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Americans need to take the realities of global warming to heart, and take a leadership role in combating it Date published: 4/10/2006
As the world warms
MOST OF US WORRY a good deal about the lives that our But what about the world itself? Can we safely assume that Planet Earth will always be fit to inhabit? No, we cannot. Many scientists believe that because of global warming, we're in for more violent weather, and for more drastic swings between wet and dry, hot and cold conditions. As the polar ice caps melt--a British research team this year claimed that the Antarctic cap is vanishing faster than previously thought--ocean levels will rise, and much of the beaches we love could one day be underwater. The challenge for those who appreciate the more dire possibilities of global warming is to put an understandable cover on a book of scientific data, and to persuade individuals to act responsibly in protecting our little piece of the universe. A new campaign co-sponsored by the Advertising Council and the advocacy group Environmental Defense is designed to do that. (Visit fightglobal warming.com to learn the small steps you can take.) Although the United States since the Nixon administration has substantially cleaned up the nation's air, the United States remains the world's leading producer of pollution linked to global warming. To be sure, the Kyoto Treaty is fatally flawed. But there are other ways that Congress might mitigate what could be a cataclysmic environmental trend. Alas, Washington is one place where the ice isn't melting at all. Just last month, Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., acknowledged that no global legislation will be coming out of his committee this year. He and fellow committee member Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., are working on a bill to curb greenhouse-gas emissions, but, says Mr. Domenici, "Frankly, I don't know how to write it, and I don't think anybody does." Such candor, while appreciated, hardly instills optimism. The number of scientists who have come to accept global warming is large and growing. The artificial transformation of planetary climate--unless a global political consensus for some reason authorizes such a change--is indefensible. That's especially true when the transformation may be dangerous. America should take a leadership role in heading off any future environmental crisis. That's one way to take the play away from the back-to-the-caves extremists while producing results. After all, if the world we leave for future generations is uninhabitable, nothing else will really matter, will it?
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