In a free society, there comes a time when the truth - however hard it may be to hear, however impolitic it may seem to say - must be told.

A leapord never changes his stripes.

For a long time, the scientists have been telling us global warming increases the temperature of the top layer in the ocean, and that causes the average hurricane to become a lot stronger. So, the fact that the ocean temperatures did go up because of global warming, because of man-made global warming, starting around in the '70s, and then we had a string of unusually strong hurricanes outside the boundaries of this multi-decadal cycle that is a real factor; there are scientists who point that out, and they're right, but we're exceeding those boundaries now.

The answer is to end our reliance on carbon-based fuels... If we succeed, we create booming new industries, wealth, clean secure energy and maybe we prevent the greatest disaster so far in human history, saving millions of lives while improving billions more. If we fail, basically it's business as usual while things slowly get worse all around us.

I think that asserting that former President Obama wasn't born in the United States was just the height of irresponsibility, of course. And Donald Trump corrected that one. There are others that have yet to be corrected.

Hurricane Sandy is a disturbing sign of things to come. We must heed this warning and act quickly to solve the climate crisis. Dirty energy makes dirty weather.

In the end, we must restore a balance within ourselves between who we are and what we are doing. Each of us must take a greater personal responsibility for this deteriorating global environment; each of us must take a hard look at the habits of mind and action that reflect - and have led to - this grave crisis.