Bloomberg: Post-Sandy NYC will lead climate change battle

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, addressing a meeting on New York City's recovery from Hurricane Sandy this morning, spoke of a future in a warming world with the stark reality of more such devastating storms, saying the city will lead the way in stemming climate change.

"We cannot solve the problems associated with climate change alone here in New York City, but I think it's fair to say we can lead the way," Bloomberg said during his speech, which was broadcast on local news channel NY1.

Hurricane Sandy was a record-breaking storm by many measures, from its tremendous storm surge to its low pressure and strong winds — and potentially in its overall costs.

And while linking any particular storm to climate change is tricky, scientists do say changes in climate will shift the odds toward more extreme weather events. They often use the analogy of loading the die, such that one roll may or may not be the result of a modified die but after many rolls the biased results become clear.

"This was a complex storm, so we do need to be cautious about linking it to climate change," Jonathan Foley, an ecosystem researcher who is director of the University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment, told LiveScience in November. "Only some of its components may have been due to climate change."

For instance, warmer sea-surface temperatures, which fuel storms like Sandy, along with higher sea levels likely only magnified Hurricane Sandy, according to climate scientist Michael Mann, of Pennsylvania State University. [See Photos of Sandy's Aftermath]

And as Bloomberg pointed out this morning, there was less than a 1 percent chance of Sandy's coastal storm surge that reached 13-14 feet, which included storm surge and a high tide, in New York City's Battery Park. It was the highest in at least two centuries, and something that can be attributed to climate change, Mann said in November.

"Someone set the fire with meteorology, but climate change added the fuel," Foley said.

Today, Bloomberg announced he has set in place a team to craft concrete recovery plans for those hit hardest by Sandy and plans for dealing with the risks we face from climate change. "The biggest challenge we face is adapting our city to the risks associated with climate change," Bloomberg said.

As for how he plans to do that, Bloomberg first noted some projects that are already in the works, including restoring 127 acres of wetlands, which act as natural barriers to storm surge. (Related, 15-foot-high sand dunes built along some of Long Island, proved their worth during Hurricane Sandy, protecting those communities from catastrophic damage that was evident in places on the island without the man-made dunes, reported the New York Times.)

By 2030, Bloomberg said the goal is to reduce the city's carbon footprint, or ultimately the amount of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere, by 30 percent.

He also mentioned a "green infrastructure" project that would capture rainwater before it floods coastal areas, an expansion of Staten Island's stormwater management system called Bluebelt, as well as some zoning changes for coastal building.

A new recycling center being built in Brooklyn's coastal Red Hook neighbourhood is an example of what these zoning changes can do: The center is elevated above the flood plain and escaped any significant damage from the storm surge.

"We can't just rebuild what was there and hope for the best," Bloomberg said.

Mayor Bloomberg also said that the city was looking at climate change and storm impacts to the city's critical infrastructure, such as its subway system (the largest in the nation), its tunnels and utilities, such as electricity and cellphone towers.

"We have to re-examine all of our major infrastructure in light of Sandy," Bloomberg said.

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• Hurricane Sandy: Photos of a Frankenstorm
• The Reality of Climate Change: 10 Myths Busted
• 7 Ways Earth Changes in the Blink of an Eye

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[thebes42]

For Sandy to have had ANYTHING to do with "climate change" either:
A) Sea levels would have had to have rising meaningfully, contributing significantly to the flooding.
or
B) The Atlantic would have needed to have warmed significantly, feeding the hurricane.

NEITHER of these things ever happened. Its true that "computer models" say they will happen in the future, but even if that turns out to be true, it couldn't have caused Sandy now.

The NCIC, a part of NOAA, finds NO termpertature increase in the Atlantic in the past 6 years of scaremongering.

IF the Jersey shore has seen an actual rise in sea levels it has been under an inch. The storm surge was over a hundred times that.

This article, like most on supposed man-made global warming, is fear mongering psuedo-science intended to enrich the carbon traders and increase the government's powers.

[ge556]

Wrong. The North Atlantic has been warming.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/oct/07/north-atlantic-ocean-wet-summer

[jnffarrell]

Bloomberg! Lead the reformation of perverted local infrastructure, building and design practice, but don't tell me climate made you do it. For years NYC has used ConEd as a tax collection piggy bank while pretending that sensible planning for local energy infrastructure upgrades were a waste of rate payer money.

Now politicians are taking credit for jawboning ConEd into not blowing up Wall Street with steam tunnels and not freezing granny for a week. Cmon man.
Stop playing politics with utility and insurance commission appointments.

Appoint state commissions that care whether grannies freeze at home to save the average ratepayer $0.01 per kilowatt hour.

[cassielemon2]

Agreed! Politicians are pushing the blame over to Mother Nature once again. Time to start owning up to the responsibility and hiring org. to help like Immediate Response Group and FEMA.

[Forty-Four]

You cannot fix them at all. They will happen regardless of what you try to do. It is a natural process that happens over the period of thousands of years. The polar ice caps extended into the middle of the US thousands of years ago....it wasn't us that caused them to receed so far. People are right when they say the ice is melting faster...because there is less of it to melt, making it easier to melt faster. It is natural. All of the CO2 they try and account for does not account for all that which is being released by the ice itself as it melts. Not to mention, as I was growing up, I was taught that cars emitted CO, not CO2.(Animals produce CO2) Who knows, maybe they emmit both gasses. Bottom line, try as we might, we will not stop this...it is going to happen until it is time for the next ice age to begin.

[ge556]

"Not to mention, as I was growing up, I was taught that cars emitted CO, not CO2.(Animals produce CO2) Who knows, maybe they emmit both gasses. "

That's a lot of ignorance to admit, for someone who claims to have all the answers.

Yes, there are natural cycles, but this is not one of them. Solar output is DOWN over the last 30 years. This is NOT the same cycle that causes ice ages (orbital changes over centuries).

This global warming is caused by the 40% increase of CO2 we have caused since 1880.