Let’s face it: The Bush Administration has made a mess of things. It is now clear, if it hasn’t been all along, that by the time George Bush leaves office, the White House will have wasted eight years of leadership on the Mother of All Issues.

If those eight years are a profound disappointment looking backward, then they are a profound tragedy looking forward. The head of the IPCC is spreading the message that the world community has seven short years to act decisively to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Dr. John Holdren is among the prestigious U.S. scientists who now say more openly that the affects of climate change already are upon us. Dr. Jim Hansen now estimates that atmospheric concentrations of carbon must level off at 350 ppm, nearly 30 percent lower than everyone thought was needed to keep climate change at "safe" levels. Anyone who’s paying attention sees that the impacts of global warming are occurring much faster than predicted.

If this year’s weather extremes are a sample of climate change, how much worse will they be 10 years, 20 years or 30 years from now, as today’s rising and accumulating emissions take their toll?

Wouldn’t it be interesting if the Commander-in-Chief and the leaders of the world’s most powerful military force began to think of climate change as an issue vital to national security?

Ponder the implications: Investments in renewable energy, energy efficiency, distributed generation and zero-carbon buildings might become a critical part of our national defense budgets. Solar collectors would become as important as M-16 rifles; plug-in hybrids as vital as M-1 tanks. Our arsenal would include weapons of mass mitigation.

If that seems far-fetched, consider what’s just happened in the defense and intelligence communities. Over the last two weeks, climate change has graduated officially from an environmental to a full-fledged national security issue. Now, any candidate who isn’t gung-ho about reversing the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions should be considered soft on national defense.

In case you missed them, here is a recap of the latest developments.

Marianne Lavelle over at Beyond the Barrel sheds some light on the question: what is Iraq's carbon footprint?

She zeros in on one enormous source of greenhouse gas emissions, visible from 500 miles up in space: the burning off of natural gas at Iraq's oil wells.

Here's the situation in a nutshell.

The Air Force has been investing big in liquefying coal to use as a staple jet fuel. It’s also been staging a malicious PR campaign to trick the press and the public into believing that coal-to-liquid is clean energy, when it’s not. Not by far.

Could be a big mistake.

The Presidential Climate Action Project has posted a statement, open for signature, explaining to the President the urgent need for climate action, and what needs to be done. It's a masterful and inspiring letter that lays out a positive agenda for bipartisan action.

Here's an excerpt that explains why global climate change is more than an environmental issue: