by Brad Johnson, campaign manager of Forecast the Facts

In the wake of Superstorm Sandy, New York City’s flagship public television station, WNET, has dropped the richest man in New York, carbon pollution billionaire David Koch, from its board of trustees. Days before the monthly board meeting on May 16, Koch’s name was removed from the WNET website. Koch had been a board member since 2006. Koch has been funding WNET since 1986.

The severance of Koch’s longstanding relationship with WNET — which not only serves the New York City area but also produces national programs such as Charlie Rose, Nature, and Great Performances — comes at a time of increasing tension between Koch’s anti-regulatory, climate-polluting industrial empire and the educational mission of public television.

The inherent conflict between Koch’s conspiratorial, anti-science ideology and the public interest with has come under attention in recent months. After Superstorm Sandy struck, WNET’s Charlie Rose and Bill Moyers ran shows on the tragic consequences and threat of greenhouse pollution for the New York region. More recently, reports of Koch Industries’ interest in the newspaper holdings of the Tribune Company have spurred nationwide protests.

Koch also was featured in the November 2012 PBS documentary Park Avenue, which contrasted the extreme wealth of Koch’s residence at 740 Park Avenue with the stark poverty less than a mile north in East Harlem. In the documentary, a former doorman noted that Koch, with a net worth of about $45 billion, gives only $50 holiday tips.

On May 16, the evening after Koch left the WNET board, the station ran a major live town hall on Superstorm Sandy. Broadcasting from New Jersey and New York City, the NY/NJ/Long Island affiliates under WNET management broadcast a two-hour show that talked repeatedly about the major threat posed by climate change in rising sea levels and more frequent storms of increased intensity — threats which Koch’s Cato Institute denies.

In anticipation of today’s piece on the Kochs in The New Yorker by Jane Mayer, Koch Industries issued a conspiratorial rant accusing her of running a “left-leaning” “smear” campaign, in coordination with “MSNBC, ThinkProgress, The New York Times, NPR, The Nation, Mother Jones, Huffington Post and more”:

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On Friday, the City of New York allocated $294 million of Superstorm Sandy recovery funds for resiliency projects to respond to the threat of fossil-fueled climate change.

The announcement was part of the unveiling of NYC’s plan for $1.77 billion in Sandy recovery initiatives by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan, and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) at New York City Hall:

The City has set aside $294 million for resiliency investments to be detailed in a report issued by the Special Initiative for Rebuilding and Resiliency later this month.

“HUD’s approval of our comprehensive Action Plan enables us to take the next critical step toward recovery – launching the programs for home rebuilding and business assistance that will rejuvenate the neighborhoods Sandy hit hardest,” said Deputy Mayor for Operations Cas Holloway. “We’ll also take the first steps toward making the City more resilient to the impacts that we know climate change will bring.”

The sequester cuts reduced the planned budget for resilience from an original $327 million.

The New York City Special Initiative for Rebuilding and Resiliency (SIRR) was established by Bloomberg in November, 2012, with an explicit mission to address global warming:

When it comes to climate change, New York City has long been considered a leader in long-term sustainable planning, but Hurricane Sandy was a wake-up call to all New Yorkers.

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Warming-charged Superstorm Sandy affected electric grid security throughout Tri-State area.

This morning, CAP Senior Fellow Daniel J. Weiss testified before the Subcommittee on Energy and Power of the Committee on Energy and Commerce about electric grid reliability. He made a strong case for confronting the elephant in the room –the impact climate change has on the reliability and security of the electric grid. The other elephant in the room is the effect that burning fossil fuels for electricity has on our climate.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify on “American Energy Security and Innovation: Grid Reliability Challenges in a Shifting Energy-Resource Landscape.”

Discussing electricity security and innovation while ignoring climate change is like discussing personal health while ignoring cigarette smoking, diet, and exercise. Any examination of this shifting landscape must acknowledge that our electricity-generation systems produce much of the carbon pollution responsible for climate change and that the effects of climate change impair electricity reliability. Since coal-fired power plants emit one-third of the climate pollution in the United States, it is irresponsible to assess changes in our electricity system while ignoring climate pollution and its impacts.

Americans understand that extreme weather is related to man-made climate change that costs our economy billions of dollars annually. A recent poll from Yale University and George Mason University found that many Americans believe that global warming caused recent extreme weather and climatic events to be “more severe.”

Extreme weather events — including storms, floods, droughts, heat waves, and wildfires — threaten electricity reliability. The Congressional Research Service concluded that, “[P]ower delivery systems are most vulnerable to storms and extreme weather events.”

These events also threaten American lives and the economy. The most severe and extreme weather events caused 1,107 deaths and $188 billion in damages in 2011 and 2012.

A Center for American Progress analysis found that federal natural disaster-relief and recovery spending cost taxpayers $136 billion in the fiscal years from 2011 to 2013, or $400 per household annually. And the National Climate Assessment draft warns us that we can expect more extreme and severe weather, including droughts and rainstorms. The severe 2012 drought, for example, interfered with electricity generation in California, Connecticut, Illinois, and New York by shrinking the amount of cooling water available for power plants. It also disrupted oil and natural gas production.

Superstorm Sandy and other severe storms disrupted electricity transmission and distribution by downing power lines and damaging substations. The National Climate Assessment draft predicts that future climate-change-related events will interfere with electricity transmission.

We urge the subcommittee to support policies to achieve a more secure, reliable electricity system by accomplishing the following three goals:

1. The subcommittee should support policies that slow climate change by reducing carbon pollution from power plants, the largest uncontrolled source of emissions.

Failing that, EPA must at least comply with the Supreme Court by setting such standards under the Clean Air Act.

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Daniel J. Weiss is a Senior Fellow and the Director of Climate Strategy at the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Thanks to Mari Hernandez, Research Associate, and Jackie Weidman, Special Assistant, on the Energy Policy team of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and his entourage leave the beach after looking at new sand dunes being built with discarded Christmas trees in Bradley Beach. 1/14/13 (Credit: Andrew Mills/The Star-Ledger)

Governor Chris Christie’s home state of New Jersey has been picking up the pieces left by Superstorm Sandy for 6 months, and it has become quite evident that the governor has little patience for those who stand in the way. He made that perfectly clear during a town hall meeting this week:

When Gov. Chris Christie told the kids “cover your ears,” at a packed town hall meeting on Long Beach Island today, you knew something was coming.

The topic was building dunes to protect the Jersey Shore in case another Sandy hits — something the Republican governor is gung-ho about.

But some property owners are refusing to give the federal government access to their property. And Christie isn’t happy about that, saying these “knuckleheads” are claiming the state wants to build everything from roads to bathrooms and showers on their land.

“Let me use an indelicate word,” the governor told the crowd, giving his warning to the kids. “Bullshit. That’s what that is … That’s the excuse they use. Here’s why they’re really concerned: They don’t want their view blocked.”

“We are building these dunes, okay?” Christie said. “We are building these dunes whether you consent or not.”

Overtaxed national flood insurance and realistic coastal planning are important conversations to have. Still, “knuckleheads,” eminent domain, and FCC complaints aside, what Christie is really talking about here is climate resiliency.

Across the country, people who live on or near the coast are discovering first-hand the dangers of a warming climate. Storm surge, coastal flooding, more powerful storms, sea level rise: All are happening more frequently as our carbon emissions change the thermodynamics and chemistry of our atmosphere and oceans. The warmer it gets, the more energy storms encounter as they head toward the coast. And the warmer it gets, the more glaciers melt into the sea and the oceans expand, making storm surges that much higher.

While states like South Carolina would prefer to metaphorically cover their ears (instead of being asked to do so physically like the children warned in Governor Christie’s town hall) and pretend sea level rise is not an issue, this cannot be ignored. The sea level off Atlantic City has risen nearly 4 millimeters per year since 1911.

A Center for American Progress report out this week found that for the last two fiscal years, federal taxpayers were on the hook for $136 billion in domestic disaster aid. $60 billion is for climate change-fueled Superstorm Sandy.

What about those dunes? It’s true that sand dunes, whether natural or artificial, are an important strategy in protecting vulnerable coastal populations from the risks posed by damaging storms. So are salt marshes, coral reefs, mangroves, sea grasses. And so is reducing carbon emissions. Governor Christie may acknowledge humans are responsible for climate change, and he may be advocating for climate resiliency, but he still pulled his state out of RGGI: an effective, economically beneficial regional cap-and-trade system.

Becoming climate resilient is important because we are locked into a certain amount of climate change — probably about 69 feet of sea level rise as of now, though we can still affect whether that happens relatively fast or slow. That said, making real progress on the causes (mitigation) of climate change-amplified storms would be more impressive than preparing for the next one (adaptation) even if that preparation involves swagger, swear words, and sand dunes.

On the sixth-month anniversary of superstorm Sandy, NBC evening news looked at whether rising seas and ever-worsening storms could destroy beach living.

Of course the answer is that it could and probably will on our current emissions path:

NBC: “The three feet of sea level rise predicted by the end of the century could swamp the jersey shore and redraw the coastline of florida. more immediate is the one-two punch of rising seas and storm surge. Scientists estimate some $500 billion of residential real estate will be at risk for severe coastal flooding by 2030.”

Scientist: “We have always been able to depend upon a constant shoreline. It’s going to be a hard lesson to learn. This is a new planet we are living on.”

It would have been nice if once in the story, NBC could have brought themselves to utter the words “climate change” or “global warming” — let alone mention the carbon pollution that is causing this ever-worsening situation.

The bottom line is that unless we act ASAP there will hardly be any real beaches left in a few decades (see “Polar ice sheet mass loss is speeding up, on pace for 1 foot sea level rise by 2050“). And post-2050, seas rising several inches a decade will make it impossible to sustain coastal properties, particularly in areas threatened by supercharged storms and the deadly storm surges they bring.

The video is here:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Bowling Green Subway Station in New York, October 30, 2012, closed after Superstorm Sandy hit. (Credit: AP)

Scroll to the end of this post for an excellent infographic on this topic.

Superstorm Sandy devastated New Jersey, New York, and other areas along the eastern seaboard six months ago on October 29, 2012. It took at least 72 lives in the United States and caused nearly $50 billion in damages. Congress eventually provided $60 billion in disaster relief and recovery aid after weeks of deliberating and partisan bickering. These recovery efforts continue to this day.

Sandy was the worst natural disaster in the United States in terms of destruction and deaths since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, but it wasn’t the only one. In 2011 and 2012 alone, the United States experienced 25 floods, storms, droughts, heat waves, and wildfires that each caused at least $1 billion in damages. Combined, these extreme weather events were responsible for 1,107 fatalities and up to $188 billion in economic damages.

The Center for American Progress conducted an analysis and found that the federal government—which means taxpayers—spent $136 billion total from fiscal year 2011 to fiscal year 2013 on disaster relief. This adds up to an average of nearly $400 per household per year.

Nearly all of this disaster spending was for relief and recovery from these and other smaller natural disasters. Most of these disasters are symptomatic of the man-made climate change resulting from massive amounts of carbon emissions and other pollutants in the atmosphere, which warm the oceans and the Earth. As climate change accelerates, so will federal spending on disaster relief and recovery, which will ultimately be paid for by taxpayers.

The nearly $400 per household spent annually over the past three years could be the beginning of a very costly future as climate-related extreme weather multiplies. This issue brief explores federal spending on disaster relief and offers up recommendations for how we can respond to the potential growth in these expenditures.

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Daniel J. Weiss is a Senior Fellow and Director of Climate Strategy at the Center for American Progress. Jackie Weidman is a Special Assistant on the Energy team at the Center. The authors would like to thank Cathleen Kelly, Senior Fellow, Mari Hernandez, Research Associate, and Mayhah Suri, intern, all at the Center, for their contributions to this analysis. This piece was reposted from CAP.

Source: Environment America

The vast majority of Americans have experienced a weather-related disaster in the past six years, according to a report released today by the Environment America Research and Policy Center.

The report, which is based on disaster declaration data from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, found that 243 million Americans — nearly four out of five — have lived in a county that has been hit by at least one federally declared weather-related disaster since 2007. The breadth and impact of these disasters, which include drought, tropical cyclones, flooding, tornadoes, wildfires and snow and ice storms, has been significant. According to the report:

• Every U.S. state besides South Carolina has experienced a weather-related disaster since 2007, and in 18 states and the District of Columbia, weather-related disasters have affected every county.
• More than 19 million Americans live in counties that have averaged one or more weather disaster per year since 2007.
• In 2012 alone, there were at least 11 disasters that caused more than $1 billion in damage, including Hurricane Sandy, which, with a price tag as high as $70 billion, was the costliest weather-related disaster in the U.S. since Hurricane Katrina.
• Eight U.S. counties in South Dakota, Oklahoma and Nebraska have been hit by ten or more weather disasters since the beginning of 2007.

The report notes that the frequency and intensity of several weather-related disasters has increased over the last several years and is predicted to continue increasing as the climate warms. Intense rainfall, for instance, has become more frequent in the U.S., with “the rainiest 1 percent of all storms delivering 20 percent more rain on average at the end of the 20th century than at the beginning,” and this increase is predicted to continue. And it’s likely the record-breaking heat waves, drought and wildfires that have gripped the country in the last few years will also become more common as the planet warms. The link between tornadoes and climate change is more tenuous and complicated (see here).

The report is in line with other studies of its kind — in February, a report from the Center for American Progress found that in 2011 and 2012, 43 states experienced extreme weather events that caused at least $1 billion in damage, and these events caused 1,107 fatalities and up to $188 billion in damage in total. To slow the increase of many kinds of extreme weather events, the Environment America report calls on federal and state governments to implement caps on greenhouse gases — especially on high-emitting sources, such as power plants and the transportation sector — and adopt goals of reducing emissions by at least 35 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and at least 85 percent by 2050.

Waves hit the sea wall in Wimereux, France. (Photo: Reuters)

According to new climate modeling carried out at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, global warming likely means Europe will see more Sandy-style superstorms by the end of this century.

The team ran a simulation from 2094 to 2098, building in future greenhouse gas emissions, and found that the yearly arrival of hurricanes in the Bay of Biscay — which sits on the east coast between Spain and France — would increase from one to six. Researcher Reindert Haarsma put the number as high as thirteen by the end of the century. Many of the storms will likely also feature the same hybrid make-up of Hurricane Sandy: a core of warm, moist tropical air forming a hurricane-force core, with drier and colder air wrapping around the exterior and driving gale-force winds hundreds of miles further out.

Currently, hurricane formation in the tropics usually occurs far enough west that most storms hit North America. A rare number are caught by the Atlantic jet stream and pulled into Europe. But global warming will increase those instances by expanding the area of tropical ocean over which hurricanes form:

The rise in Atlantic tropical [sea surface temperatures] extends eastwards the breeding ground of tropical cyclones, yielding more frequent and intense hurricanes following pathways directed towards Europe. En route they transform into extra-tropical depressions and re-intensify after merging with the mid-latitude baroclinic unstable flow. Our model simulations clearly show that future tropical cyclones are more prone to hit Western Europe, and do so earlier in the season, thereby increasing the frequency and impact of hurricane force winds.

The study focused on winds, but Kevin Trenberth, the head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, told Summit County Citizens Voice that precipitation could be equally as bad. Global warming not only drives up the power of storms by adding heat energy to the oceans, it also leads to higher levels of precipitation because warmer air holds more moisture. “The resulting flooding episodes will likely dwarf the wind damage,” Trenberth said. “Although [in] some places like the Netherlands, both together could be disastrous.”

For instance, Sandy’s arrival in the northeastern United States killed 74 people and caused at least $20 billion in damage. That alone would make it one of the costliest American hurricanes ever, and some estimates put the damage as high as $45 billion.

We’ve written extensively about how global warming worsened the impact of Superstorm Sandy.

Now a new article, “Superstorm Sandy: A Series of Unfortunate Events?” (PDF here) connects the dots even more explicitly:

Cornell and Rutgers researchers report in the March issue of Oceanography that the severe loss of summertime Arctic sea ice — attributed to greenhouse warming — appears to enhance Northern Hemisphere jet stream meandering, intensify Arctic air mass invasions toward middle latitudes, and increase the frequency of atmospheric blocking events like the one that steered Hurricane Sandy west into the densely populated New York City area.

Figure 1a. Atmospheric conditions during Hurricane Sandy’s transit along the eastern seaboard of the United States, including the invasion of cold Arctic air into the middle latitudes of North America and the high-pressure blocking pattern in the northwest Atlantic.

The piece notes “there is increasing evidence that the loss of summertime Arctic sea ice due to green- house warming stacks the deck in favor of”:

1. Larger amplitude meanders in the jet stream,
2. More frequent invasions of Arctic air masses into the middle latitudes, and
3. More frequent blocking events of the kind that steered Sandy to the west

Figure 1b. After the convergence of tropical and extra-tropical storm systems, the hybrid Superstorm Sandy made landfall in New Jersey and New York, bringing strong winds, storm surge, and flooding to areas near the coast and blizzard conditions to Appalachia.

So while this does appear to have been the perfect storm, we can, unfortunately, expect many more as we move toward ice-free arctic conditions in the coming years (see “Experts Warn ‘Near Ice-Free Arctic In Summer’ In A Decade If Volume Trends Continue“).

Related Posts:

• How Does Climate Change Make Superstorms Like Sandy More Destructive?
• Yes, Climate Change Contributed To Superstorm Sandy