"Overwhelmingly, it's the most significant problem we face," said Palo Alto City Council Member Larry Klein, one of those who included the topic in his campaign platform.
Environmentalist Peter Drekmeier, who also succeeded in gaining a governing seat, made climate change a focus of his election bid as well.
It's not only council candidates who are taking a hard look at the global problem, either. Mayor Judy Kleinberg, as part of her state of the city address in March, announced the formation of a new committee, the Mayor's Green Ribbon Task Force on Climate Protection. The group held its first meeting May 25.
Meanwhile, the Palo Alto City Council recently voted to update the City's Comprehensive Plan to include the reduction of greenhouse gases as a major goal, according to Drekmeier.
Global warming is caused by the burning of fossil fuels, which elevate the amount of carbon dioxide and other gases in the atmosphere. The gases act like glass in a closed car: They pass light, but trap heat.
Across the globe, glaciers are melting and weather patterns are changing, causing floods and hurricanes to increase in some regions and droughts to occur in others, according to scientists.
California is predicted to suffer decreases in snow-pack levels of 30 to 90 percent by the end of the century, massive heat waves, temperature elevations, and decreases in precipitation, affecting the food supply and drinking water, according to an August 2004 National Academy of Sciences report.
Palo Alto is certain to be affected by climate changes. Existing models for Bay Area 100-year floods are being revised by some scientists to 10-year intervals, as sea levels rise. In short, thanks to global warming, the lower areas of the city could one day be under water.
Around the country, other cities have been taking on the challenge. Spurred by an international environmental agreement known as the Kyoto Protocol —which has been signed by most major industrialized countries except the United States and Australia — the mayors of 243 cities have signed the U.S. Mayors' Climate Protection Agreement. They've pledged to lead their cities to meet or beat Kyoto Protocol goals by 2012 by reducing carbon-dioxide emissions 7 percent below 1990 levels. Kleinberg signed the pledged in January.
Seattle, Wash. and Portland, Ore. are frequently cited as leaders in the anti-warming crusade. Seattle City Light — the city's utilities division — became the only utility in the country to achieve zero net greenhouse gas emissions in November, by investing in wind and hydroelectric power, divesting in coal-fired energy and embarking on an aggressive conservation program, according to Steve Nicholas, director of Seattle's Office of Sustainability and Environment. The aggressive use of environmentally friendly (so-called "green") building methods, mass transit, recycling and sustainable forest programs has reduced carbon-dioxide emissions.
Portland became the first U.S. city to adopt a sustainable-development plan in 1993, according to Michael Armstrong, Portland's Office of Sustainable Development conservation-program manager.
Carbon-dioxide emissions there have fallen 12.5 percent per capita despite rapid population and economic growth — an achievement likely unequalled in any other major U.S. city, according to a 2005 city progress report.
The addition of two major light-rail lines and the Portland Streetcar have boosted public-transit ridership 75 percent since 1990, Armstrong said. More than 750,000 trees and shrubs have been planted since 1996 to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The city also is close to finalizing an agreement to supply 100 percent wind power near the end of 2007, he added.
And yet, Armstrong said: "It's not enough."
Global warming and sustainability have been priorities for Kleinberg for many years, she said, but seeing the images of glaciers crashing into warming Arctic seas in an HBO television special, and reading former Vice President Al Gore's book, "An Inconvenient Truth," made it imperative to her that Palo Alto become a model of cli