Climate Change, the Gorilla in the Room

No doubt that the debt ceiling debate and its outcome is critical to our mutual well being as U.S. citizens.  Those in Washington who claim to be our representatives seem to be playing a dangerous game of chicken that could lead to national calamity.  And while they are jousting over these abstract issues of debt and money, some have turned their backs from the real menace, the 800 lb. gorilla that hovers over not only our country, but the entire globe...the specter of climate change.

Politics aside.  Climate change is no respecter of persons.  It has no agenda.  It is simply the forces of nature struggling for balance.  With each passing day, it is demanding that we pay attention.  Only a few have responded.  Here from an article by Mollie O'Toole for Reuters:

(Reuters) - The United States is on a pace in 2011 to set a record for the cost of weather-related disasters and the trend is expected to worsen as climate change continues, officials and scientists said on Thursday.

"The economic impact of severe weather events is only projected to grow," Senator Dick Durbin said at a hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Financial Services and Government, which he chairs. "We are not prepared. Our weather events are getting worse, catastrophic in fact." 

Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, held a hearing on the role of government in mitigating the economic impact of weather disasters as Republicans in the House of Representatives were considering an appropriations bill with a number of riders designed to curtail environmental regulation.

 Over the coming years, the losses from this natural phenomenon will undoubtedly make our current national debt seem trivial.  But it isn't just the money, it's the prospective lost and disrupted lives that may be wasted because we buried our heads now, ignoring the threat and not making the personal and broader infrastructure changes necessary for our physical survival.