Major World Banks Fund Global Warming, Environmental Programs

It's hard to say just what the tipping point had been in the push to bring awareness of global warming and climate change to the fore.

Was it The Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore's epic, Oscar-winning documentary, the film that conservative know-nothings love to hate?

That Time magazine's cover shot of a Polar Bear stranded on an ice floe?

Hurricane Katrina's rampage across the US Gulf of Mexico region in 2005?

Hard to say, and even though Rush Limbaugh and some of his local mini-microphonic clones still ridicule the consensus science behind climate change, it's good to see that world banking institutions, and maybe even George W. Bush, are getting on board.

Bush's sincerity is more than merely open to question, but insurance companies had taken the lead in the private sector when raising the alarm about climate change because they are the ones paying out storm-related claims.

And now banks are putting money into climate change projects and environmental programs, which is more than Bush has done.

Glass-half-full-folks will take these private sector initiatives, cautiously, as good signs.

As to Bush's 'conversion' on global warming: actions would speak much louder than politically-time words.