David Horowitz, conservative extraordinaire, has charged the political left with attempting to make the American people believe global warming is a greater threat to national security than Islamic extremism.

Our own extraordinary conservatives, the College Republicans, recently supported this charge with a "charge" of their own here on campus: Islamo-fascism Awareness Week.

Although it's certainly debatable if the political left ever actually portrayed global warming as a worse threat than terrorism, a new study released by two independent U.S. think tanks indicates that the political left, at least as characterized by Horowitz, may be correct anyway.

"Climate change has the potential to be one of the greatest security challenges that this or any other generation of policy makers is likely to confront," according to the report.

Scientists like National Academy of Sciences President Ralph Cicerone and Nobel Laureate Thomas Schelling contributed to the report, according to The Associated Press.

(In other words, pundits please quit talking, knowledgeable people are trying to tell us something.)

The report considers three climate change scenarios and the effects each might have on international politics. Ten outcomes are examined, with recommendations for international leaders to begin addressing the issues before they become overwhelming.

It's easy to think about climate change as a physical problem — we've made a bad habit of living awfully close to the ocean and other such things. But I must admit that climate change as a social and political problem isn't something I've given a lot of thought to.

Among the outcomes suggested are growing international conflict and wars over shortages in natural resources, growing disparities between rich and poor nations, mass migrations of people and more rapid spread of disease and nuclear proliferation concerns as nations become increasingly reliant on nuclear power with the depletion of fossil fuels.

In a nightmarish scenario that would probably haunt conservatives particularly, a panel of retired top military officials has also predicted that climate change could "aggravate terrorism," according to the AP.

Some of this information is perhaps not new, but the report has synthesized information from many sources and framed it in a national security perspective.

It may be by 2040 when global temperature is expected to have risen 2.5 degrees and poor nations will likely have become desperate for basic resources like water — one of the scenarios considered in the report — that the modern conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan will seem tame.

What an unpleasant thought to have.

Unfortunately, refusing to think about the problem will do no good. In fact, widespread acceptance of the full scope of the climate change threat domestically and abroad will be paramount to anything getting done about it before it's too late.

It's not that we aren't doing anything now; it's that we aren't doing it fast enough.

By 2100, according to the report, the planet could be 10 degrees warmer. Such a drastic temperature change would prove catastrophic, and 90 years will pass quickly.

But instead of aggressively pursuing widespread mass transit, we are arguing about hybrid cars in the HOV lane and debating road expansion projects.

Instead of placing more stringent regulations on industrial greenhouse gas emissions, we are building new coal-burning power plants.

Instead of addressing the substantive and difficult issues like China's rapidly increasing role in climate change, we are being occupied with trendy "eco-activities," as with Ron Sims' recent endorsement of a "green" Thanksgiving by using locally bought foods and wild salmon (obtained by dredging the ocean with nets?) — an exercise that will be, as the Seattle P.I. notes, undone by your next drive to the grocery store.

And while most of us realize that we are not doing enough, there are still some among us who outright deny that climate change is a reality. Fantastic.

We are an ambivalent group to be sure, but one thing is certain: If we Americans (Republicans, left, right, Horowitz and all) wish to do anything about climate change, we'd better get on it soon.

If you'd like to take a little time to let this all sink in, you can wait until 2008 and start then by voting for a president who has a clue about the problem.

[Reach columnist Andrew D. Brown at opinion@thedaily.washington.edu.]