"America's Slow Infrastructure Progress" By Greg Hernandez

Climate Change versus American Infrastructure: No Competition here, for now.

Last year, the American society of Civil Engineers gave our nation's infrastructure a D+ rating and estimated that the investments needed to modernize it would reach 3.6  trillion by 2020. This country has been devastated recently by the effects of climate change: Super storm Sandy, the mega drought in California, this current brutal barrage of snow storms which have crippled the east coast and surprised the southern states. Bill Nye said it best, "Statistic are hard." Yes they are. We cannot predict exactly how or when things will get worse. However, we can certainly prepare for it now.

"The drought in California squeezed  the water supply and the state's $45 billion per-year agriculture industry." One of my co-stars of the show I am currently in, is from California. He recently moved to the city. Last week he remarked how it finally rained over on the west coast. "Imagine deciding between coughing, burning to death or dying of dehydration," he said.

 The thousands of massive pot holes in New York City have many natives calling for the head of sanitation's head on a platter. 200 workers who could fill these holes sit idly by until a potential March 1st re-hiring date. A reported 88,000 pot hole have been filled by 500 highway repair workers. The irony is the quality of the work. Once a pot hole is filled, another storm hits and it must be filled again. It is simply relentless.This time it is not about being unprepared, it is more of stubbornness and stupidity.

Here's a frightening thought. The George Washington Bridge is 80 years old and is in dire need of billions of dollars in structural improvement. I use the word improvement, not repair. Politicians and workers should not be taking the easy way out by simply repairing our bridges and roads, bold improvements must be made to cope with the unpredictable force that is nature.

“Cities at Work,” a new Center for American Progress Action Fund report, concludes that “through intelligent infrastructure investments, cities can save money, protect the environment, provide jobs to members of their community that need them, and mitigate climate change.” Yes investing in our infrastructure will enrich us all. One: we will all be safer as a people. Two: more jobs for those in need of employment. Three: think of our children's future, corny yes, but politicians tend to use this as their mantra all the time and rarely acknowledge it. Was that last statement too bold? Of course not. "Congress has failed to enact President Obama’s proposal to create a National Infrastructure Bank to use $10 billion in public funding to leverage private investment in national and regional infrastructure priorities." Of course the costs to improve our nation's infrastructure are beyond $10 billion. All of Obama's plans, forces, and agents can make a huge dent in our problem, which is the widening infrastructure investment gap.We have to start somewhere. If not now, when?

 http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/news/2014/02/11/83936/the-crushing-cost-of-climate-change-why-we-must-rethink-americas-infrastructure-investments/