In the past few days hurricane Ivan has left a swathe of destruction across Grenada, Jamaica and Cuba before battering the Gulf coast of the United States.
The storm has claimed at least 80 lives, left millions of people without electricity, flooded vast tracts of land and done untold damage to homes and property. Ivan is the third hurricane to sweep across the Caribbean in recent weeks - and already a fourth, hurricane Jean, is on the way.
Climatologists are cautious about linking these tempests to human activities, though some believe that global warming caused by fossil-fuel emissions is aggravating long-established storm patterns. At the very least such gales are yet another vivid reminder of nature's power to devastate the works of man - and a foretaste of the cataclysms that lie in store if the Earth continues to overheat.
Hurricane Ivan also provided a timely backdrop for the warning issued this week by the British Prime Minister, Mr Blair. Global warming, he said, presented "a challenge so far-reaching in its impact and irreversible in its destructive power that it alters radically human existence". He was "shocked" by the latest scientific forecasts, such as a rise in sea-level of around seven metres caused by melting of the Greenland ice-cap. Action to combat global warming would be a priority of Britain's presidency of the Group of Eight leading industrialised nations next year, he said. The G8 includes the US and Russia - chief culprits in the excessive burning of fossil fuels in factories and cars - which have so far refused to sign the 1997 Kyoto protocol on reducing carbon emissions.
In the US, which alone produces a quarter of the world's greenhouse gases, there remains widespread scepticism about global warming and a deep reluctance even to discuss the issue. Although it is probably one of the top three greatest problems facing humanity, it has not featured at all in the current presidential campaign. Some commentators hope that Mr Blair will be able to use his loyal service to the "special relationship", notably over Iraq, to persuade the White House to abandon its isolationism on key environmental challenges.
Against this background, there is a bizarre irony about the Government's decision to ditch the long-promised carbon tax - supposedly a key element in this State's Kyoto commitments. Given the failure to indicate any substitute strategy for curbing Ireland's rising level of emissions, this can only be seen as yet another case of sacrificing principle for short-term popularity. The lack of protest at the latest U-turn suggests that the future of the planet remains at the margin of our political and public life.