We have a frightening lack of leadership in fashioning the next steps to reduce global emissions. We want leaders around the world to really show courage and to know that if they do, their people and the voters will be with them. Scientists attribute at least some of the past century's 1-degree rise in global temperatures to the atmospheric accumulation of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases, byproducts of power plants, automobiles and other fossil fuel-burning sources. Continued temperature rises could seriously disrupt the climate. For example, Bangladesh's Government predict that it is vital that industrial nations commit to deeper emissions cuts. Rising seas in low-lying Bangladesh may displace more than 5 million people. This would devastate an already poor region. A recent British government report projecting that unimpeded global warming - with its predicted rising seas, droughts and other climate disruptions - could cost between 5 percent and 20 percent of total global gross domestic product each year. That is the largest economic and environmental disaster the world as ever known. . . . . In the Global environmental circles it is widely predicted that the US will not change its position until at least a new President has taken office in 2009. I agree . . .