As the Earth’s temperature rises faster than at any time in the last 10,000 years, the inaction by the Clinton Administration and the resistance by the U.S. Congress to deal with global climate change is isolating the U.S. diplomatically and courting severe warming-driven political, economic, and ecological disruptions.
With our burning of coal and oil, we humans are heating the deep oceans, fracturing Antarctic ice shelves, and fueling more intense El Niños. Glaciers all over the planet are retreating at accelerating rates. Islands are going under from rising sea levels. Plants, fish, birds, and insects are migrating northward. Among the consequences are malaria on Long Island, encephalitis in New York City, and a dramatic increase of tick-borne Lyme disease in New England. Because of the buildup of atmospheric carbon dioxide, we have changed the timing of the seasons; spring now arrives more than a week earlier in the northern hemisphere than it d