moderntimes

FTP: Over two decades have passed since Americans began to hear that burning fossil fuels and pouring their byproducts into the air was producing changes in the earth's atmosphere and the face of the globe that, if allowed to continue, could have calamitous effects not just on some exotic species in Fiji but on the exotic species we call Homo sapiens. Yet in the meantime, Homo has not been so sapiens, at least in the United States. Scientists have just reported that the problem has accelerated past their worst-case predictions, particularly since China has become America's rival in carbon emissions from coal-powered plants. Yet in the intervening decades we have done nothing -- other than to spear the Kyoto Treaty we took the lead it writing -- while other countries have tried to move forward as best they could without American leadership (or at least participation).