Lessons learned from Sandy

>>> issue of global warming and climate change and how to deal with it hasn't gotten very much play in the election. in the aftermath of sandy that could change. one of the issues raised in the cover of the new "time" magazine, lessons from the storm on sale in this part of the country. the rest of the country will see a preelection issue. richard stengel . two covers and those of us living in this part of the country and thinking about the coast and seeing all of the devastation really want to know more about climate change , about these coastal communities, the kinds of issues that governor quomo and new york raised and we have not we have not heard enough of, anything of, from either of these candidates in any of the debates.

>> yes. governor cuomo was eloquent about it. he talked about this idea that we are having 100-year events every couple of years these days. and you can't have an absolute cause and effect between climate change and these events, but there are certain manmade aspects of this which is that we're building in places we shouldn't be building. our infrastructure is old. our transportation infrastructure , it's from the last century. and we are not accommodating ourselves to the new reality. the idea that these kinds of events may happen more frequently. if you look at the infrastructure in places like the netherlands, you know, they've been spending 50 years preparing for events like this, and we haven't been. we're very much more exposed. and the fact that it hasn't been talked about in the election, that nobody's talking about infrastructure, folks like governor cuomo, is a problem.

>> richard, when i was looking at the cover the other night, the night of the storm and we had our correspondents from nbc and from the weather channel standing there in battery park city , that seawall was practically nonexistent. the water came up to 13 feet and easily breached. we saw the subways flooded. we have not done the infrastructure repairs. we all want to have the option of living along the jersey shore . and i don't know what the answer there is.

>> right.

>> for the beautiful vistas of living so close to the ocean. but, you know, how do you approach this with an old city like new york?

>> i think there has to be -- i mean, some of the candidates have talked about it during -- over the course of the year, and there are governors who have talked about an infrastructure bank. if you look at manhattan, it may seem like a 21st century city to us. in fact, it's an 18th and 19th century city. there's so much landfill downtown. there aren't much berms or barriers. the subway was a miracle 100 years ago. it's now an antique. the problem is there isn't any kind of overwhelming desire on the part of public officials, states, voters to actually finance this kind of thing because it will take billions and billions of dollars and decades.

>> well, you're at least talking about it. you're raising it with your cover story . and i should point out that the political articles, the debate between e.j. dionne and rick lowrie, the two campaigns, and the piece that joel stein wrote about gary johnson and how his lib eertarian run could actually change, you know, the nevada and colorado results, must-reading. this is a really great issue of "time." richard stengel , thanks so much for