Stuck in neutral

Climate change affects so many elements of Great Lakes life: fishing, boating, tourism, recreation, public health, farming, and shipping. Domestic and international climate accords can promote all of these activities.

Meaningful action to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases won't end smog, drought-and-flood cycles, and mosquito-born diseases. Nor will it maintain steady lake levels.

But it will help fix what is within mankind's capacity to address. And it can be done in a way that benefits business, with consistent policies on pollution controls that save energy and improve efficiency.

To do that, public officials must be more loyal to science than politics. The science behind climate change is clear: Human activity accelerates it, even though some warming and cooling occurs naturally.

A 194-nation climate summit is wrapping up in South Africa, yet many Americans are oblivious or indifferent to it. The summit -- the 17th such meeting the United Nations has held since 1994 -- isn't likely to produce a breakthrough.

The script generally goes like this: The United States refuses to do anything significant without participation from developing nations. Those countries assail Americans for calling for restrictions on others when they lead the world in per-person energy consumption.

Many Democratic politicians, and some moderate Republicans, call climate change the world's greatest environmental threat. Some military leaders, religious groups, and corporations agree. President Obama got a rare public rebuke from environmental groups recently, when 16 of them said in a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that he has not acted on a 2008 pledge to "help lead the world toward a new era of global cooperation on climate change."

The Great Lakes region has a lot at stake. It already has shown its susceptibility to climate change in such phenomena as the gradual warming of winter nights in Ohio. That has led to more rapid evaporation of Lake Erie, because ice is needed to seal off evaporation.

With its manufacturing base, Ohio is one of the nation's largest producers and users of energy. It trails only Texas among states in releases of carbon dioxide, the most prevalent greenhouse gas.

Eighty percent of Ohio's electricity comes from coal-fired power plants, the largest source of carbon dioxide. In Michigan and Ohio, the auto industry, refineries, and cement kilns in those states also are major sources of carbon dioxide.

The two states are looking to wind, solar, biomass, and other forms of renewable power to create jobs and ease the grip of the recession. Climate accords would help stimulate that market.

A Senate committee is considering federal legislation that would cap industrial releases of carbon dioxide while allowing companies to trade for emission credits, similar to a bill the House passed in 2009. But the current Congress has demonstrated repeatedly its hostility to environmental legislation in any form.

The White House and Congress must show more leadership on climate change, domestically and abroad. That would help make America a world leader in science and innovation again -- and reap dividends for the Great Lakes region.