Richard Clarke has written a piece about what the Iraq debacle has done to divert attention from all else;  many things of some magnitude.  Global warming tops the list (it is of some doubt how long it would ,  or still will take them to awaken to the extent of the problem,  without the Iraq diversion of resources and attention)

Global warming: When the possibility of invading Iraq surfaced in 2001, senior Bush administration officials hadn’t thought much about global warming, except to wonder whether it was caused by human activity or by sunspots. Today, the world’s scientists and many national leaders worry that the world has passed the point of no return on global warming. If it has, then human damage to the ecosphere will cause more major cities to flood and make the planet significantly less conducive to human habitation — all over the lifetime of a child now in kindergarten. British Prime Minister Tony Blair keeps trying to convince President Bush of the magnitude of the problem, but in every session between the two leaders Iraq squeezes out the time to discuss the pending planetary disaster.

Source: While You Were at War :washingtonpost.com

The global warming item seems apropos as a “list topper”.  My kids gave me a copy of “An Inconvenient Truth” for Christmas. 

This WaPo article came via Talking Points Memo

Here too,  in the environmental crisis we face,  is a place of profound failure of the church to sound warnings about unfettered consumerism and undisciplined, selfish ways of a capitalist/consumer society.  But here too,  as with war,  the church plays along,  and ignores the consequences, and thus fails creation.