Is it global warming or just an unseasonable year?

At this time of the year, the weather outside is supposed to be frightful, but Valley residents saw their first snow of the season on Christmas Eve as unseasonably warm temperatures have brought rain instead of the white stuff.
But it's not just here, and it's not just the last few weeks. In fact, the National Climatic Data Center is reporting that 2001 will be the second hottest year on record -- worldwide. And if that's not enough to raise the level of concern, the eight hottest years on record have all occurred since 1990.
"There's no denying the numbers," says David Easterling, the Climatic Data Center's chief scientist. People may be doing something about the weather, but what they're doing isn't doing the planet any good.
Mixed blessing: The warm fall presented a mixed blessing. The construction season was extended. There was less call for heating oil, gas and electricity, And communities in the snow belt were spared the costs of plowing and salting roads.
But the increasing warmth has also brought about unmistakable changes whose long-term results will outweigh the short-term benefits. Seas are rising as parts of Antarctica and other glaciers are melting, and as a result shores are receding. Animal and bird migration patterns are changing. Plants don't know how to behave and are blooming erratically. And areas that rely on gradual snow melt to fill reservoirs are, instead, watching the pouring rain and next year's drinking water supply rush through streams and rivers.
Earlier this year, the United States rejected the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement on global warming that was signed by nearly all of the world's nations. Yet now, the Commerce Department is preparing a plan requested by the president to improve U.S. climate monitoring and modeling efforts.
Business and industry leaders who once opposed any consideration of reducing so-called greenhouse gases are now concerned about the impact climate change could have on their companies' profits.
Republican Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, who rarely sees eye-to-eye with environmentalists but who sees the increasing problems in his native state -- where a major concern is that thawing in the permafrost will damage roads and the trans-Alaska pipeline -- is now encouraging increased federal spending on climate research.
The surprisingly fine November may have been a pleasure for golfers, fishermen and gardeners. But whether those pleasures mean pain for the planet can no longer be ignored.