What's really scary about this is that we already saw a major city get flooded - New Orleans in 2005 - and though it did play a major role in solidifying public opinion behind the fact of global warming and did generate some political momentum to do something about (California's global warming law wouldn't have passed in 2006 without it), that momentum is almost totally gone.

So I agree with you that it'll take another major disaster to snap people into action. This, despite the fact that farmers, ranchers, and others who work with the land and are attuned to the climate, all accept global warming as a fact, have seen it affect their industries and livelihoods, and are demanding action.

Unfortunately for them, in the US, the fossil fuel industries still dominate political debate. The only ray of hope here has been the movement against the US Chamber of Commerce by some of its more high-profile members who are embarrassed and outraged by the Chamber's continued denialism. It's going to take a movement of businesses, sadly, to reorient the debate toward action and to finally cut off the funding for the deniers.

And the world will live as one