Sandy, FEMA, Solidarity, Adaptation to Global Warming

No questions about. These words that come ahead could be understood as the externalization of electoral politics if they were published before the presidential election in the USA. But not after the elections as they are published.

The contentious filmmaker Michael Moore was interviewed in CNN last week, after the monster storm Sandy had hit the North American east coast. In his words “This storm should put an end to climate debate”. We, humanity, begin a new time, in which nobody can doubt the climate changes and, particularly, the higher frequency of extreme wheather events, and more strong ones. In this specific subject he agreed with Bloomberg, mayor of New York who said: “Our climate is changing. And while the increase in extreme weather we have experienced in New York City and around the world may or may not be the result of it, the risk that it might be -- given this week’s devastation -- should compel all elected leaders to take immediate action." We should take their words in considerations. After all, they, the worldwide known filmmaker and the worldwide known mayor, are just agreeing with the IPCC affirmations about this subject.

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Higher frequency of extreme climate events, by its time, means more frequency of distressed people, even those more prudent been hit. Its means people been hit in a more intense form.

It is time of more solidarity, those who were not affected are helping those affected. Actions like these are being necessary with higher frequency and in a more intense way. This kind of solidarity requires resources being avaiable at the right place, in the right time, in the adequate amount, and in a adequate process of being handled. A national government action, financed by the taxes that all pay, that in an great level of emergency help those distressed, is the best if not the only way to effectively process this solidarity for relief. It is an institutional form of solidarity, the only that could handle the urgent and unexpected needs of thousands and thousands of people displaced from their homes, hospitals that should be evacuated, and so on.

Given this frame, to give strength to an agency like the North American Federal Emergency Management Agency - FEMA is an action of Adaptation to Climate Change.