Public Employee Press

Help is available
Global warming made Sandy a superstorm

Superstorm Sandy put a spotlight on climate change and the recent increase in extreme weather, and politicians at every level of government added their voices to the scientists who have been warning us for years about the dangers of man-made global warming.

In a Siena College poll released Dec. 3, New York voters overwhelmingly - 69 percent - said they believe Sandy demonstrated the effects of climate change.

As Hurricane Sandy headed north in the Atlantic Ocean, it gained energy from warm tropical waters and a nearby nor'easter storm. The two storms morphed into a hybrid, hitting the city with "the worst that nature delivers in storms," said PBS's "Nova."

The violent power of the superstorm was increased by the warmer and higher seas that result from the melting of the Arctic icecap. The rising temperatures also impacted the jet stream, which normally would have pushed the storm to the east but instead sped the disaster toward the mid-Atlantic coast. The eye of the storm hit land at high tide, but even while Sandy's center was 300 miles away, the Battery Promenade in lower Manhattan was under water.

"Global climate change contributed to higher ocean temperatures, and a warmer, moister atmosphere to make for a huge intense storm," said Dr. Kenneth E. Trenberth, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

The danger of the global warming caused by the increasing amounts of carbon dioxide and methane pumped into the atmosphere by burning oil, coal, and natural gas is clear to all but the energy companies and the politicians who take their money, but the presidential candidates were asked no questions about climate change in any of the 2012 debates.

As New Yorkers saw their homes destroyed by Sandy and tens of thousands suffered without heat, light and safe water, more Americans came to understand that climate change is a real, immediate and expensive problem, not just a theoretical future threat.

Climate change and rebuilding after Sandy provide an opportunity for unions to help create the political will for action. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, DC 37's parent union, connects global warming and jobs and points out that climate change creates "significant demands for additional infrastructure maintenance and replacement."

"The challenge for New York City is how we rebuild," said former Civil Service Technical Guild Local 375 President Lou Albano. He says the city needs to plan for ocean surges, raise the levels of mechanical rooms with electrical and other equipment, change building codes to cope with the rising sea levels, and cut rising carbon dioxide levels.

Sandy has alerted us to a huge challenge and a huge opportunity for unions to make a momentous contribution to the future of our city and our planet.

—Jane LaTour