Always good to hear from my friend Howard Dean, who sent this missive  this morning.

Hurricane season has arrived — and two fresh studies point to a
link between global warming and an increase in the number and power of
storms like Hurricane Katrina.

What are Republicans doing about it? They’re smearing former Vice President Al Gore.

One right-wing pundit compared Gore to Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi
propagandist. Another right-winger, who’s been on the payroll of
corporate special interests, likened Gore’s pursuit of solutions to
global warming to Adolf Hitler’s pursuit of genocide.

I’m sending Al a note this week telling him to keep fighting, to
keep standing up for the truth no matter how vicious the attacks. I
thought he might like to hear from you, too. Sign on to this note of
thanks, and add your own note of encouragement here:

http://www.democrats.org/keepfighting

Facts are facts. Global warming is happening, and it threatens our
very existence. But it also presents a historical opportunity to rise
above politics and act boldly. Despite right-wing efforts to silence
him, Al Gore has articulated one of the great moral challenges of our
time and tried to move people to act.

This should not be a political issue. We need a conversation about
climate change and its consequences. But special interests in
Washington have a tight grip on the Republican leadership, and an
entire network of corporate-funded front groups has emerged to deny
reality and attack the messenger.

They hope that scorched-earth political tactics will cover up the
reality that the scientific debate is one they’ve already lost.

Vice President Al Gore deserves our thanks for his courage and
leadership. Let him know you appreciate his stand by signing on to this
letter of thanks before this week is over:

http://www.democrats.org/keepfighting

Did you know the National Academy of Sciences joined academies in
the other G8 countries last year by concluding that global warming
requires "prompt action"? Or that insurance companies are fleeing
coastlines and charging huge premiums to avoid taking more losses from
massive hurricanes? How about the fact that climate researchers have a
new worry: that we could cross a tipping point that sends sea levels
rising by 20 feet by the end of the century?

If you didn’t know, that’s by design. Corporate special interests
are deeply invested in keeping us hooked to the status quo — high gas
prices, inefficiency, and dependence on foreign oil.

That’s why last year, in the middle of a record-breaking hurricane
season, Republicans in Congress and the White House gave oil companies
$6 billion — even as those companies ran away with the largest
corporate profits in American history. And that’s why we still have yet
to see the Bush administration stand up and do anything to stop global
warming.

Enough is enough, and people know it. Al Gore is demonstrating
exactly the kind of courage and moral clarity that Democrats will bring
when we take back Congress and win elections up and down the ballot
this year.

The inconvenient truth is that global warming exists — and thanks
to Al Gore, it’s now more likely that America will come together and do
something about it.

Sincerely,
Governor Howard Dean, M.D.