The sky really *is* falling

...or at least, it is dumping massive rain and ferocious winds on the southeast. Hurricane Katrina has been downgraded to a mere 'tropical storm,' but the natural diaster has left death and destruction and isn't over yet.
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/hurricane_katrina

Natural? not entirely. Hurricanes aren't man-made, of course, but mankind sure helps, when it hurts the global environment. While the Bush Administration continues to pooh-pooh the existence of global warming (ignoring the overwhelming majority of scientific opinion and analysis), it is a fact that unusually high ocean temperatures contribute to unusually powerful storms.

The mainstream media is offering tentative comments about how on the one hand, 90 degree ocean temperatures maybe kinda were pretty high and helped fuel the brutal hurricane; and on the other hand, not so much in Australia, blahblahblah.

Meanwhile levees have broken and the death toll is mounting.

It looks like New Orleans will not join Atlantis as another fabled city drowned by the elements. At least not for a few years yet.

But why do we have to wait? While the Bushistas insist the science isn't "there" yet, and Americans grouse about high gas costs, maybe it's long past time when fuel efficiency standards should be imposed?

As a patriotic American, clinging to a few ideals, I remember that once upon a time we were able to put a man on the moon. Surely there is enough brainpower left in the country to make cars run just as well, without spewing so much pollution? That would go a loooonnngg way to cooling off our overheated globe.

IMO.