Wow, sure is a lot cheaper dealing with climate change here in Massachusetts than down in the Big Apple, where not only real estate is more expensive, but apparently storm barriers as well.

In case you missed it, New York City has rolled out a $20 billion plan to erect a veritable Atlantic Wall of coastal defenses against the next superstorm. Talk about flushing those billions right into the Hudson!

Well, all I can say is thank the good Lord for Gov. Deval Patrick and our sage legislative leadership on Beacon Hill, who’ve figured it out how to do it all for a little over $50 million.

So smart, these guys. Who knew?

OK, I am being facetious. Here in the Bay State we are taking on the existential threat of climate change and coastal inundation with the equivalent of Elmer Fudd’s pop gun, while New York, deeply scarred by Sandy, is going at it full blast with a howitzer.

And for developers in Boston and up and down the Bay State, who have invested untold billions, this is nothing short of a potential nightmare, with only a matter of time before Boston inevitably gets slammed by one of these monster storms.

Small Thinking For Big Times

Amazingly, Gov. Deval Patrick has been playing up his $52 million proposal as if it were start of some global warming Manhattan project.

Maybe he hasn’t read the headlines out of New York, or simply thinks most of us here – in the Hub of the universe after all – aren’t concerned about goings on in such distant lands.

However, given the scale of the threat we face here in our coastal state, Patrick’s proposed $52 million is just large enough to draw ridicule from right-wing blockheads like radio host Michael Graham, but not enough to do much else.

It is but a drop in the bucket, if that, spare the pun, with the money to be spread out over the state, instead of concentrated in Boston and a few other key and vulnerable coastal centers.

We are talking about $10 million for seawalls in coastal communities – a Band-Aid compared to the billions New York plans to spend on floodwalls and reinforced dunes, bulkheads, surge barriers and levees.

The other $40 million in Patrick’s plan will be doled out as grants to communities to build emergency power backup systems, using green energy, of course. Let’s just hope all those windmills and solar panels are up to the task when disaster strikes.

Like Patrick, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg was wrapping up a final term in office last year when he rolled out his $20 billion coastal defense plan.

But unlike Bloomberg, who chose to go out with a bang when assessing one of the greatest threats facing New York, Patrick chose to go out with a whimper dressed up as a roar, with a superstorm defense proposal long on rhetoric, short on cash.

How do the two plans compare? Not so well.

Bloomberg’s plan calls for not just protecting New York’s subways and electric grid from being washed away, but also safeguarding hospitals and other key installations.

New York officials even plan to offer more than a billion to tower and building owners to harden their properties against storm surges.

No one really believes the kind of money being talked about in Massachusetts will be enough to just start cleaning up after a monster hurricane, let alone help absorb the punch.

The Boston Harbor Association’s Vivien Li says she is encouraged by the Patrick proposal, but notes it is just a start.

Sure, some Boston and state agencies are starting to study the problem, so you can add in a few more million beyond the $52 million the guv has pledged.

The head of the state Senate’s panel on climate change and global warming, Sen. Marc Pacheco, last week jumped on the bandwagon.

His bill calls for a study on the impact of climate change on Massachusetts, but with no funding attached.

Another profile in courage.

Job Too Big For Private Sector

In fact, the private sector has taken the only concrete actions so far here in the Bay State.

Spaulding Hospital’s new facility in Charlestown was purposely built a foot higher and with artificial reefs to boot, while over at Fan Pier, the mechanical systems of new high-rises will be installed high up and well above any potential storm surge.

Yet the threat of superstorms and rising sea levels ravaging our priceless coastline is a problem that requires thinking big – billions big.

In the end, it doesn’t matter what individual developers do if their buildings become isolated islands in a flood zone, with public infrastructure, from the electric grid to the MBTA, having collapsed around them.

This is not a problem that can be offloaded onto the private sector – it’s a challenge so large and sweeping, akin to defense, that only government, with its ability to tap the public purse, has the ability to grapple with it.

As it stands now, we are living on borrowed time. The only reason that Sandy also didn’t send the ocean crashing into downtown Boston was that it hit during low tide.

If it had, the harbor would have flooded across the New England Aquarium and Rowes Wharf and across Faneuil Hall to the base of City Hall.

It’s only a matter of time before one of these killer storms hits Boston and the Massachusetts coast full-bore during high tide. Another wonky plan or study just doesn’t cut it.

New York took a $19 billion hit when Sandy surged ashore. Sure, Boston is smaller than our archrival, but you can be sure that the Hub and towns and smaller cities would get buried under billions of dollars of damages should a similar storm strike here.

And when it does, the million or two spent here and there on studies instead of sea walls and various flood protections will seem like a very bad joke.

Scott Van Voorhis can be reached at sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com.