Global Warming, New York, The Jersey Shore, and Canada

People enjoying the beach in Montreal, Canada

Image 1:  People enjoying the beach in Montreal, Canada, courtesy Jazz Hostels

While climate change and global warming will mean longer and hotter summers and shorter and warmer winters farther north in the northern hemisphere than previously, and even though we make like longer hotter summers and shorter, warmer winters …

Warmer and shorter winters mean thinner ice on frozen lakes – and people crashing through the thin ice and drowning in places like Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho and Alaska, and Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta, and British Columbia.

Longer hotter summers also mean warmer oceans and an atmosphere that can hold more heat.

Roller Coaster at Seaside Heights

Image 2:  Roller Coaster, formerly part of Seaside Heights. Image courtesy Forbes.

It will also mean more storms like Hurricanes Irene (2011), Katrina, (2005) and Sandy (2012). To those who say “We don’t NEED roller coasters, amusement parks and boardwalks, like that which was destroyed at Seaside Heights, pictured above, I would add that all we NEED is food and shelter. We don’t NEED telephone company central offices.

Flooded lobby of 140 West Street, during the storm.

Image 3:  Lobby of 140 West Street, one of four Verizon Central Offices flooded during the storm. Image courtesy Verizon Communications.

Or offices in lower Manhattan.

Whitehall Street under water from the storm surge.

Image 4: Whitehall St, NYC, between Water & Pearl, during the storm surge of Hurricane Sandy, Oct. 30, 2012.  Image courtesy Hector Cardona.

As New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said, “We can argue about the cause for the weather change, and we can argue about whether the cause was human behavior or a natural cycle of weather patterns, but you can’t argue about the effect.”

We need to take action. We must, with all deliberate speed, move away from coal, oil, and gas fuels and nuclear power toward efficient use of solar, wind, geothermal, hydro. We must move from fuel and waste based systems to fuel free and minimal waste systems and renewable, biological non-fossil sources of fuel. We also need to investigate natural carbon sequestration systems. Not so we can use fossil sources of coal, oil, and methane, but so we can lower the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from 390 ppm or higher to 350 ppm or lower.