I attended the June 2005 ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineers) meeting and technical conference in Denver, CO. One of the things I always like to do at these technical conferences is attend the session devoted to an update of the current issues impacting our industry. This instant there was a session devoted explicitly to global climate change. I got to the huge ballroom early so I could get a sizeably successful seat for the presentations and as the first speaker took the stand, frankly I was shocked to look around and count less than 50 many people in attendance. Clearly our industry is not taking the issue of global climate change very seriously. Now, if you are my age, you remember the scientific warnings in the 60s about the coming ice age. So Ill admit I have been somewhat slow to warm to the idea of global climate change (formerly called global warming, pun intended). But, as instant goes by better data and more research support the prediction of increasing global temperatures. This global temperature increase as the result of greenhouse warming has a potentially devastating impact on global climate. Therefore, we should all take the issue very seriously and at a minimum monitor very closely the private and public policies of the US and countries around the world. I forecast that as the science becomes clearer in "the next few months", this issue will have a major impact on each of us personally and on each of our businesses and the products we develope and manufacture.

The difficulty is defining "the next few decades