Sandy wasn't always such a menace.. You might even have called her tame back in the day.
And what happened to her, just like what's happening on the East Coast, can't be traced to any individual factor with any degree of certainty. But in complex systems — like the planet Earth or Rydell High School — there are a lot of forces at work.
There's Danny at the drive-in.
There's the bad influence of the Pink Ladies.
There's all that sinful rock 'n' roll.
And don't forget all those fast cars. Can you even imagine the amount of smog that came from Greased Lightning?
But of course, it's not just one of these things; it's everything. No single factor is responsible for Superstorm Sandy, just like no single factor was responsible for leather-jacket-wearing, cigarette-smoking, tight-pant-wearing Sandy. All the changes in Sandy's environment had a serious effect.
Read more about the forces that made Sandy what she is over at Quartz. Maybe we can still have the climate we want, and the climate we need.
