Moment of truth

¡¡¡¡No sooner did James McCarthy's name turn up in an Associated Press story on the outlook for global warming than he started getting outraged eª²mails from colleagues. All that McCarthy, a Harvard oceanographer who studies how climate change affects marine life, told the AP last week was that "the worst stuff is not going to happen ... not that I think the projections aren't that accurate, but because we can't be that stupid." The overwhelming response, he said, was, What do you mean, we can't be that stupid? Just look around!
¡¡¡¡On that very question could hinge the fate of much of life on Earth. Last week was bracketed by two events that could make 2007 a turning point in the effort to control global warming. On Monday, by a 5ª²4 vote, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government had the power under the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles. This victory for environmentalists was quickly snatched away by President Bush, who announced the next day that his administration had no intention of doing anything of the sort. But the ruling set an important precedent for treating carbon dioxide as a threat to human welfare, and opens the way to regulating it by tightening fuelª²economy standards. On Friday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, marshaling the research of nearly 1,000 scientists from 74 countries, issued a longª²awaited report on climateª²change"impacts, adaptation and vulnerability".The study found that global warming was already affecting the Earth's ecosystems; it predicted that continued climate change, in combination with other environmental stressors such as population increases and greater urbanization, would lead to moreª²severe and widespread drought, greater coastal and riverine flooding, and"increased risk of extinction"for 20 to 30 percent of plant and animal species. Depending on how much temperature rises, food production in the temperate regions (including parts of the United States and Canada) could actually increase, but would probably decline in much of the tropics.
¡¡¡¡Yet at least since last year's congressional elections it's been clear that 2007 would be a critical year for what former vice president Al Gore has called the"planetary emergency". A halfª²dozen bills to control greenhouse gases have already been introduced or are being prepared for introduction to the Senate, according to the National Environmental Trust. Some version of the"cap and trade"marketª²based system that has already shown its value in reducing acidª²rain pollution is virtually certain to pass this Congress."The key question now",says NET president Phil Clapp,"is, will President Bush sign a meaningful bill? But I don't think there's any question that if this Congress doesn't produce one, the next one will and the next president will sign it. We're in the endgame now, after 10 years on this issue."