Sudden climate changes in the past were primarily caused by the impact of meteors onto the Earth's surface.

One massive meteor that struck Antarctica 250 million years ago wiped out 90 percent of our planet's species from the resulting sudden and deadly climate change. Another meteor that struck the Earth 65 million years ago wiped out the dinosaurs from acidic rain, severe storms, and a sudden drop in temperature.

The fact that 15 million years later, the Arctic was tropical has nothing to do with the current fact that over the last 30 years, man-made carbon-dioxide emissions and forest destruction are warming our atmosphere and ocean surface temperatures to the point that our ice caps and glaciers are melting at a dangerously rapid rate.

While every legitimate and independent scientist recognizes that global warming is a fact, the skeptics and their friends in government and the media continue to offer "junk science" explanations for global warming.

Now they cite ice core samples taken from the North Pole that show that the polar regions were tropical 55 million years ago as evidence that current global warming is merely natural and cyclical. Some 30 years of carbon-dioxide emissions, rain forest destruction, and other man-made actions have nothing to do with millions of years of planetary change. That math just doesn't add up.

Such statements are irresponsible and akin to failing to warn the public about an impending hurricane or tornado.

There is no question that man-made greenhouse gases being pumped into our atmosphere are having disastrous consequences for all of Earthkind. The United States is the world's worst polluter, yet the Bush administration continues to ignore all the facts compiled by years of painstaking research by scientists in locations from Antarctica and the Himalayas to the Amazon and the Arctic tundra.

If quick action is not taken to reverse global warming and polar and glacial ice melt, hundreds of millions of people and countless species of animals and plants will be placed in jeopardy.

A projected 20 feet rise in sea levels from global warming will cause many low lying atolls and such nations as Bangladesh and the Netherlands to disappear under the sea.

Severe storms will destroy coastal regions. Rising sea levels will submerge coastal urban centers such as New Orleans; San Jose, Calif.; Venice, Italy; Baltimore; and parts of Manhattan. Fresh water aquifers will be penetrated by salty and brackish seawater, making them unfit for use.

Coral bleaching and the loss of wetlands will cause the extinction of important food sources, resulting in famine in many parts of the world. Methane released from melting permafrost and warming sea bottoms will add to already dangerous carbon-dioxide levels in our atmosphere and further increase rising temperatures. Methane is 25 percent more dangerous to the eco-system than carbon dioxide.

The sea-dwelling trilobites that perished in the meteor-caused Permian-Triassic mass extinction 250 million years ago and the Cretaceous dinosaurs that perished in a similar meteor-caused global extinction 65 million years ago were certainly not intellectually advanced to the point where they could save themselves.

Yet today's humans - acting together - can save themselves and their planet. Sadly, some Americans are putting their own selfish interests ahead of Mother Earth's. We need to ignore their cynicism and get to work on what promises to be a gargantuan, but noble task.

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Wayne Madsen is a contributing writer for the liberal Online Journal (www.onlinejournal.com).