Frankenstorm

It's an accurate term, actually, and not only because Sandy has kluged together with winter storms in the area. If you assume that people usually elide Frankenstein and his creature, then it's apt, since the storm for sure is the creation of humans. A symptom of global warming.

The persistent media silence over whether the storm has anything to do with global warming is deafening.

And when the issue is brought up, it's usually in the form of a question such as “Is Sandy caused by global warming?” This question is, of course, exactly the wrong one: it is falsely posed in a drastic way.

At this point, there is no such thing as a weather pattern not created by global warming. The analogy is rather like this:

There are no subway stations in New York that are not part of the New York subway system.

Again, it's time to drop the cynical mode humanists have been stuck in since the later eighteenth century. Time to drop it. What we don't need now is another critique of why “doing something” is playing into power, or making us look uncool, or ignoring other stuff, or whatever other kettle logic.