Climate Action, where is it?

In 1988, James Hansen, a climate scientist for the Goddard institue at NASA, warned a Washington meeting that the world was getting warmer due to the build up of greenhouse gases, and an increased tendency for floods and droughts was to be expected. He made his speech on the hottest day of the year, when the midwest was suffering one of its worst droughts.

Hansen's speech spurred the setting up of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

It's interesting that a change of just a few degree's during an American summer turned climate change into a 'global issue' that was able to mobilize the entire scientific committee into action, when only 3-years previously thousands of famine victims in Ethiopia and Sudan werent enough to move governments towards acting on global environmental emergencies. These deaths took place in Africa after all, and they were still considered 'out there'

Just as Terrorism was never a real issue in America until it landed on their doorsteps, the Environment is still not a big issue there. One would think that it would take a dramatic hazard event to shake the political system, such as 9.11 did with Terrorism. Perhaps Katrina, which had a death toll of 4081, would have been the catalyst for action in the political power house of the U.S., after all it surpassed the 2995 death toll of the 9/11 attacks which spurred a whirlwind reaction. However the lack of action shows how the geography of politics comes into play. Ethiopia and Sudan clearly doesn't have the social, economic or political capital with U.S. political interests and apparently neither does New Orleans.

Sadly this is because even within the borders of America, if it doesn't effect those with the money and power, than it is still an issue which is 'out there'.
It is unfortunately that the U.S. is so blase on the issue, it is the case of the Ostrich Arena of politics, where politicians stick their heads in the sand to avoid doing anything that would appear drastic. The environment still doesn't hold the capacity to be worth any politicians to use any of their political capital on. This means that what little action is taken is often short sighted and avoids any real political breakthrough.

After arriving back form New York, a city I now Love, it would be a shame if it took a disaster such as 9/11 (which clearly still impeeds the memories and emotions of New Yorkers still) in order for a change to happen.
U.S. politicians should see the foresight as a blessing, it would be a shame to see a blessing of knowledge go unheeded.