Today's News, Tomorrow's Lesson - May 8, 2014

by PBS NewsHour Extra

Stronger storms in the Northeast, wildfires and drought in the Southwest and rising dangers from more powerful hurricanes in the Southeast -- that’s how the government’s new climate report describes the changes to come.

“What keeps me up at night is a persistence across the population not to recognize that the old normal climate is broken, and we don’t know what the new normal climate is going to be,” said Gary Yohe, the lead author of the new National Climate Assessment.

“That lack of recognition and the inability of this community and decision-makers to communicate those risks to individuals unnecessarily puts economic assets at risk, unnecessarily puts human lives at risk, unnecessarily puts ecosystems at risk.”

The assessment also finds heavy rainfall has increased across the Eastern United States in the last half-century and by 70 percent just in the Northeast.

The nation has an urgent obligation to act, urges Kathryn Sullivan, administrator at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“We can, as we must, bring this assessment to life, really make sure it gets off the page, out of the ether, and into the policies, the plans and the practices that are adopted across our nation,” she said.

President Barack Obama met with weather men and women in the White House on Tuesday to discuss the new report and its implications for weather events in the future.