The 2006 hurricane season began last week, bringing with it warnings that the Atlantic region is in for another dangerous year after Katrina and the record number of other tropical storms and hurricanes 2005.

There is plenty of evidence that this region is going through a period in which both the frequency and intensity of storms are increasing, bringing with them the likelihood of major losses of life and extensive property damage.

Scientists and other experts are divided on why this is so. Some believe that this is a natural occurrence that takes place every few centuries while others believe that human-included climate change is exacerbating natural changes.

Recently, the magazine Vanity Fair published an extensive series of articles on the issue in which one scientist compared global warming and its likely causes to smoking and lung cancer. He said that when a person who has smoked for decades dies of lung cancer, you can reasonably say that smoking was the likely cause. But you cannot absolutely say so because some people smoke for decades and do not get lung cancer while some non-smokers can contract the disease for other reasons.

In the same way, we cannot say that humans, as a result of polluting the air, are responsible for global warming. But the evidence is overwhelming that it has contributed to it, and it would be reckless to do nothing about it.

There are some in Bermuda who rather complacently believe that the chances of the Island getting hit again so soon after Hurricane Fabian in 2003 are slight because we only seem to get hit every two decades or so. In addition, there is the correct belief that Bermuda is a tiny target compared to the US East Coast or the islands of the Caribbean.

Bermuda has also been fortunate in the last two years that the Bermuda High has been relatively strong, and has pushed storms away from the Island and kept them close to the Caribbean and Florida.

Finally, there are those who believe that houses in Bermuda are so well built that we have very little to worry about.

All of the above is accurate to a point. But it only takes a momentary weakness in the Bermuda High for a storm to zero in on the Island. And hurricanes do not obey the laws of probability. The odds of the same place being hit twice in a row are as high as the likelihood that somewhere else will be hit. It is all dictated by the conditions at the time.

Finally, Bermuda homes are well built, and rightly so. But Fabian showed they are not invulnerable, and the concern must be that if Bermuda was hit by a slow moving Category Four or Five hurricane, the likelihood is that there would be as much or more damage than Fabian caused.

For that reason, all residents should ensure now that they are prepared for the season, with supplies in hand. And the Emergency Measures Organisation needs to be sure that it is prepared as well.

More broadly, the potential effects of global warming are not limited to hurricanes, but to the very real possibility of rising sea levels, which could have a disastrous effect on a low-lying island like Bermuda.

In that context, Government should use its improved relations with US lawmakers to push for more steps to be taken by the US Government and others to reduce global warming now, before it is too late. Locally, residents and businesses need to do what they can to reduce fossil fuel use and the like. On a global scale, whatever Bermuda does will be negligible, but it should do what it can while it can.