Climate skeptics dismissed Sandy as ordinary weather even during the disaster.

Evidence

A strong pressure ridge over Greenland turned Hurricane Sandy inland rather than out to sea. Having experienced three storms of historic proportions in a short time, New York State governor Andrew Cuomo characterized such extreme weather events as the “new normal” (Cuomo, 2012). Hurricane Sandy overwhelmed the region’s aging infrastructures and relief efforts, causing massive flooding of low-lying areas and shutting down much of the area’s transportation system. Millions of people were cut off from help amid demolished, burned, or submerged homes, without food, water, electricity, fuel, and medical services. At the height of this colossal tragedy, Art Horn (2012), a climate skeptic, took Governor Cuomo to task for declaring extreme weather the “new normal.” Hurricanes happen all the time, including some big ones, Horn stated, but most steer seaward. In his view, it is just Mother Nature acting up again. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2774

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: how disaster unfolds in real time alongside competing frames for explaining it — the skeptic’s normalization of catastrophe as a moral disengagement move.