Like many people, I was struck this week by the images of hurricane Sandy tearing through America's East Coast. There was a grim fascination to the sight of such iconic and familiar locations battered by winds and flood. Of course, we've seen several of them face destruction before on the big screen, not least in films like The Day After Tomorrow, but to see such disaster strike in real life was shocking.
Of course, its not just Hollywood blockbusters that have threatened New York with destruction by flooding. Al Gore's seminal documentary An Inconvenient Truth also highlighted the Big Apple's vulnerability to extreme weather. Indeed, one of the iconic images of Gore's presentation - the flooding of Ground Zero - came to pass thanks to hurricane Sandy.
Of course, Gore's point was to shock Americans into taking climate change seriously, to make the perils of climate change tangible to US consumers. Many will be hoping that after this tragic storm, more will take the threat seriously and change their behaviours accordingly. I certainly do.
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