Climate Delusion: Hurricane Sandy, Sea Level Rise, and 1840s Catastrophism

Abstract

The existential global threat of inundation of the world’s low-lying port cities necessitates a radical shift in the dominant climate framework of sustainability and resilience to include catastrophism. Scientists and social scientists of the industrial crisis decade of the 1840s, arguably the Anthropocene’s historical origin, offer a model for theorizing twenty-first century catastrophe in both geophysical and social terms, as in the case study of Hurricane Sandy presented here.

Keywords

• climate change
• catastrophism
• sea level rise
• Hurricane Sandy
• the 1840s
• the Anthropocene
• Friederich Engels
• Joseph Adhémar