New York Civic is now in its eleventh year of publishing articles about government and politics in New York City and New York State. The first one we wrote was on March 21, 2002, “A Money Tree Grows in Brooklyn,” which dealt with former councilmember and Brooklyn Democratic leader, Clarence Norman.

Today's article is No. 823. There has been a hiatus in the last few months as we and the American public were appropriately preoccupied by the terrible catastrophes of hurricanes and massacres. Those awful events are now receiving the full attention of national and state authorities. Momentum, for the nonce, is on the side of common decency and respect for human life. This enables us to return to the familiar but insistently aggravating themes of municipal corruption and incompetence.

In this case, the news is the sentencing of former City Councilmember Larry Seabrook to five years in prison and restitution of $620,000 to New York City for money he fraudulently received through anti-poverty groups he controlled.

As the year 2012 limps to a soggy close, we look back at what has occurred during our most recent circuit of the sun.

The most important event of the year, however was not man made, unless you believe the people who say the changing climate is the result of our failed stewardship of the planet.

It is true that we have plundered the earth by extracting its valuables, polluting its skies and oceans, and destroying protective layers of the stratosphere. But we are not ready to believe that any calamity that society faces is the result of human greed.

This thought recurs to me: What did our ancestors do to bring about the Ice Age and then to cause it to depart, a process which continues today?