Two killer hurricanes in the space of four weeks is more than 'œjust bad luck,' said Jeremy Rifkin in the London Guardian. The 'œdirty little secret' of Hurricanes Rita and Katrina is that 'œwe Americans created these monster storms' with our 'œprofligate, energy-consuming lifestyles.' No one seriously disputes anymore that burning fossil fuels leads to global warming; and since hurricanes draw their destructive energy from warm ocean waters, scientists have been warning for years that global warming would result in fiercer storms. Sure enough, a study just published in the prestigious journal Science shows that the number of Category 4 and 5 storms like the ones that devastated New Orleans and Galveston, Texas, has doubled in the last 35 years. Think Katrina and Rita were bad? If we don't somehow find a way to 'œwean ourselves off the oil spigot,' the future could be 'œeven far worse and unimaginable.'
Hurricanes do seem to be getting more destructive, said Jeffrey Kluger in Time, but that doesn't prove that global warming is at fault. We're now several years into a natural, 30-year hurricane cycle whose effects have been charted back for a century, and that cycle could be driving 2004 and 2005's spate of fierce storms. If global warming is increasing the strength of these storms, many meteorologists believe, it's only by 1 percent to 5 percent. Some skeptics say that because of a drastic increase in the number of people living on the coasts, hurricanes simply seem far more destructive. The correlation between warmer global temperatures and more severe storms iis certainly there, but 'œthere is plenty of room for doubt on both sides.' More data is needed to dispel that doubt, said Andrew Revkin in The New York Times. Until scientists can make 'œstatistical studies of dozens of storms' over the next decade or so, the link to global warming will remain shrouded in 'œmurkiness.' In other words, 'œtime will tell.'
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