The morning of Sandy, the air pressure was strangely heavy, and I knew something awful was about to happen. Chris Hedges came out with his “I’m Voting Green” piece in Truthdig. His careful, reasoned argument blew past all my lingering objections, along with the wind that began to howl. I sat down, under the weight of the coming storm, and wrote a piece for the WestView News about voting for Jill Stein on the Green Party ticket (which I did). A protest vote I have to admit – I wouldn’t have done it in Ohio. Then again, yesterday I began reading a 106 page report just published by the World Bank, “Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4°C Warmer World Must Be Avoided,” that promises an apocalypse by 2100 unless we immediately and urgently implement a series of radical measures to halt carbon emissions. This further convinced me that voting Green was the right thing to do. Sandy – the storm sent from the gods to warn those corporate moguls, but also us complacent liberals and all the hapless private citizens who just want to get along in some measure of comfort and leave the hard decisions to someone else….
Big, big wake-up call. I’ve lived in Manhattan my entire life and I am convinced that Sandy, unprecedented in my experience, is the product of rising water levels and not just a freak of nature. The few Republicans here in the West Village whom I know personally chose to ignore all the warnings. My liberal friend bought me a battery-powered radio and some flashlights – the Republicans did nothing, and since they live right on the Hudson (with magnificent views), their basement flooded and they lost power for weeks. I mention this because it seems that the rift is so deep, the Republicans no longer trust any part of the media. They are like extreme versions of me. I don’t trust media, of course not (save the WestView News and Truthdig), but at least I do still trust the meteorologists, especially when they apparently knew so much about Sandy beforehand and were sounding authoritative. The Republicans won’t even listen to the meteorologists, who happen to espouse global warming. The degree of the conservatives’ denial is stupefying if it weren’t for the fact that the degree of my own denial comes pretty close. There isn’t too much that’s truly separating my conservative pals without a flashlight from me, except that I am waking up now. I get it. Thank you, Sandy.
