The streets of lower Manhattan are underwater, and there are 16 reported deaths after Hurricane Sandy pummeled the Northeastern United States. Bloomberg is estimating that the storm damage could top $20 billion. Before making landfall – Sandy recorded the lowest barometric pressure of any Atlantic storm to hit the area in history. This suggests that just like all the other freak weather we’ve seen in recent years – this, too, is climate change related - now that there’s 5% more moisture in the atmosphere than at any other time in human history.

Storms will only get bigger, wetter, and windier moving forward – which makes how we, as a nation, respond to these disasters all the more important. Over the last few years, had Mitt Romney and Republicans been successful in what they wanted to do to federal disaster relief programs like FEMA, which is to privatize or drastically cut them, then the citizens of New York and New Jersey and other areas affected by Sandy would be all on their own today to clean up.

We are a “we” society, not a “me” society – and that’s all the more important during times of crisis like today.