By
Brian Padden
The
devastation to New York City and the eastern
seaboard of the United
States from Hurricane Sandy has reignited
the debate over global warming. Many experts
believe the warming of the planet is largely caused by the burning of fossil
fuels.
Hurricane
Sandy cut power to about 8 million homes, shut
down 70 percent of East Coast oil refineries, and will exceed, economists say, the
$15 billion worth of damage caused last year when Hurricane Irene hit New York .
New
York State Governor Andrew Cuomo said his state must adapt to the reality of
more frequent extreme weather events.
Carol
Werner with the Environmental and Energy Study Institute says climate change
scientists have long predicted that intense storms, droughts, and forest fires
would result from the rising temperatures and sea levels caused by global
warming.
“Scientists
have been warning us about this for decades, and unfortunately it is all happening
much earlier than what they had originally predicted back in the 80s,” Werner
said.
But
climate change skeptics take issue with the argument that global warming is to
blame for intense storms. Patrick
Michaels with the Cato Institute says New
York has just been unlucky.
“It
was the moon’s fault. This storm hit at
full moon which raises the tide there a couple of feet, so the storm set a
record. If it had occurred any other
time in the lunar cycle, that wouldn’t have happened,” Michaels said.
Climate
change believers and skeptics agree that plans for coastal and low-lying areas
must adapt to rising sea levels.
But
there is still no consensus to mandate the reduction of carbon fuel emissions
to mitigate the effects of global warming.
Michaels says the private sector will change over time as innovations
bring down the costs of clean energy.
“The
best policy is not to do very much about it because technologies will change
dramatically over the course of a century.
Consider what it was like a century ago, you know. What’s nuclear power or what’s this box I
have in my pocket that can access all the information in the world?,” Michaels
said.
Werner
says the government needs to lead on the issue.
“Yes,
the private sector is critical in terms of investment, but the private sector
will also tell you, industry after industry will say we need government
leadership. We need certainty in terms
of policy. That is the most critical
thing to enable us to truly move forward,” Werner said.
She
says the lesson of Hurricane Sandy is that the cost of doing nothing is rising.
---VOA News
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