I heard Aussie scientist & author Tim Flannery on Leonard Lopate's radio show on WNYC in New York today, and was very moved by both his obvious knowledge of climate change and his passion for speaking out about the need for a political, economic and technological paradigm change to mitigate this. His new book "The Weather Makers" is a blunt assessment of the next forty years on this planet.
Sometime this century the day will arrive when the human influence on the climate will overwhelm all other natural factors. Given the levels of greenhouse gases that will accumulate in the next few decades, we are reaching a global climatic tipping point.
http://www.powells.com/...
To my mind, this issue transcends late 20th Century environmental politics, inasmuch as it will impact the economics of all societies, though in disparate ways. Here in the U.S., of course, the Bush Republicans have (in public) tried to dismiss the gathering weight of scientific evidence that global warming is real and imminent by characterizing it as the overwrought prater of scientists with extremist views while, at the same time (in private) maneuvering to ensure that their (corporate) interests are able to capitalize on the opportunities that it affords.
I believe that global warming can (and should) be the galvanizing issue around which the Democratic Party can rally to retake one or both houses of Congress this Fall and the White House in 2008. I believe further that a visionary politician who is able to articulate and communicate this could rally Americans with the goal of achieving a "steady state" industrial/environmental balance by the year 2050 (an eternity, for most politicians). I don't understand why, if evangelical Christians get this, Democratic candidates aren't gathering round this issue and (not incidentally) seeking to form a coalition with such groups.