only if we are united and determined.

In light of the standoff in Washington -- and the continuing dysfunction in our nation's capital -- many of you are angry and frustrated. Some of you say you've had it with politics. Others feel powerless and hopeless. A number blame both parties, seeing Democrats as no different from Republicans.

All these reactions are exactly what the regressives want. This is the heart of their strategy. They want you to see all of politics and all politicians as crooks and con-artists, fools or knaves. They want you to give up. That way, they can have it all. They can turn the clock back on America. They can shred every safety net, eviscerate every regulation, prevent any investment in the health and education of future generations. They can hammer the poor and middle class with lower wages, fewer jobs, and less security, and create a plutocracy of the privileged and powerful. Get it? They want you out of the way so they have America to themselves. The showdowns and standoffs and gridlock in Washington are part of their plot.

We must not let them. The progressive forces in this country are stronger than the regressive ones, but only if we are united and determined. Don't stop making a ruckus. Don't stop writing and calling your representatives. Don't stop mobilizing others, and organizing at the grass roots. 2014 will be a key election year. We must take our democracy back.

Yes, yes, it’s unsophisticated to blame any given storm on climate change. Men and women in white lab coats tell us—and they’re right—that many factors contribute to each severe weather episode. Climate deniers exploit scientific complexity to avoid any discussion at all.

Clarity, however, is not beyond reach. Hurricane Sandy demands it: At least 40 U.S. deaths. Economic losses expected to climb as high as $50 billion. Eight million homes without power. Hundreds of thousands of people evacuated. More than 15,000 flights grounded. Factories, stores, and hospitals shut. Lower Manhattan dark, silent, and underwater.

An unscientific survey of the social networking liter moodature on Sandy reveals an illuminating tweet (you read that correctly) from Jonathan Foley, director of the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota. On Oct. 29, Foley thumbed thusly: “Would this kind of storm happen without climate change? Yes. Fueled by many factors. Is storm stronger because of climate change? Yes.” Eric Pooley, senior vice president of the Environmental Defense Fund (and former deputy editor of Bloomberg Businessweek), offers a baseball analogy: “We can’t say that steroids caused any one home run by Barry Bonds, but steroids sure helped him hit more and hit them farther. Now we have weather on steroids.”

In an Oct. 30 blog post, Mark Fischetti of Scientific American took a spin through Ph.D.-land and found more and more credentialed experts willing to shrug off the climate caveats. The broadening consensus: “Climate change amps up other basic factors that contribute to big storms. For example, the oceans have warmed, providing more energy for storms. And the Earth’s atmosphere has warmed, so it retains more moisture, which is drawn into storms and is then dumped on us.” Even those of us who are science-phobic can get the gist of that.