After a bit of snow in early November, the first snow of winter arrived in Prague Dec. 28, melted the following day, and has not returned until now. Most days have been tepid, some even balmy. We're told there was such a winter 40 some years ago, so perhaps it's unrelated to global warming caused by humans' ever-increasing emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. But evidence to the contrary is compelling.

The United Kingdom's Meteorological Office, which predicts that 2007 will be the hottest on record globally, finds that the world's 10 warmest years since 1850 have been the past 10, with the past five recorded as the hottest on record in the United Kingdom. In the United States, 2006 was the warmest year on record, according to the U.S. National Climatic Data Center. New York City, which has had only a 15-minute snowfall (Jan. 10), the latest recorded first snowfall of winter ever (breaking the previous markof Jan. 4, 1878), hit 72 F (22 C) in Central Park earlier this month, breaking the previous record by 9 F.

Mladá fronta Dnes, meanwhile, reports that Bohemia is experiencing its warmest January in 232 years — and that the temperature average for the month will very likely fall around 4 C, compared to –2.2 C in 1998, 2.2 C in 1988 and 2.4 C in 1975.

Rising sea levels, shrinking glaciers, an increase in severe weather from hurricanes to heat waves — as witnesses to the fatal windstorms of the past week can attest, the effects of global warming can be seen all around us. A record loss of sea ice in the Arctic in summer 2005 has accelerated the loss of still more — ice that has helped maintain climatic stability for thousands of years. It seems that global warming is now melting Arctic ice so rapidly that the region is absorbing more heat from the sun, propelling a vicious cycle of melting and heating. Computer models predict that the Arctic will be entirely ice-free in summer 2070 if current trends continue. This region being the essential habitat of polar bears, biologists warn that they may be the first large mammal to fall victim to global warming.

Tropical ecologists studying the effects of climate change on biodiversity in Australia's rainforests predict that, by 2100, 50 percent of all species could be extinct. Ever more species are becoming endangered, so-called bio-predators are proliferating, animal behavior is changing in reaction to climate change, and even humans are feeling adverse health effects in forms such as more severe and widespread asthma, poison ivy and mosquito and tick-borne disease — all of which have been linked to carbon dioxide emissions and climate change. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences states that "most of the observed warming of the past 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations."

The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) released a report this month that accuses ExxonMobil of spending millions of dollars on a disinformation campaign to manipulate public opinion regarding the causes of global warming and the seriousness of the threat it poses. In "Smoke, Mirrors & Hot Air: How ExxonMobil Uses Big Tobacco's Tactics to Manufacture Uncertainty on Climate Science," the UCS alleges that the corporation has manufactured uncertainty about even the most indisputable scientific evidence in order to promote its desired message and thus confuse the public.

While U.S. public policy on global warming is quite passive, the European Union is taking a more proactive approach.

On Jan. 10, saying Europe needs a new "post-industrial revolution" ("We have already left behind our coal-based industrial past. It is time to embrace our low-carbon future"), European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso introduced a set of proposals. The so-called Energy Policy for Europe aims for the 27 EU member states to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 20 percent to 30 percent by 2020, limit global warming to no more than 2 C above pre-industrial temperatures, and ensure that by 2020 at least 20 percent of their energy comes from renewable sources like wind and solar power. The EC will also invest 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion/28 billion Kč) over the next six years into research on renewable energy.

The Czech Republic, however, lags behind its EU brethren in addressing global warming. While the EU has called for member states to generate at least 8 percent of their energy from renewable resources by 2010, Czech energy policy is far behind; only 4 percent of energy is currently derived from alternative sources. Reliance on fossil fuels makes the Czech Republic politically as well as ecologically vulnerable.

Czechs import some 64 percent of their oil and 70 percent of their natural gas from Russia. Locally mined brown coal provides some 65 percent of electricity, yet creates terrible pollution. As noted in the last issue of The Prague Post, the EU covers up to 75 percent of the cost of building renewable-energy facilities, such as the biogas power plant in Kněžice ("Energy Boost," News, Jan. 17–23).

Such efforts should be applauded and expanded. And, while nuclear power remains fraught with troubling questions, a coordinated strategy of promoting energy efficiency and cultivating biomass and other renewable fuel sources will best serve Czechs.

The Czech Republic, which reportedly has the highest annual greenhouse gas production per capita of the 30-member OECD, recently asked the EC for a major increase in its emissions allowance through 2012 ("More emissions vouchers called for," Business, Oct. 25–31; "Emissions trading is nonsense," Business, Mar. 15–21). Given the Czech car craze, this is not surprising. Czechs are reported to have the highest per-capita car ownership rate in the world, and, as any pedestrian here knows all too well, emissions control standards for vehicles are either nonexistent or not enforced.

Transportation emissions are rising in nearly every European country and across the globe. Due to increasing car and truck use, greenhouse gas emissions are increasing even where pollution from industry is waning because of stricter laws, as is the case in much of Europe. The European Environment Agency (EEA) reports that a 23 percent increase in vehicle emissions from 1990 to 2003 has offset the effect of cleaner factories. The overriding problem is the growth in the volume of cars, and there is no better example than the Czechs. And rising car ownership has been accompanied by larger car engines.

Cars being widely available and affordable results in urban sprawl and the building of new highways and ring roads. In Europe alone, 10,000 kilometers (6,200 miles) of new highways were built from 1990 to 2003, and, with EU enlargement, there are plans for 12,000 more according to EEA's recent report on traffic, which the International Herald Tribune reported Jan. 12.

Denmark has aggressively fought the growth of car emissions by placing a luxury tax on cars, which sometimes reaches as high as 200 percent of the cost of the vehicle. As one Danish woman commented, "It's easier to go by bike or metro, and it's too expensive to do anything else." In Rome, only cars with a low emissions rating are allowed into the historical center. In Stockholm and London, drivers must pay a congestion charge to enter the city center. With its excellent public transportation infrastructure, there is really no need for cars in Prague's city center. Car-loving Czechs just need a push to get out of their cars and use their trams and subways.

If you think this is just hysterical hot air from green extremists, pay attention to the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (www.ipcc.ch), the pre-eminent international network of experts on the topic, which will release its fourth assessment since 1990, and first since 2001, in Paris Feb. 2.

And then ask not what the world can do for you, but what you can do for the world.

The author, a lawyer, writer, university lecturer and constitutional law scholar, confesses that his joints welcome this warm winter, although his kids miss playing in the snow.