by Jason Leopold

Two years ago this month, a blackout plunged 50 million people in Northeastern U.S. and the Canadian province of Ontario into total darkness for more than a day, wreaking havoc on the U.S. economy. Now, it’s the devastation in Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi wrought by Hurricane Katrina that has killed hundreds, perhaps thousands of people. The common thread in both disasters is that energy and environmental experts sounded early alarms about the potential for catastrophes like this unless the White House immediately took the necessary steps to upgrade the country’s aging power grid to stave off widespread power failures, and in the case of Hurricane Katrina, backed the Kyoto protocol, which aims to curb the air pollution blamed for severe climate changes that is no doubt the reason Katrina turned from a relatively small hurricane to a destructive monstrosity, due to high sea surface temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico, according to the National Weather Service. While supporting the Kyoto treaty would not have done anything to prevent an act of God like Hurricane Katrina or the destruction left in its aftermath, it would have been a step in the right direction. Global Warming isn’t some harebrained scheme cooked up in a laboratory by mad scientists. It’s an issue that is as real as terrorism. And it’s just as deadly....

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Sept05/Leopold0901.htm