Here's a weather forecast for the future of global warming:

The hurricane season will last longer and longer. Its severity and duration will continue to increase and lengthen well into winter. Eventually, a hurricane may make landfall and collide with cold, wintry air, where the interaction will cause the storm's precipitation to turn into ice, sleet and snow.

Under normal circumstances, an inch of rain is roughly equal to six inches of snow. Imagine what might happen when a rainstorm of six or eight inches becomes a hurricane-driven blizzard: 36 or 48 inches of snow becomes drifts twenty or thirty feet deep.

Such a storm could bury whole houses, stall transportation and paralyze rescue equipment, and be nearly impossible to remove with plows. Food and fuel shipments would be disrupted for weeks, if not months -- the chaos such a storm would inflict upon modern life is indescribable.

If the many portents of 'global warming' are not heeded and turn out to be correct, a catastrophe such as a snow hurricane is merely one possible consequence of disregarding the present course of unmanaged human activity.

If such a devastating scenario is to be avoided, our world, our governments, our industries -- all of us must reverse the effects of fossil fuel dependency and atmospheric pollution. Non-polluting and energy-efficient technologies must be put in place as quickly as possible.

Otherwise, none of us will have to bother about world peace. Mother Nature will take care of it for us.

Richard Siege

Southern Pines