Record temperatures in the arctic have been linked to the snowstorms this year that are currently causing the fourth-worst flood of all times in Fargo, North Dakota. Last year, they had the fifth-worst flood of all time, and two years ago, the worst ever. It's been that kind of decade for the Dakotas. As climate change gets worse and worse, I imagine the world will need many, many more sandbags, or, perhaps, the world will need many more sandbag replacements (NYT):

Sandbagging in Fargo. Adam Quartarolo

As Fargo, N.D., confronts its third major flood in three years, local governments, businesses and residents are shifting to a number of modern alternatives to hold back the waters of the Red River.

“I’ve seen enough sandbags for a lifetime,” said Alan Kallmeyer, who enlisted dozens of friends and co-workers the last two years for a full day of this grueling masonry, filling and stacking thousands of sandbags around his riverside house.

This year, Mr. Kallmeyer bought a device, already used by several of his neighbors, that rings his house with a four-foot-tall tube of water. The device, known as an AquaDam, cost nearly $8,000. But it took just a few strain-free hours to set up and will be just as easy to take down.

It's interesting to note that those who can't afford $8,000 in home protection will likely be relying on the old technology (sandbags) this year -- and those who can't afford even those will, likely, just be overrun. Climate change, like every other national problem we face, is going to hit those who are poor the hardest.

Along the way, though, it does seem like someone could be making a flood of money -- pun intended -- by coming up with ways to stop flooding before it starts. A guy who will pay $8,000 for an aqua fence might be convinced rather easily to pay an extra 2 percent at the gas pump if someone could make a credible, clear case for how it might stifle this record flooding in the future. You might also now be able to make a much clearer case to the people of North Dakota about Climate Change being a threat to national security: in 2009, North Dakota had to "borrow" National Guard troops from a nearby state to combat the floods, since most of its service members were in Iraq or Afghanistan.

The only plus side I can see to climate change being made real in daily life is that it might make folks more willing to do something to stop it. Otherwise, I'll be looking forward to those who called for people to move out of New Orleans to begin asking citizens in the flood plains of the Midwest to abandon their homes and livelihoods instead of giving up the habits that will make those landscapes uninhabitable.