Climate Experts Worry as 2006 Is Hottest Year on Record in U.S.

[cal04]

Last year was the warmest in the continental United States in the past 112 years -- capping a nine-year warming streak "unprecedented in the historical record" that was driven in part by the burning of fossil fuels, the government reported yesterday.

According to the government's National Climatic Data Center, the record-breaking warmth -- which caused daffodils and cherry trees to bloom throughout the East on New Year's Day -- was the result of both unusual regional weather patterns and the long-term effects of the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

"People should be concerned about what we are doing to the climate," said Jay Lawrimore, chief of the climate monitoring branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "Burning of fossil fuels is causing an increase in greenhouse gases, and there's a broad scientific consensus that is producing climate change."

The center said there are indications that the rate at which global temperatures are rising is speeding up.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/09/AR2007010901949.html

[BeyondGeography]

1. Soon to be surpassed by 2007...

[OneBlueSky]

2. that the peoples and governments of the world have not recognized . . .

the environmental crisis as THE determining factor in the future (or lack thereof) of life on the planet it beyond comprehension . . .

that we have not come together to stop massive corporations from destroying the earth, polluting the air, turning the rivers and oceans into sewers, and irreversibly changing the climate in pursuit of the almighty dollar will go down in history (if there IS history) as humankind's greatest failing . . . ever . . .