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.

Absent the rapid mobilization of climate advocates at every level - and the pooling of all their energy, creativity, and resources into a coordinated, no-holds-barred campaign - we will soon be crossing the threshold into climate hell.

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.

The Aedes aegypti mosquito, which spreads dengue fever and yellow fever, has traditionally been unable to survive at altitudes higher than 1,000 meters because of colder temperatures there. But with recent warming trends, those mosquitoes have now been reported at 1,240 meters in Costa Rica and at 2,200 meters in Columbia. Malaria-bearing mosquitoes, too, have moved to higher elevations in central Africa, Asia, and parts of Latin America, triggering new outbreaks of the disease.

Our planet has run out of patience. So has our sense of justice. It is time to step it up - and up - and up - until we reach the only goal that really matters: peace among people and peace between people and nature.

To restore our inflamed atmosphere to a hospitable state requires nothing less than rewiring the entire globe - and replace every oil-burning furnace, every gasoline-burning car, every coal-burning generating plant, with renewable, climate-friendly energy sources. The earth's fossil fuel resources have blessed us with a level of prosperity and abundance unimaginable a century ago. Today they are propelling us forward into a century of disintegration.

Climate change is not an environmental problem. It is a civilizational problem. Climate change is not just another issue. If it is not addressed in very short order, it will swamp every other issue facing us today