by Mindy Lubber, via Ceres The fallout from Hurricane Sandy will
be with us for years, and it will extend far beyond the
devastation in New York City, New Jersey and other parts of the
East Coast. The immediate cleanup costs and economic losses are
alarming. Current estimates are $33 billion in New York alone.
But a far bigger challenge lies ahead: preparing for a future in
which storms like Sandy and Irene are likely to occur more
frequently. It is gargantuan task with no parallels, and there
are millions of people and trillions of dollars worth of
property sitting in harm’s way. As a result of rising sea levels
from warming global temperatures, coastal communities will
require vastly expensive upgrades to key infrastructure such as
subways, power grids and hospitals to boost their resiliency to
stronger storms. It will require tough decisions on whether
building and rebuilding should be encouraged in flood-prone
areas. Above all, there’s the daunting task of curbing the
pollution that creates these risks in