THE GREAT ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY EXPERIMENT CONTINUES

Put aside the images of melting icecaps and dystopic visions of a drowned Manhattan. The real threats from global climate destablization are far more mundane, but just as deadly. Rain that was supposed to provide much needed water for crops in one part of the world, has instead poured down in torrential flooding in another. Yesterday's headlines read like a capsule of a bad disaster movie - Asian Smog Cloud Threatens Millions. The time has long passed for studying these problems. It's time to pull the plug on this experiment - by moving agressively towards the development of cleaner energy sources. Its time for the U.S. to get behind a reduction of carbon emmissions and exporting of green technology to the developing world. And its time for the developing world to stop seeing global climate issues primarily a chance to shakedown the richer nations of the world and to accept emmission caps that can be met by taking a cleaner path to economic development.