Planetary Ruin

Since the documentary he starred in, “An Inconvenient Truth,” won an Academy Award, speculation has only increased about Al Gore’s potential entry into the presidential race. He is not taking any overt steps toward running, and that may be the cleverest strategy of all. A Democratic strategist sent Gore a memo sometime ago suggesting he announce, but forgo the traditional campaign trail and continue promoting the cause of global warming. He would be the nonpolitical candidate. Word came back: Gore isn’t running. But in fact he is. Whether it results in an official run depends on what the field looks like six months from now. Laurie David, who helped bankroll Gore’s film, and whose “personal fantasy” is that he run, says that when she presses him, he’s always coy and says his cell phone is breaking up. “I believe him when he says he doesn’t have any intention of running,” David told NEWSWEEK. “But I also believe the door is not completely shut.”

As part of his noncampaign, the former VP is returning this week to Capitol Hill for the first time since he left the White House to testify before the House and Senate about global warming. Gore will warn that the problem is accelerating so fast that any solution must be more than incremental. “The danger is they’ll do some small fix that allows them to claim credit without facing up to the problem,” says an adviser who did not want to be on the record seeming to disparage Congress.

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PHOENIX: For the fourth consecutive day, Phoenix roasted in record high temperatures.

It was 99 degrees Saturday, breaking the old record for the date of 92 degrees set in 1972.

It was also 99 degrees on Friday, which shattered the old record of 95 set in 1921. Friday’s temperature marked the hottest reading so early in a calendar year.

And, it marked the second hottest day ever recorded in March.

The all-time record high temperature for March is 100 degrees set on March 26, 1988.

On Thursday, the mercury soared to 92 degrees, breaking the old record of 91 degrees set back in 1934, according to Weather Watch 5 meteorologists.

On Wednesday, a record high temperature of 91 degrees was set at the official weather station at Sky Harbor International Airport. That broke the old record of 90 set in 1934.

Elsewhere on Saturday, it was 101 in Gila Bend and Yuma, both record events.

Still more record-breaking heat is on tap for the Valley through Sunday, with the mercury posting readings in the low 90s, according to Weather Watch 5 meteorologists.

An unusually strong high pressure system over the region is producing near-record or in some cases record-breaking heat.

A weak low pressure system has moved towards Arizona from the southwest, which is helping weaken the upper level high, leading to somewhat cooler readings on Sunday.

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As the world’s warmest winter on record drew to an end with a weekend snow storm, a group of religious leaders started walking across the state Friday to bring attention to global warming.

The nine-day haul from downtown Northampton to Copley Square in Boston was planned far before forecasts called for a weekend of snow and sleet just a few days before the start of spring.

“It was windy and cold. I was walking on the front of the line and I felt like I was bow of a ship with the wind just coming into my face,” said the Rev. Margaret Bullitt-Johns of the Grace Episcopal Church in Amherst, where the group warmed up on bowls of lentil and minestrone soup after walking eight miles in deep snow from Northampton to Amherst.

Bullitt-Johns said the walkers kept their spirits strong by singing “Keep on walking forward, never turning back,” a hymn they had chanted in prayer services before the march to Boston.

The Rev. Andrea Ayvazian of the Haydenville Congregational Church said the snow was so deep, it felt like she was breaking trail.

In all 24 clergymen will walk the entire distance from Northampton to Boston, while some 800 people will join for smaller portions. The group hopes to have more than 1,000 gather in Boston for a final rally.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported Thursday that in the past century, global temperatures have increased at about 0.11 degrees per decade. But that increase has been three times larger since 1976.

The report comes just over a month after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said global warming is very likely caused by human actions and is so severe it will continue for centuries.

“God has given us this Eden, and our behavior is making a mess of it,” said the Rev. Jim Antal, president of the Massachusetts Conference of the United Church of Christ, the state’s largest Protestant denomination.

The religious walkers are part of Religious Witness for the Earth, a 6-year-old national interfaith environmental organization. Supporters include clergy from the Catholic, Unitarian, Jewish, Episcopalian, and Muslim faiths.

The leaders are calling for individuals, businesses and government entities to reduce fossil fuel emissions by 80 percent by 2050.

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Former Vice President Al Gore has collected nearly 300,000 electronic signatures asking Congress to take action on global warming, Gore said in an entry on his Web site Friday.

Gore said the signatures demonstrate “that hundreds of thousands of people share my sense of urgency” on climate change. Gore is scheduled to testify before about the issue Wednesday.

“Political will is a renewable resource, and enough already exists to start solving this crisis,” Gore said. “We just have to communicate that forcefully to the political leaders of our country.”  

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Big U.S. airlines and their affiliates canceled more than 2,000 flights on Friday as a late-winter storm hit the Northeast’s biggest cities, airline and government officials said.

Airlines, hoping to avert the type of storm-related service meltdown that stung JetBlue Airways Corp. in New York a month ago, began canceling flights on Thursday. Cancellations piled up during the day and by late afternoon there was little activity at busy New York-area airports.

Major cancellations were also reported in Philadelphia and Boston where snow, sleet and heavy rain disrupted operations along the Atlantic coast.

“The airlines are making these decisions,” said Diane Spitaliere, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration, which runs the nation’s air traffic system. “It’s a business decision.”

Friday’s storm was the first measurable test for the industry since JetBlue reignited customer and political outrage over airline customer service when it stranded hundreds of passengers on planes during an ice storm last month in New York. The February 14 storm prompted more than 1,100 JetBlue flight cancellations over several days as it scrambled to reset its operations.

JetBlue promised to act more decisively ahead of bad weather to avoid stranding passengers in airports, a strategy also practiced by other airlines.

JetBlue canceled 400 of 550 scheduled flights on Friday and 28 on Saturday. “We canceled everything into an out of New York,” said spokesman Todd Burke.

Delta Air Lines canceled 600 flights, most in the New York area and US Airways Group Inc. said it canceled more than 1,000 flights, much of it feeder service from New England.

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