The new apocolypse now

The devastation left in the wake of super typhoon Haiyan is mind boggling.  One weather forecaster compared it to a 50 mile wide tornado.  He didn't add the storm surge the 175mph winds generated to his description.  The combination leveled a city of 350,000 people and killed at least 10,000 so far.  The final toll will probably be higher since many will die of disease and exposure.  There is no shelter, food or clean water nearly a week after the storm hit and despite robust efforts by the Phillipine government and other nations and aid groups.  The problem is the infrastructure has been wiped out, leaving helicopters as the only viable relief delivery vehicles.  What is happening on the ground must be terrifying disaster planners all over the world.   In a climate change driven scenario, these types of disasters could very well happen all over the world every year.  A category 5 hurricane hitting the east coast of the US could generate a trillion dollars of damage and untold suffering.  The negotiations at the Warsaw conference on climate change are taking on a newfound sense of urgency, but can they deliver the kind of tough love the human population of spaceship earth needs to survive the coming century?