed, they laud natural gas as the green answer to global warming because it produces less greenhouse gases than oil or coal and the U.S. has lots of it. The Koch Brothers are probably still happy with "their man in academia;" they are heavily invested in the new natural gas boom.
Scientists, and those political leaders who took science seriously, had concluded that the earth was warming almost a generation earlier (Gore 1992). Ecologists understood that small increases in average worldwide temperatures would ripple across physical and biological processes in the ecosystem. They understood that some of those changes would gather momentum and cascade rather than attenuate with time and space.
The climate has changed in both directions in the past. Some scientists have postulated that a major warming resulted from the carbon dioxide and methane in dinosaur flatulence (Khan 2012). When the planet was very warm, vegetation grew across polar regions. When the dinosaurs went extinct, carbon dioxide and methane levels dropped as more carbon was stored in vegetation and less carbon dioxide was released. by herbivores.. As the earth cooled, the uneaten vegetation was preserved in permafrost and was covered by accumulating snow--which compressed into vast ice sheets. The white snow reflected the suns rays to further cool the planet. Now as the earth again warms the ice melts, the darker organic matter is exposed and attracts more heat from the sun. As the permafrost melts, the organic matter is exposed to oxygen and rots--producing carbon dioxide, which warms the climate which thaws the permafrost even more quickly which releases even more carbon dioxide--reinforcing the process. All the while, melting of the ice caps causes the sea levels to keep rising, giving Hurricane Sandy (and her successors) more punch at the levies and a knock out punch at Romney--a presidential candidate who had chosen to deny her cause.
References:
Borick, C., E. Lachapelle and B. Rabe 2011 "Climate Compared: Public Opinion on Climate Change in the United States and Canada," Issues in Government studies #39, Brookings Institute
Gore, A. 1992 Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit. Barnes and Noble: New York, NY
Khan, A 2012 Los Angeles Times May 8
Muller, R. 2012 "The Conversion of a Climate Change Skeptic." New York Times July 28
Muller, R, and M. Daniels 2012 "The Frackers Guide to Greener World," Wall Street Journal Nov. 11
Newport, F. 2010 "American's Global Warming Concerns Continue to Drop," Gallup Politics Mar. 11
Smith, S. 2012 "Super Storm Sandy Hits ETFs," FoxBusiness Nov. 19
Lowell Klessig has explored a broad range of academic disciples. He took courses in 45 departments, in 8 colleges at 2 universities. He received a BS in Biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a MAT in Molecular Biology at Vanderbilt University, a MS in Sociology and a Ph.D. in Environmental Management and Resource Planning from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Dr Klessig taught at Northland College, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and throughout Wisconsin as a Natural Resource Specialist, Extension Service, USDA. Concurrently, he also served as Executive Director of the Wisconsin Rural Leadership Program (now Leadership Wisconsin).
He has studied nature and culture in 54 countries. He has lectured on "Social Sustainability" to a variety of audiences on three continents.
In addition to two books and articles in professional journals, Dr. Klessig has authored numerous non-technical publications for adult audiences. He has written a monthly column for a Midwestern newspaper, does occasional magazine features and has written OP-EDs for newspapers in several states.
In retirement, he lectures as an Emeritus Professor of Human Dimensions of Natural Resource Management, writes social commentary, farms (has for 32 years), manages woodland, travels, serves on local government and non-profit organization boards and ice fishes.
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