• The following is from an editorial in the Kansas City Star:
The overwhelming number of scientists who believe in climate change scored another "victory" in 2012.
Unfortunately, because of timid political leadership in the United States and around the world, the war against global warming is still being lost.
Scientists have long warned that man-made greenhouse gases are heating up the Earth. They added more evidence to their arsenal when the contiguous United States recorded its hottest year ever in 2012, smashing the 1998 record.
But it wasn't just the searing heat that showed climate change is on a destructive march in America. The country endured a severe drought and recorded the second-largest number of mega-weather events ever, such as Hurricane Sandy. Warnings abound that the nation's temperatures could rise even more, leading to added weather-related problems.
The 2012 extremes cost billions of dollars in lost crops and federal disaster aid to Sandy victims. Corn and soybean prices spiked. Private homeowners have endured billions of dollars in losses.
That's a germane fact because one of the pitiful excuses brought up by members of Congress has been that any governmental actions aimed at reducing climate change could cost Americans billions of dollars.
Unfortunately, President Barack Obama has lacked the political courage to take the necessary steps to reduce harmful man-made emissions, such as requiring cleaner-burning coal plants. He doesn't want to confront American industries with even stricter pollution rules during tough economic times.
But climate change is turning out to be a pay-me-now-or-pay-me-later issue for America. It will cost companies and consumers, one way or the other, to deal with climate change.
The two most difficult challenges are how to cut emissions in developed countries that have the money to pay for those improvements and how to make it possible for developing countries to reduce their reliance on dirty fossil fuels such as coal.
None of this is easy. But seriously tackling this complicated problem, say, a decade ago could have made a lot of difference.
Because of the failure to act on a global scale, the malicious weather events caused by climate change are likely to increase, along with the tremendous damage they cause.