Final thoughts

These last few months have gone by faster than I could have guessed. It seems like just yesterday we had warm 70-degree days – oh wait, that was this Thanksgiving. Go global warming.

Like August was a landmark month for global warming as I outlined in my Aug. 29 article on the subject, this month is shaping out to be pretty big, too. Scientists have found that the Gulf Stream current, the same one featured in the 2004 movie “The Day After Tomorrow,” has fallen in intensity by 30 percent. The first Pacific islanders have been forced to move away from shore because of rising sea levels, and a record 26th named storm, Epsilon, reached hurricane strength in December.

As I’ve said a few times on these pages, global warming doesn’t just mean warmer temperatures, it means more weather extremes in general. Along with warmer summers will come colder winters – incidentally, much of America is experiencing record low temperatures right now. And along with droughts in some areas, others will see violent storms and floods. While the Southwest continues to experience a 400-year drought, this year’s Midwest tornadoes and the floods in the Northeast stand testament to our earth’s rapidly changing climate.

As if that weren’t enough, we’ve also seen the Earth’s arctic ice cap shrink to its lowest level recorded. Melting ice in the Arctic has become so extensive that the long sought-after Northwest Passage through Canada between the Atlantic and Pacific is becoming navigable during the summer months – and exposing possible future reserves of oil to put more carbon dioxide into the air. Indigenous peoples in the arctic facing melting ice, as well as those in the Pacific facing rising sea levels, are raising their voices to provide a human face to the very real problem of global warming.

Right now in Canada the world’s leaders are meeting to discuss how the Kyoto protocols agreed to in 1997 in Japan will be implemented in the future. The United States has so far sat on the sidelines, refusing to accept even a compromise offer made by Canada to discuss an earlier agreement on global warming made in 1992.

Meanwhile, 192 U.S. mayors have joined together to make their own local commitment to the Kyoto protocols, and states including California are enacting their own measures. Twenty-five U.S. senators, too, have called on President Bush to join the Canadian conference in a productive manner, or at least to stand aside and not interfere with the proceedings. When it comes to global warming, it seems it’s rapidly becoming a case of lead, follow or get out of the way.

Omar Yacoubi may be reached at yacoubioa@vcu.edu