Climate change is now 90% officially occurring because of man-made environmental effects.

Now, I may have fallen asleep before the clock struck midnight last night while watching "An Inconvenient Truth," but I insist it wasn't because of any weaknesses in Al Gore's global climate change warnings; prior to the documentary I had a few sips of wine and too much rich, succulent seafood and couldn't resist the allure of sleep. But the point remains to be said that concern--not quite freakout--about global warming and US involvement is pretty much plastered all over my personal world like bumper stickers on an socially conscious activist's beat-up junker car: Greenpeace; Coexist; Impeach Bush; Somewhere in Texas a village has lost its idiot; No War in Iraq; that no W one that looks like "No Smoking." The concern is newspaper headlines, topics of conversation over dinner, Sports Illustrated features on being green in the sporting world, coffee shop hubbub, hit documentaries from formerly unfunny and unappreciated Vice Presidents of the United States, emails from Sierra Club and Environmental Alliance, your state senator and favorite actress who are teaming up to fight pollution and save the rainforests of Brazil. It's everywhere if you know how to look with the right eyes, yet the US won't join the Kyoto Protocol.

According to the New York Times, James L. Connaughton, the chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said some of the findings in the new U.N. report, particularly the prospect of intensifying coastal damage from rising seas, were “of high concern,” but noted the panel also foresaw benefits to agriculture in temperate regions as well.

Leave it to the White House. Acknowledge the threat of global catastrophe as a "high concern," but stay positive--don't let a little bit of bad news get you down. It's like turning a blind eye to more homocides or fatal car accidents on the local news--everyone does it at some point because there's only so much you can take. But this is different. And some parts are toned down because governments didn't want it to scare too many people. Which is impossible.