Ultimately, I believe - because energy is so central to our lives - that a common global project to rewire the world with clean energy could be the first step on a path to global peace and global democracy - even in today's deeply troubled world.

Climate change is not just another issue. It is the issue that, unchecked, will swamp all other issues. The only hope lies in all the countries of the world coming together around a common global project to rewire the world with clean energy. This is a path to peace -- peace among people, and peace between people and nature.

Unfortunately, very few people in America know the real name of Hurricane Katrina because the coal and oil industries have spent millions of dollars to keep the public in doubt about the issue.

The largest source of greenhouse gases in the coming decades will not be the US, Western Europe and Japan, but the developing economies of East Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe. The coming eruption of carbon emissions from the poor world will dwarf any reductions in the North.

Stormy Weather is really wonderful - it ought to be required reading for everyone who is concerned about our planet's climate, beginning in every high school in the country.

Each year we pump at least six billion tons of heat-trapping carbon into the innermost layer of our atmosphere, whose outer extent is only about twelve miles overhead. According to an IPCC (United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report released this year, atmospheric CO2 will, if the buildup is left unchecked, double from its pre-industrial level within the next century. That doubling of CO2 correlates with an increase in the global temperature of at least three to eight degrees Fahrenheit. The last ice age was just five to nine degrees colder than our current climate.

It's very important to understand that climate change is not just another issue in this complicated world of proliferating issues. Climate change is THE issue which, unchecked, will swamp all other issues.