all these years later we are still

tallying up the damage from

superstorm sandy and a new estimate

finds that

billions of dollars in damage from that

storm

can be tied to rising sea levels caused

by

carbon emissions as part of our ongoing

series on the human stories of climate

change

peril and promise senior correspondent

david cruz

looks at the price we paid it's been

almost

10 years but we're still learning things

from superstorm

sandy a new report out today suggests

that

what made sandy super was not simply the

confluence of

forces of nature but significantly

our impact on the forces of nature the

report

prepared by researchers from climate

central based in princeton

stevens institute and rutgers university

estimates

sea level rise of four inches between

1900 and 2012

specifically caused by us how much

additional damage did that cost

um it was on the order of about uh 12

percent of the overall damage in around

70 000 people

who would not have been exposed or not

been damaged

had it not been for those four inches

caused by humans for

the last uh you know 200 years we've

been burning fossil fuels

and putting carbon dioxide in the

atmosphere we've also been

chopping down forests and changing land

use in a way that puts co2 in the

atmosphere we've also been putting

things like methane in the atmosphere

and so all of those changes to the

atmosphere

lead to more heat being trapped which

warms the planet which warms the oceans

and well you get it right

the findings had environmentalists

saying both i told you so and

let's get going on solutions the

report's findings are clear

that if you were to check the planet

into the doctor's office

they would say you're about to have a

heart attack and

you know the reports findings are really

unique because they are directly

attributing

a disaster we all know all too well from

hurricane sandy

and showing that a significant

percentage of

sandy's impacts was because of man-made

climate change

that is unique that has not been

quantified before on the low end almost

13 of the damage on the high end maybe

24

of the damage monetary damage on the low

end

more than three and a half billion

dollars on the high end

could have been as much as seven billion

dollars directly attributable

to the myriad of ways we are warming the

earth

i think the biggest takeaway is that

this report shows how vulnerable

we are and in some ways we were lucky it

could have been worse but what did show

is that for the first time the storm

really

went into places that in other other

times and other storms

probably would not have been hit so bad

or hit at all the report doesn't make

specific recommendations on how to get

out of this spiral

but it's we have met the enemy and he is

us theme

is not falling on deaf ears with the

people who might actually be able to do

something about it we're all in big

trouble we're in big

big trouble and smith is usually the

optimist

the senator who chairs the environment

committee says legislators and the

governor's office

are trying to do something half of the

greenhouse

gases that go into the air come from the

transportation sec

section section of our economy so

electrify everything let's have ev's for

all of our citizens let's have electric

uh

tractor trailer trucks for the movement

of our goods

electric trains that's one of the things

that we do the second thing that we have

to do

we have to get off our addiction

to fossil fuels big time

smith calls the state's electric vehicle

incentive program which provides rebates

to those who buy evs and

set up charging stations at home a good

start

the state has also gone all in on

offshore wind

with the governor setting a goal of 100

renewable energy in jersey

by 2050 roughly a generation away

that's optimism that so far we have been

unable to refine into action

i'm david cruz nj spotlight news

lead funding for peril and promise is

provided by

dr p roy vagalos and diana t vagalos

major support is provided by the mark

haas foundation

and sue and edgar wachenheim iii and the

cheryl and philip milstein family