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Andrew Cuomo's strategy on not getting into the political circus of whether or not climate change exists is actually pretty simple: just state the facts. "That's a whole political debate that I don't want to get into," the governor told reporters Wednesday (that quote, out of context, attracted some raised eyebrows). And he didn't. Instead of getting into Republicans say this, Democrats say that, and what's at the root of climate change, Cuomo stated, quite bluntly, that our planet is getting warmer and that we should be prepared for the consequences.

"Part of learning from this is the recognition that climate change is a reality," Cuomo told reporters Wednesday while briefing everyone on brokenness of New York City. "For us to say this is once-in-a-generation, that it's not going to happen again, as elected officials that would be short-sighted," he added, echoing his remarks from yesterday, when he told reporters:

There has been a series of extreme weather incidents. That is not a political statement, that is a factual statement. Anyone who says there is not a dramatic change in weather patterns is denying reality. ... We have a 100-year flood every two years now.

He's right about that. Irene was touted as a once-a-century storm. Sandy was too. And they happened a year from one another with more than 87 years to go in this century. Not to mention that Sandy followed a period where we saw New England's warmest waters on record, a summer which left many states in the United States in massive drought, forest fires in Colorado and New Mexico, and 2012's July being the hottest month in U.S. history.