Fix the Senate Now

On December 6, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell proposed a piece of legislation in the Senate that would allow the debt ceiling to be raised. Just a few short hours later, McConnell stood up on the Senate floor and actually filibustered his own legislation, effectively killing the bill that he himself authored.

You couldn't make this stuff up.

When Americans hear the word "filibuster," they might picture impassioned, hours-long speeches like Jimmy Stewart's in that classic scene from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. But when McConnell killed his own bill last week, he only had to threaten to filibuster rather than actually take the floor. As Senator Jeff Merkley said, "It used to be that people wanted to take responsibility for their obstruction."

Not anymore. Under current Senate rules, it's staggeringly easy for important legislation to be derailed. Just the threat of a filibuster by a minority of senators can stop a bill in its tracks -- and we've seen it happen over and over. In 2009, the American Clean Energy and Security Act -- which would have represented substantial progress in addressing the climate crisis -- died in the Senate under the threat of a filibuster. Over the past six years, almost 400 Senate bills have stalled this way.

Enough is enough. That's why the Sierra Club has joined a coalition that's calling for rule changes to help end this obstructionism. Organizations ranging from the Communications Workers of America to the NAACP to Common Cause are all onboard, because we know that if we want to see legislative progress on our nation's problems -- from the fiscal showdown to the climate crisis -- we have to fix the Senate.

Mr. Smith fans don't need to worry. The changes we're asking for won't end filibusters but will make sure they’re used as our founders intended. Senators will have just one chance to filibuster -- not multiple opportunities to obstruct. Currently, many filibusters happen on motions to bring legislation up for debate -- not in the context of actual deliberation on bills. The U.S. Senate is often described as "the world's greatest deliberative body" -- so let's give the senators a chance to deliberate.

Oh, and senators should no longer be able to kill a bill just by threatening a filibuster. We should actually make them stand up and do it.

Americans get it. A new poll shows that more than 70 percent of us are in favor of changes to the Senate rules, with only 20 percent opposed.

Leaving the rules as they are is not an option. A "handshake" deal between senators won't work, either. That's all been tried before, and the problem has only gotten worse. Our nation faces too many challenges and opportunities -- spurring clean-energy growth, helping middle-class families, addressing the climate crisis -- to settle for a "do-nothing" Senate.

You can help. Call your senator's office and tell them it's time to fix the filibuster.

Smarter Choices for Climate Solutions

Each year, $200 billion of our federal, state,and local tax dollars are spent on our transportation system. That money goes for everything from highways and bridges to public transit and bike lanes, and spending it wisely is one of our most powerful tools for fighting climate disruption.

Currently, our transportation system is heavily dependent on oil, which is our largest source of climate pollution -- roughly one-third of all U.S. carbon emissions. If we want to cut carbon pollution fast, moving beyond oil for transportation is an obvious strategy.

What's more, it's something Americans already support. More than 80 percent of us are in favor of improving bus and rail service, as well as more funding to make biking and walking safer. Actually, that's not so surprising when you consider that one in three Americans doesn't drive at all.  

Yet even though the number of vehicle miles traveled in America has gone down every year since 2004, the automobile still receives the lion's share of transportation funding. Bike commuting, meanwhile, grew 40 percent nationally between 2000 and 2010. In fact, biking and walking now account for 12 percent of all trips in the U.S., but they get only about 1.6 percent of federal transportation spending.

Transit ridership is up nationwide, too, but cash-strapped transit agencies are being forced to reduce service and raise fares. Meanwhile, low-income families without access to public transit can end up spending more than half of their budget on transportation.

By disproportionately spending our transportation dollars on roads and highways, we're creating hardship for people who can't or don't drive, while also subjecting those who do drive to unpredictable gas-price spikes and horrendous highway commutes. The simple solution is allocate our transportation dollars more sensibly. That means more funding for projects that improve and expand access to transit and alternative transportation -- and less for projects that will prolong our reliance on oil.

This week the Sierra Club released a report called "Smart Choices, Less Traffic: 50 Best and Worst Transportation Projects in the United States." It calls out both good and bad ways of spending our tax dollars. We've also put all 50 transportation projects on a Google map -- so you can see for yourself what's happening in your part of the country.

Examples of "smart" choices include:

• Expanding and electrifying light-rail systems across the county.
• Funding bicycle and pedestrian pathways.
• Repairing the tracks and improving the route of Amtrak in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont.

Some "not so smart" choices:

• A 100-mile gravel road in pristine Northern Alaska that's being built to allow year-round access for oil and gas exploration.
• A highway in Virginia (the "Coalfields Expressway") that is essentially an excuse for a strip mine.
• A  two-mile long tunnel under downtown Seattle.

Bottom line: We already know how to build the kind of transportation infrastructure that will help America meet the challenges of the 21st century. Many communities -- highlighted in the "best" examples in this report -- are already doing exactly that.

But old habits die hard, and plenty of oil-intensive projects are still sucking up dollars that could be put to better use. Luckily, states now have more control over how federal transportation funds are spent. Write to your state's governor to demand a better transportation future that helps move us beyond oil.

Time to Stand Up for Families and the Environment

You've probably heard about the "fiscal showdown" in Washington, D.C., but you might not realize how it could affect the environment. The reality is that the entire environmental community has an enormous stake in the negotiations between Congress and President Obama.

If an agreement isn't reached in early 2013, then the so-called "sequester" or automatic budget cuts that would kick in would be a major setback for clean air and clean water. There would be an across-the-board 8.2 percent cut in virtually every national environmental program. Many of these programs and protections have already suffered deep cuts, but a sequester would mean even more budget woes for the agencies that keep our air, water, and land safe.

But even if a sequester doesn't happen, there is sure to be a lot of horse-trading on environmental issues that we hold near and dear. So we'll need to be on guard to defend against mostly Republican demands to cut environmental programs and domestic discretionary spending to serve their own agendas.

Another potential danger is that the massive bills that will be negotiated during the fiscal showdown could include anti-environmental amendments or "riders" -- pieces of legislation that have nothing to do with the task at hand. For example, one of our opponents in Congress could attach a rider to roll back mercury protections or to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from enforcing the Clean Air Act.

To make sure the environment has a voice at the table, the Sierra Club has joined with a broad coalition of more than 30 national progressive organizations, ranging from SEIU to the Center for Community Change and MoveOn.org to call on Congress and President Obama to put the interests of working American families ahead of those of fossil fuel corporations and the super-rich.

The core priorities of this coalition include many of the things we care most about: clean energy investment and job creation, investment in green transportation, and renewal of the Production Tax Credit for wind energy.

Both a healthy economy and a robust clean-energy economy begin with a strong middle class. But for the past three decades, the chips have been stacked against working families, while the super-rich got much, much richer. Everyone wants to see a prosperous economy, but working families and the middle class are the real engines of our economy. The economy moves forward when those folks have good jobs, can educate their kids, shop on Main Street, afford their health care, and retire in security.

We can make that vision a reality by building a clean-energy economy that works for everyone, but we have to get our nation's leaders to make the right decisions and resolve the fiscal showdown by investing in America. Instead of cutting critical environmental protections, public health services, and social safety net programs, we should be rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and developing a 21st-century electrical grid that will create jobs and save energy and money without polluting our air and water.

Rebuilding a strong middle class and creating a clean-energy economy won't happen by accident. It depends on making the right decisions as a nation. The problem, of course, is that those aren't the decisions that we've been making. Our leaders have kicked the big decisions further and further down the road while doling out more tax cuts to the super-rich and more tax loopholes for Big Oil and other corporate polluters. That's got to stop.

You can help. Let Congress know that now is the time to cut polluter subsidies -- not environmental programs.

Bicoastal Clean-Energy Leadership

Back in the dog days of 2010, when it became clear that Congress wouldn't be passing a climate bill, many people were frustrated and disappointed, including me. But as I wrote in Sierra magazine at the time, Congress's failure to act didn't mean we couldn't keep making progress on climate disruption. Lots of good things have been happening -- nationally, at the state level, and in our cities.

Last week, the mayors of our two largest cities showed exactly what I'm talking about.

I was honored to be invited to speak briefly at an event with Mayor Michael Bloomberg, sponsored by the League of Conservation Voters and the Regional Plan Association in New York City to discuss the city's future after superstorm Sandy. Very few individuals are in Mayor Bloomberg's league when it comes to taking real, substantial action on climate disruption. Recall that during the last election it wasn't either of the candidates who brought climate to the forefront as an issue -- it was Mayor Bloomberg.

During last week's event, the mayor announced far-reaching plans for making New York City both better prepared for and more resilient to extreme weather events like Sandy. At the same time, he reiterated his strong support for moving beyond coal and promoting both clean energy and energy efficiency. It's been five years since the mayor announced PlaNYC -- a green-building initiative that is one of the most ambitious and successful climate action plans in the country. But New York is not the only city taking action. Mayor Bloomberg also currently serves as the chair for the C40, a group of more than 60 large cities across the globe that are working to reduce their carbon emissions. One out of every twelve people on the planet lives in a C40 city.

America's second largest city is also a member of the C40. Its mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, has set a goal of eliminating its use of coal power by 2020, while simultaneously increasing renewable energy to 40 percent . In keeping with that objective, yesterday the mayor announced that L.A. would commit to buying all of the energy produced by a major solar plant on the reservation of the Moapa Band of Paiutes in southern Nevada. The contracts are for enough energy to power 105,000 homes.

This is not only a big step forward for Los Angeles, which has been getting nearly 40 percent of its power from aging, out-of-state coal plants, but also good news for the Moapas, who have suffered far more than their share of the ill effects of coal power. Nevada's Reid-Gardner coal plant is practically in their backyard.

As Mary Anne Hitt, the directory of the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign, wrote:

This Moapa Solar project is one of two long-term solar purchasing agreements that, along with the CLEAN LA feed-in-tariff solar program, are designed to replace power from Arizona's Navajo Generating Station coal plant and put Los Angeles on a firm path to replace its use of coal with clean energy alternatives – energy efficiency, solar, wind, and geothermal.

In the long run -- and we're all in it for the long run -- no single "silver bullet" will solve the climate crisis. The good news, though, is that we have a clear objective to keep in our sights. All we need to do is keep moving away from dirty fuels and toward clean energy and sustainable transportation. How we do that is limited only by our imagination, our passion, and our resolve. All of those were on display in New York and Los Angeles last week.

You can see what's happening across the country on our Climate Comes Home "This Is What Change Looks Like" map. Check it out -- you can even add what's happening in your own city, neighborhood, school, business, or home.

The Un-Conservation Congress

If you've seen Lincoln, then you know that a) Daniel Day-Lewis is an Oscar frontrunner and b) Republicans are capable of doing great things. In the film, of course (spoiler alert), they pass the 13th Amendment and end slavery. And just a few years later, the character played by David Strathairn (Secretary of State William Seward), saved the entire state of Alaska (from Russia) by picking it up for 2 cents an acre. Another famous Republican in the film, Ulysses S. Grant, later signed the act that created our first U.S. national park (Yellowstone).

In the 20th century, of course, Republican overachiever Theodore Roosevelt designated 5 national parks, 8 national monuments, and 150 national forests (when he wasn't camping-out with the founder of the Sierra Club). Even just 48 years ago, enough conservation-minded Republicans were left in the House to pass the Wilderness Act almost unanimously (in the Senate, it squeaked by 73-12).

How times have changed. The current Congress has demonstrated unrivaled proficiency at accomplishing nothing -- and it has "un-succeeded" most spectacularly when it comes to protecting public lands. If things don't change, this could be the first time since 1966 that Congress has adjourned without protecting a single acre of wilderness.

The problem isn't that none of today's Republicans care about wilderness. Many do. Unfortunately, the radical fringe leadership of their party flat-out refuses to support wilderness legislation -- even bills sponsored by fellow Republicans -- unless their purpose is to open up wilderness to mining and drilling.

Here are five examples of Republican-sponsored wilderness bills that are getting more love from the Sierra Club than from fellow congressional Republicans:

• HR 608 Alpine Lakes Wilderness Additions and Pratt and Middle Fork Snoqualmie Rivers Protection Act. With its proximity to the Seattle metropolitan region, the Alpine Lakes Wilderness Area is one of the most popular wilderness areas in the country. This legislation would add over 22,000 acres to the existing area and protect areas beloved by many and vital habitat for trout.
• HR 977 Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore Conservation and Recreation Act. Nestled on the shores of Lake Michigan, this is a popular spot for hunters, anglers, and boaters. This legislation would protect over 32,000 acres, or nearly half of the entire unit.
• HR 41 Beauty Mountain and Agua Tibia Wilderness Act. Would protect over 21,000 acres as wilderness north of San Diego County. The area is full of deep canyons, rugged rock formations and popular with hunters, hikers, and backpackers.
• HR 163 Central Idaho Economic Development and Recreation Act. Would protect as wilderness part of the largest unprotected roadless areas in the lower 48 -- 330,000 acres.
• S 1090 Tennessee Wilderness Act. Would protect nearly 20,000 acres of the Cherokee National Forest in Tennessee and would be the first wilderness designated in the state in 25 years.

That's just a sampling of the dozens of bipartisan wilderness bills authored by both Republicans and Democrats that are pending before this Congress. Most of them have strong local support because people know that protecting these lands will help build local economies, protect valuable open space, and preserve wonderful recreation opportunities for future generations.

Republican obstructionism isn't good for the planet and, after the last election, it’s clear it isn't even good for the Republican party. Here's a chance to reclaim what once was a popular core value of the Republican Party (conservation) and, at the same time, actually accomplish something.

Digging Out in New Jersey

No matter how high-def your screen might be, you can't truly comprehend some disasters until you see them firsthand. I've been made speechless twice before: Once, when I went out on the Gulf to see the extent of the BP oil disaster two years ago, and also the first time I watched a mountain being blasted apart for coal. This weekend, though, it was my own hometown that stunned me.

Post-Hurricane Sandy, the New Jersey shore resists description. Thousands of homes have been flooded or destroyed. Roads are ripped up. Boats sit incongruously in the middle of side streets or on train tracks. There is no heat, no gas, no power, no water.

The barrier island where my parents live was hit hard by the superstorm and was subject to mandatory evacuation. Fortunately, my mom and dad already happened to be safe in sunny California to see their newest grandchild. After ten days, they were able to return to New Jersey, but not their home. Like so many others, they were prevented from returning to their house to see the wreckage. Finally, all residents in the area were allowed to return home for about 7 hours yesterday, so they could see what might be left. I drove down with my parents and my sister, but none of us were prepared for what we saw. This was the house my dad built for his family, and where my brother and sisters and I grew up.

Like many families, we found that a foot or two of seawater had come through our house. Even though we wore masks, the smell hit hard when we opened the front door. Mold was everywhere: on the walls, in the insulation, in cabinets, and even on lampshades. We had to rip up the rugs and the floorboards. Every appliance was ruined. Furniture too. We tried to salvage an old shoeshine box that my late grandfather used when he was a boy in New York City. We were able to save an old folder of campaign materials from my dad's first run for mayor in the 1970s (he won). We might not be so lucky with the old family photo albums we found soaking wet.

This is hard for our family and so many others. Sadly, we're not alone. Families in Haiti are in despair after Sandy ripped through leaving 200,000 homeless. Last year in the U.S., we had 14 storms that each caused more than $1 billion in damages, breaking the previous record of nine. 2012 has been a year of living dangerously. Across the U.S., wildfires destroyed thousands of homes from Texas to Wyoming. Disaster areas were declared in nearly 1,500 counties, covering 32 states. Our planet's temperature has warmed 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit so far; scientists now estimate that warming could warm 8 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of this century.

We can do better for ourselves. While we were cleaning my parents' house, we watched as a helicopter carrying Vice President Biden flew overhead. He touched down a couple miles away. We appreciate the vice president's support, sincerely. But the Obama-Biden administration needs to step up its response to the threat -- and the opportunity -- that climate change presents. During the recent campaign, Mitt Romney famously mocked President Obama for pledging to "slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet," and said "my promise is to help you and your family." What he failed to understand was driven home by everything I saw in New Jersey: We can't do one without the other.

P.S. You can see the destruction we encountered in these shocking images by photograher Julie Dermansky. 

Don't Blow It!

It's one week after the election, and I have some friendly advice for every Republican in Congress: Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and renew the production tax credit for wind energy before it expires at the end of the year. Here are five reasons why I'd tell them it's time to finally get this done:

1. The American people strongly believe we should make clean, renewable energy a priority. And last week's election results made it clear that it's the American people you answer to -- not the Koch brothers.

2. Speaking of the brothers K… Yes, they and other dirty-energy enthusiasts would love to set wind energy back. But apart from Mitt Romney, polluters were the biggest losers in this election. Ignore them and listen to your real constituents -- the voters.

3. The U.S. has tremendous wind resources -- but for some reason the wind blows strongest in states (like Texas, Kansas, and South Dakota) that vote Republican. Texas has more installed wind power than any other state (10 gigawatts, which is like five Hoover Dams). And South Dakota gets a whopping 22 percent of its power generation from wind. In fact, 81 percent of all wind installed in the U.S. is located in Republican districts. No wonder Republicans governors Terry Branstad of Iowa and Sam Brownback of Kansas have joined the call for renewing the tax credit.

4. Almost last but definitely not least: the U.S. stands to lose up to 37,000 jobs if the credit expires. And don't forget: Most of those lost jobs will be in Republican districts.

5. Taking away a tax credit is really the same as raising taxes. Since when have Republicans been so keen to raise taxes?

The production tax credit won't last forever and was never meant to. Right now, though, we need it if we don't want to lose the momentum (and jobs) that wind energy has built up.

I'm not sure how many Republican lawmakers take the D.C. subway to work, but they'd be smart to heed the advice the Sierra Club has plastered all over the Capitol Hill metro station in a new ad campaign: "Wind power makes clean energy, good jobs and better future. Don't blow it."

Want to help? Tell Congress you want the production tax credit for wind extended.  Not just because it's good for Republicans but because it's good for America.

Victory, Opportunity, and a Challenge

Did you find it hard to sleep last night? Me too. However, it wasn't pre-election jitters that kept me and my wife awake, but our little newborn baby, Genevieve.

As I got out of bed a little before dawn to take my shift, I thought about the polls opening on the East Coast and wondered whether the day would end in celebration, disappointment, or indecision. Rocking sweet Genevieve back to sleep in the darkness of our bedroom, I also thought about what the country might be like when our little girl is able to vote. Will voters still have to wait in line for hours? Will ads from wealthy donors still dominate the airwaves? Will we finally have modernized voter registration?

By now we know that President Obama will get another four years in office. In re-electing the president, voters have handed him both an opportunity and a challenge. During his first term, Barack Obama was the first American president to clearly articulate a vision of America leading the world toward a clean-energy future that can meet the challenge of a changing climate. Now, he has four more years to deliver on that promise.

The past week has underscored the urgency of this challenge. As families in the Northeast try to rebuild after Hurricane Sandy, and as all of us gird ourselves for more consequences of climate disruption, the American people deserve and demand strong leadership on this issue.

Here's how President Obama can start delivering that leadership right now:

• First, the Environmental Protection Agency must finish the job it has begun of cleaning up dirty power plants. Working with the EPA to finalize carbon pollution standards for new power plants and to begin emphasizing efficiency and clean energy over currently operating plants will continue to be a high priority for the Sierra Club and our partners in the environmental community.

• The president should take a hard look at what burning toxic tar-sands oil would mean for our climate future -- and reject Canada's plan to pump dirty tar sands through our farmlands and water sources.

• Make conservation and public recreation the top priority for our public lands and use the Antiquities Act to establish national monuments that will protect entire landscapes for this and future generations to enjoy.

• Last, but not least, President Obama must boldly elevate the issue of climate disruption and climate solutions. The American people understand and accept that the climate crisis is upon us. They also know that -- with Iowa and South Dakota generating more than 20 percent of their power from wind and with solar-industry jobs growing at more than 10 percent annually -- a clean-energy future is already here. We need strong leadership and action to address our climate challenge directly and to build on this clean-energy growth.

By the time my daughter is eligible to vote, we'll need to have done a lot more than modernize voting and clean up our elections, though both are vital to a strong democracy. By 18 years from now, we should be well on our way to a clean-energy turnaround. The urgency of fighting climate change should be undebatable, and dirty fuels should be viewed as anachronisms from a distant era.

Congratulations Mr. President. It's been a long, hard fight to reach this day. Now, let's move forward on the challenges -- AND the opportunities -- that this election has made possible.

Climate Change Hits Home

I've been working on solutions to the climate crisis for a long time, but I never really expected that it would hit home for me quite the way it did this week. The small town where I grew up, Chadwick Beach, NJ, and where my parents still live, was one of the many in the direct path of the superstorm Sandy.

My parents moved down to the Jersey Shore in 1965. Family legend has it that as they were scouting for a new place to live, my grandmother walked with my mom and dad to a lot on the edge of Barnegat Bay and said, "This looks like a beautiful place to raise a family." Together, my father and my uncle built the house I grew up in, then built another for my uncle's family on the other end of the street. My father started a construction business, and later became the mayor of Toms River Township. And my grandmother was right: it was an idyllic place to grow up; my wife and I still take our kids back home each summer. It's where I fell in love with the ocean and, by extension, all of nature, from redwood forests to alpine meadows.

Fortunately, my parents weren't home when the storm slammed into New Jersey. The damage along the shoreline is so extensive they haven't been able to get back to their house to learn the full extent of the damage. But my uncle's house is flooded, the restaurant where I bussed tables has been destroyed, and neighbors' houses have been spotted floating in the bay. I've seen photos online that show the homes just a few blocks from ours completely inundated, and the damage reports from friends are numbing. No one has seen anything like it before.

I wish I could say we'll never see anything like it again in our lifetimes, but that's not how the wind is blowing. Hurricane Sandy is only the latest and most devastating incident in a pattern of destructive weather that has become impossible to ignore. In 2011, the U.S. suffered through a record-high 14 weather events that caused at least $1 billion each in damages. So far this year, we've seen a drought that has devastated Midwestern farmers, historic wildfires that have laid waste to homes in Colorado, Texas, Wyoming, Montana and beyond, and thousands of heat records broken across the nation. During the past 14 months, New York City has been forced to evacuate neighborhoods because of hurricanes for the first two times in its history. "If this is a trend," wrote Mayor Michael Bloomberg in his recent endorsement of Barack Obama, "it is unsustainable." He's right.

Here's something else we can't afford: Indecision. So, over the next several days and beyond, there are some things we need to do. First, and most urgently, we have to help the people throughout the Eastern Seaboard who are suffering. Please consider donating to the Red Cross or another relief organization.

Second, we need to do everything we can between today and tomorrow to help elect leaders -- from the top down -- who are committed to doing something about the climate crisis. As Mayor Bloomberg wrote, "One [candidate] sees climate change as an urgent problem that threatens our planet; one does not." He was referring to Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, but you could say the same of many races around the country.  Almost every Senate race in the country, for example, pits one candidate who has pledged to help stop climate disruption against another candidate who denies the problem even exists.

Like the attack on Pearl Harbor or the 9/11 assault, Hurricane Sandy has rocked our nation into full awareness of a threat to everything we hold dear. We must meet that challenge. But fighting climate change isn't just an obligation, it's also an opportunity to rebuild the middle class and strengthen our economy. Iowa now generates 25 percent of its power from wind, and has created a new wind manufacturing industry in-state. Ohio has some of the toughest new energy-efficiency standards in the nation, giving a boost to contractors throughout the state. Nationwide, our installed base of solar-energy has grown by a factor of five in less than four years. Wind energy has doubled. And U.S. greenhouse gas emissions are down to their lowest levels in 20 years. The ongoing retirement of dirty coal plants, along with the stronger fuel-efficiency standards adopted by the Obama administration, will only build on this momentum.

Rebirth and renewal are a way of life on the Jersey Shore. Every summer we'd watch as the crowds rushed in, only to see them fade away after Labor Day. The beach community where I grew up may never be the same, but I know it will come back, and come back stronger. By rebuilding my hometown and all of America with smart, clean energy, we will not only curb climate change but also create a safer, healthier, more prosperous, and more just society.

Sandy: Impossible to Ignore

Until now, the discussion of climate change during this election brought to mind the adage that the most important step in solving a problem is to simply admit that it exists.  

Hurricane Sandy has made the problem impossible to ignore, and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg will likely not be the only to base his vote next week on which candidate is best qualified to solve it. "This week's devastation," he wrote today, "should compel all elected leaders to take immediate action."

The connection between climate change and catastrophes might still be dismissed by professional nutjobs in tinfoil hats, but it's painfully obvious to scientists, to insurance companies, increasingly, to the American people, and to my friends and family on the Jersey Shore.

The frightening consequences that scientists have warned us about for decades are already here. We can see our world is changing before our eyes -- and it's not pretty.

Along with destruction and incalculable misery, Sandy has left an urgent question in its wake: How can we justify delaying action to stop the pollution that's disrupting our climate? How many more lost lives and billions of dollars will it take to unite our leaders behind clean-energy solutions that we already have within our grasp? We desperately need action, but instead we've had silence.

Let's be honest: Although energy issues have been at the forefront in this election, President Obama missed a series of opportunities to talk about climate directly in the debates. It's particularly unfortunate because this president has done more about climate disruption in the past four years than all his predecessors combined. His administration has cleaned up coal emissions, helped increase solar production by a factor of five, doubled our production of wind (last month, all of the new electrical energy added to the U.S. grid came from wind and solar -- 433 megawatts' worth, and not a single watt of power from coal or gas), and set strong new vehicle fuel-efficiency standards. That's a record to be proud of, not reticent about. It's a record to build on, not bury deep on a campaign website.

It's also in distinct contrast to Mitt Romney, who has backpedaled so fast on climate change he could be a new source of energy. Years ago, Romney at least claimed to take climate destabilization seriously; now it's a punchline. He's packed his campaign full of cronies and lobbyists from coal and oil. He's joined in his silence by virtually the entire Republican establishment, which has painted itself into a shameful and absurd ideological corner for fear of angering its powerful fossil-fuel donors.

The wrath of the Koch brothers, however, is no match for the fury of Mother Nature. So when it's time next week to choose those who will determine how our nation responds the climate crisis, Hurricane Sandy's question should be on our minds. It's never been clearer why we need to choose leaders who won't place the interests of fossil-fuel corporations and oil billionaires before the well-being of the planet that every one of us depends on.

Paid for by the Sierra Club Political Committee (www.sierraclub.org) and not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.