ABSTRACT
In the last week of October, 1998, Hurricane Mitch stalled over Central America, dumping between 3 and 6 feet of rain within 48 hours, killing more than 10,000 people in landslides and floods, triggering a cholera epidemic, and virtually wiping out the economies of Honduras and Nicaragua. Several days later some 1,500 delegates, accompanied by thousands of advocates and media representatives, met in Buenos Aires at the fourth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Many at the conference pointed to Hurricane Mitch as a harbinger of the catastrophes that await us if we do not act immediately to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other so-called greenhouse gases. The delegates passed a resolution of “solidarity with Central America” in which they expressed concern “that global warming may be contributing to the worsening of weather” and urged “governments … and society in general, to continue their efforts to find permanent solutions to the factors which cause or may cause climate events.” Children wandering bereft in the streets of Tegucigalpa became unwitting symbols of global warming.
