One important takeaway is questioning the idea that disasters are “acts of God” that humans can’t prevent. Humans could have prevented much of the flooding and its aftermath, and there are things we could be doing right now to limit the peril all our coastal cities are in as sea levels rise.
While it’s true that we can’t control the weather, we have been changing the climate (though not everyone admits that, even today, especially in oil-producing states). We’ve also been letting coastal areas erode, including barrier islands that protect settled areas, even though we have a lot of knowledge about how to prevent that. And when that happens, floods will happen, too.
Our responsibilities toward the Earth and toward one another are so much broader than stepping in to clean up messes and acting surprised that the messes occurred.
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