Over the past several days, I've monitored reports of Sidr, a Tropical Cyclone churning its way up the Bay of Bengal. The forecasting models are based almost entirely on satellite imagery, and earlier in the week the computer models were telling forecasters it would weaken as it headed north. It hasn't: THE CURRENT FORECAST CALLS FOR A LESS-PRONOUNCED WEAKENING PRIOR TO LANDFALL THAN THE PREVIOUS FORECAST DUE TO THIS ENHANCED UPPER LEVEL OUTFLOW. THE TRACK REASONING HAS NOT CHANGED SINCE THE LAST FORECAST. THE STORM IS EXPECTED TO CONTINUE TRACKING NORTHWARD UNTIL MAKING LANDFALL IN WESTERN BANGLADESH... Word from news …

While the climate change "issue" is covered frequently in the press and is implicitly or explicitly part of the U.S. presidential campaign, for developing countries it is just one of many pressing issues. For the man on the street, at least in many of the countries I visit, climate change is important but not urgent. The same could be said of many other issues, of course, but what distinguishes climate change is that it is perceived as "an act of God" on which individual actions have only minimal impact. Unless it is linked to issues of social justice, energy security, …

If Gandhi were around today, I think he would be less reasonable and tractable about the climate crisis; instead, he would challenge the moral integrity of so-called western civilization. The galvanizing march to the salt flats (the famous "Salt March") would be a tour of threatened island nations: Inuit seeking redress for loss of habitat, mountain people facing bewildering change, deluges in Bangladesh, landslides in the Philippines, and masses of people in the Indus-Ganges-Yangtze river basins facing an uncertain future over water supplies. It would be a march to bear witness to the moral wrongness that pervades the fossil-fuel civilization. …