I’m sure that hurricanes, tornadoes and other natural disasters can all happen on their own without the help of global warming but the way that they are describing Hurricane Sandy it’s hard for me to rule out that climate change has some part in it. Studies have shown that for the past 3 decades weather related loss events have quintupled in North America which is more than in any other continent. Could it be possible that our extremely high rate of energy use has anything to do with why there is not another place in the world where the rising number of natural events is taking place? Maybe, maybe not but the oceans and land temperatures have warmed and according to an article in National Geographic it’s due to human activities that emit heat-trapping carbon dioxide which has raised the average global temperature by about 1°F and ocean temperatures by 0.18°F.

That is a very interesting point. I did not realize it until now but massive storms such as this could be directly related to the U.S.'s high energy consumption and our neglect, for the most part, about our impact on the environment. This might possibly be the wake-up call we needed in order to move forward or others could see it as just another unavoidable storm courtesy of mother nature. Hopefully it won't be the latter.

I definitely don't think this is a result of American consumption. There have been storms and other natural disasters that have occurred in other nations that did not have a record of high emission rates, like Haiti and Thailand. These occurrences happen because of the collective human contribution to the environment. However, this is a wake up call for us to think about how we are affecting the globe. Policies are no longer going to be precautionary, but rather reactionary. It is sad it has come to this point, but maybe people will realize that if we continue our lifestyle, more storms like this will occur and if the alone devastation does not affect public and political opinion, maybe the $20 billion dollars lost will.