After Sandy
It's Monday and many of us are getting "back to normal" after the hurricane, while many others have a long way to go to normal.
You've seen the photos and the news footage: the buckled houses, homes sinking as if into quicksand, the boardwalks ripped up and scattered like busted piano keys, cars leapfrogging each other down the streets. You've seen the East River lapping, almost gently, over its barriers, and then the floodwaters that swamped Avenue C. You saw footage of the Con Edison plant on 14th Street explode into sick, green flashes of light like the coming of the alien invasion. You've seen the post-apocalyptic devastation in the Rockaways, like the bombing of Dresden, and the misery in Staten Island. And you've seen the people crying, digging through Dumpsters for food, begging Bloomberg to do something.
Maybe you are one of those people. Maybe you're among them, helping. Or maybe you spent the night looting their homes. This week we've seen both the horrors and the wonders of humanity.
But there is one burden we all share: We invited Sandy to our shores. The product of human-induced climate change, we invited her with our burning of fossil fuels, our hunger for convenience and speed, our selfishness. We're all guilty to some extent or another. We must not turn away from this painful truth.
We also invited her by voting for politicians who don't put the environment at the top of the priority list. Tomorrow, we have a chance to at least vote against a man who thinks the rising of the oceans is a joke, who believes global warming isn't happening, and who probably doesn't care what happens to Earth when he's gone because he'll be the God of planet Kolob by then.
It's time to get our heads out of the sand, as we dig out from Sandy, and face reality. Our planet is warming, our oceans are rising, we will be inundated again and again if we don't take action.
You've seen the photos and the news footage: the buckled houses, homes sinking as if into quicksand, the boardwalks ripped up and scattered like busted piano keys, cars leapfrogging each other down the streets. You've seen the East River lapping, almost gently, over its barriers, and then the floodwaters that swamped Avenue C. You saw footage of the Con Edison plant on 14th Street explode into sick, green flashes of light like the coming of the alien invasion. You've seen the post-apocalyptic devastation in the Rockaways, like the bombing of Dresden, and the misery in Staten Island. And you've seen the people crying, digging through Dumpsters for food, begging Bloomberg to do something.
Maybe you are one of those people. Maybe you're among them, helping. Or maybe you spent the night looting their homes. This week we've seen both the horrors and the wonders of humanity.
But there is one burden we all share: We invited Sandy to our shores. The product of human-induced climate change, we invited her with our burning of fossil fuels, our hunger for convenience and speed, our selfishness. We're all guilty to some extent or another. We must not turn away from this painful truth.
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| Diesel Jeans ad |
We also invited her by voting for politicians who don't put the environment at the top of the priority list. Tomorrow, we have a chance to at least vote against a man who thinks the rising of the oceans is a joke, who believes global warming isn't happening, and who probably doesn't care what happens to Earth when he's gone because he'll be the God of planet Kolob by then.
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| Avenue C and 8th St. |
It's time to get our heads out of the sand, as we dig out from Sandy, and face reality. Our planet is warming, our oceans are rising, we will be inundated again and again if we don't take action.
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| On Avenue A |
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