I saw on the news today that a new tropical storm is forming in the Gulf of Mexico. When you're from New Orleans, that always grabs your attention. It looks like the Crescent City will be spared -- models show the storm more likely drifting east toward Florida -- but on the other hand it seems certain that one of these days another hurricane will bear down on Louisiana. And when it does, there's a good chance it will be every bit as powerful as Katrina, maybe stronger. That's because the water temperatures in the Gulf region -- the key factor for determining how deadly a tropical storm becomes -- have generally risen in recent years. And the likely cause is global warming.
Coincidentally, there's a new report on Al Jazeera -- which, odd as it sounds, is doing some of the best environmental reporting in North America right now. It highlights how pollution, overfishing, and climate change have created a crisis for the world's oceans greater than humankind has seen before. And it includes particularly alarming information about the Gulf of Mexico. It notes:
A drumbeat of recent scientific studies emphases an increasingly alarming convergence ...