In fact, it is not government action that is the potential runaway train wreck, as Bush administration officials have made clear:

• Howard Frumkin, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: "CDC considers climate change a serious public health concern."
• Dale Hall, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: "We need to do something about climate change starting yesterday."
• Stephen L. Johnson, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency [PDF]: "Severe heat waves are projected to intensify in magnitude and duration over the portions of the U.S. where these events already occur, with likely increases in mortality and morbidity, especially among the elderly, young and frail."
• Michael J. Savonis, Federal Highway Administration [PDF]: "Warming temperatures are likely to increase the costs of transportation construction, maintenance, and operations. More frequent extreme precipitation events may disrupt transportation networks with flooding and visibility problems. Relative sea level rise will make much of the existing infrastructure more prone to frequent or permanent inundation."

Their polluter-funded message of denial having finally been beaten back, the right wing is now attempting to subvert action by any means possible, including pulling the classic polluter claim that solutions are more dangerous than the problem.

But that will only be true if our response to climate change is designed by the polluters themselves.

This post was created for the Think Progress Wonk Room, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.