Regardless of who wins the election after November 2nd, our actions, or lack thereof, will undoubtedly be held accountable for our failure in the fight against global warming. While none of this should stop us in our efforts to elect John Kerry as President, we nonetheless will have to deal with the effects of our actions, both past and present.
According to an article from OneWorld.net, it seems as if global warming is no longer a threat, it is already happening (emphasis mine):
The 144-page report, which is due to be officially released a week after Tuesday's elections, says the accelerated warming of the globe - which it blames mostly on the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases produced by the industrial age - is transforming the Arctic region dramatically.
"Over the next 100 years, climate change is expected to accelerate, contributing to major physical, ecological, social and economic changes, many of which have already begun," the report stated, adding that greenhouse gas emissions have clearly become "the dominant factor" in the Arctic's changing climate.
The study, whose conclusions were disclosed as the Russian government, another co-sponsor, completes its ratification of the Protocol this week, was based on the work of nearly 300 scientists, as well as elders from native - mainly Inuit communities living in the Arctic regions of North America and Eurasia - over the past four years.
...It confirms earlier studies that the Arctic has warmed and is warming at a much faster rate than the Earth as a whole.
Now I know what you're saying: what else is new? Tell me something I don't already know. Well, this tidbit should be rather sobering:
Indeed, the melting of Arctic ice, which is taking place at a faster-than-anticipated pace, could have dire consequences on coastal areas as a result of the resulting rise in sea levels.
The melting of the two-mile-high icepack on Greenland by itself will send sea level as much as 25 feet higher, washing away low-lying islands in the South Pacific, the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean and heavily populated coastal areas from Bangladesh to New Orleans and the Mississippi delta.
Even if the U.S. joins the Kyoto Protocol ... the results will be too little and too late to reverse the changes that are well underway in the Arctic because carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases have been built up in the atmosphere for more than a century and cannot be dispersed or broken down. At best, implementation of the treaty will slow the rate of change over the long term.
...
The new study's main conclusions were to some extent anticipated in September in Senate hearings in which Sheila Watt-Cloutier, a representative of the 155,000 Inuit who live in Greenland, Canada, Alaska, and Russia, testified about the changes her people were enduring.
"We find ourselves at the very cusp of a defining event in the history of this planet," she told Sen. John McCain, who is co-sponsoring legislation to require reductions in greenhouse emissions, and other senators. "The Earth is literally melting."
I honestly do not know what else to say about this. The only thing I guess I can say is that we do need to get Kerry into the White House, but even if we do, I wonder if it is already too late to save our grandchildren from the planetary calamities that may inevitably come.