Consider global warming — what Rifkin calls the "escalating entropy bill that now threatens catastrophic climate change and our very existence".
And most developing countries are happy enough to consider global warming a problem, so long as it is not theirs.
A recent opinion poll, for instance, showed that three quarters of Americans consider global warming to be a serious problem.
She declared that the Bush administration considered global warming one of the most serious threats facing the United States.
Holdren, whose expertise runs from nuclear-weapons proliferation to global warming, recently warned in a speech at Harvard that he considered "global warming" to be a misnomer.
And for that, he will bear some culpability for not even wanting to consider global warming, much less do anything about it as the leader of the country most responsible for man-made warming and ice-cap melting.
When the warming of the Earth's entire climate system is considered, global warming continues to rise at a rate equivalent to about 4 Hiroshima atomic bomb detonations per second, faster over the past 15 years than the prior 15 years.
Congress is beginning to consider global warming legislation, the E.P.A. is fashioning a response to the Supreme Court, the State Department is preparing for a new round of global climate talks in Bali, and everyone is worried about the cost of oil.
