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Introduction xiv to increased flooding death rates from disease associated with floods and droughts are expected to rise in some regions. And on the campaign trail of the 2012 election for the U.S. president, nary a word had been spoken about climate change—until Hurricane Sandy arrived on the Atlantic Seaboard. The events in late October 2012 and the profound impact of the storm on major metropolitan areas, including New York and New Jersey, brought a new urgency to planning and efforts to confront the reality of climate changes for coastal cities in the United States. Indeed, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an independent who had previously said that he would not endorse a candidate in the 2012 U.S. Presidential election, reversed course and endorsed the sitting President, Barack Obama. In explaining his logic, Bloomberg wrote: “The devastation that Hurricane Sandy brought to New York City and much of the Northeast—in lost lives, lost homes and lost business—brought the stakes of Tuesday’s presidential election into sharp relief.” As he considered the leadership necessary to confront climate change, Bloomberg continued: “One [candidate] sees climate change as an urgent problem that threatens our planet one does not. I want our president to place scientific evidence and risk management above electoral politics.” For this reason, Bloomberg went on to surprise everyone and to endorse President Barack Obama for a second term. For more than a decade, such changes have been expected and predicted. In fact, in his book Hot, Flat, and Crowded, the New York Times columnist Tom Friedman designated 2007–2008 the first year of the “Energy Climate Era” (ECE), an era when “We now understand that these fossil fuels are exhaustible, increasingly expensive, and politically, ecologically, and cli- matically toxic.” In the past, he writes, “we wanted everyone to be con- verted to the American way of life, although we never really thought about the implications. Well, now we know. We know that in the Energy Climate Era, if all the world’s people start to live like us . . . it would herald a cli- mate and biodiversity disaster.” Ironically, change has come quicker to other nations, and the United States finds itself lagging behind—even trying to imitate other nations that have more readily modeled their economies on Friedman’s ECE. When Americans elected Barack H. Obama the 44th U.S. president, the nation appeared to have made its choice. Although throughout the campaign candidate Obama was not as forceful as many environmentalists may have preferred in his statements about climate change and new energy ideas, since taking office his administration has taken a revolutionary stand: the holistic