Climate developments.

According to analyses by the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), 2005 was at least tied with 1998 as the hottest year ever recorded. However, GISS researchers give the edge to 2005 because the 1998 average global temperature was raised above the trend line by an extremely strong El Nino, the episodic warming of Pacific Ocean surface waters near the South American coast. The GISS scientists, led by James Hansen, noted that the globe has warmed 0.6[degrees]C in the last three decades and 0.8[degrees]C in the last century. They suggested that 2006 or 2007 will probably break the 2005 record because another El Nino event is likely by then.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The average temperature for 2005 was also raised by a sharp warming of the Arctic region above 75 degrees north latitude. The Arctic warming is dramatically changing life for people living in the region (see "Inuit Struggle With Climate Change," World Watch Sept/Oct 2005). But other creatures are suffering as well: in December it was reported that polar bears are drowning as the ice pack retreats farther north in the summer and many bears swim to exhaustion trying to reach the ice floes from which they hunt. Studies from the U.S. Geological Survey, the Canadian Wildlife Service, and WWF also suggest that climate-related food shortages suffered by bears in Arctic Russia have driven some to cannibalism, and that bear populations in many sites across the Arctic Circle are declining.

Global warming is driven in large part by greenhouse gases (GHGs), especially carbon dioxide, emitted mainly by vehicles, factories, and powerplants. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, C[O.sub.2] emissions from the United States, long the world's largest emitter, rose again in 2004 to a record 5.97 billion metric tons of gas. The total of all U.S. GHGs, expressed as C[O.sub.2] equivalents, rose 2 percent to 7.12 billion tons. Over 82 percent of U.S. GHG emissions result from burning coal, oil, and natural gas. Although U.S. emissions are growing more slowly than the country's population or GDP, they were 16 percent higher in 2004 than the 1990 levels established as a benchmark by the Kyoto Protocol.

Lack of meaningful action on climate change by the Bush administration has prompted climate initiatives at lower levels of government in the United States. The latest development is the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a memorandum of understanding signed by seven northeastern states that would cap powerplant C[O.sub.2] emissions at current levels beginning in 2009. In 2015, the pact calls for utilities to begin reducing emissions. The key mechanism is a C[O.sub.2] trading market that other states could join if they wished.

Finally, critics of measures to reduce such emissions have long argued that they reduce economic growth, but California offers evidence to the contrary. A recent study from Stanford University argues that efficiency gains pursued by businesses and consumers in the three decades following the 1973-74 oil price surge actually saved Californians $56 billion.