The “Nature Mom” Vote: Preparing for Next Time, Sandy & Climate Change

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Sunday, November 4, 2012, Storm recovery update from my vantage point: No school Monday or Tuesday for my kids..That makes it seven school days, and maybe

more that Hurricane Sandy has taken away from my children’s education. But their schools are standing and they will go back to them. For other children, I know, it will be many more days until they return to their schools, as these children have been relocated due to Hurricane Sandy. In fact some of these children will likely never have the option to return to their schools; as their homes, communities and their schools have been destroyed.

The New York Times ran a story today entitled: Protecting the City Before Next Time; an important reminder even so soon after the disaster that we do have options, and we need to begin in earnest to consider them. It isn’t too soon for ALL of us to think about how to prepare and protect for the next time. This preparedness needs to

happen on many and all levels. Nationally, at the state and city level, at the community level and in our homes.

A few questions as we begin to “get the ball rolling” and consider what we need to do to be prepared – as there will be a NEXT time..Climate change and climate disruption are realities, not “concepts” to be debated. We need to all accept the facts and “move on” as we work together as a nation and a planet, to figure out how to live successfully and sustainably with our new “normal”…. What building materials should we use when we rebuild and when we build new; will we or should we be locating homes close to the shore? Should every new home be built with it’s own generator? How can we quickly transition ourselves off of fossil fuels and onto renewable energy sources. How can we make sure that lines for gas like the ones above that I encountered on a roadway in New Jersey, four days after Hurricane Sandy, become a thing of memory, a story I will someday tell my children’s kids about a time when cars and homes ran on fossil fuels; before we taught ourselves how to “harness the sun and the wind.”

We are living on borrowed time, with one foot stuck in the last century. Mother nature is trying to give us the “boot” to move forward to this new century and a new future. She is mad now, we can’t wait for her to get any more angry. Our future and that of our children won’t allow it!

Please keep this in mind when you vote on Tuesday.

Yours,

Climate Mama