Hurricane Mitch was the most catastrophic hurricane to hit Central America for 300 years. Bangladesh suffered the worst floods in decades, grapes withered on vines in Bordeaux as temperatures soared to 40 Celsius last summer, and there was a heat-wave in New York in the first week of December.
Though Ireland had a poor summer, 1998 was the hottest year on record worldwide. Indeed, based on meteorological data and other evidence, notably tree rings, scientists in Britain have calculated that it was the hottest for 1,000 years.
So who says the climate isn't changing and that global warming has not already arrived?
The US Vice President, Al Gore, who once described climate change as the most serious environmental threat facing humanity, pointed out that July was the hottest month since reliable records began in 1880. Dallas, in the oil-rich state of Texas, sweltered as temperatures rose above 100 Fahrenheit on 29 days in a row. Seizing on this as an opportunity to bring home to Americans the reality of climate change and the serious threat it represents, Mr Gore said: "Scientists say we are warming the planet and unless we act we can expect even more extreme weather - more heat-waves, more flooding, more powerful storms and more drought."
Yet even as the evidence of extreme weather events continues to mount, reinforcing the conviction among scientists that there is now a discernible human impact on the Earth's climate system, political leaders continue to dither over taking action to reduce the greenhouse gases we are pumping into the atmosphere.
Last December, it seemed that real progress was made with the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol by delegates representing 160 countries at the third UN climate change conference. This commits the EU, the US and Japan to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions by 8 per cent, 7 per cent and 6 per cent respectively by 2010.
But at the follow-up conference in Buenos Aires last month, which did not receive the media attention it probably deserved, deep divisions resurfaced over whether the more industrialised developing countries such as China should be required to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions in parallel with the developed world.
The plan of action agreed in Buenos Aires effectively postponed until October 2000 the completion of negotiations on the rules which will govern how the Kyoto Protocol is implemented - for example, whether countries will be able to obtain credits for assisting "clean development" elsewhere instead of cutting their own emissions.
The EU continues to insist that there must be a "concrete ceiling" on the use of such mechanisms - in other words, that US funding to plant trees in Brazil, for example, would only be a supplement to domestic action, rather than a substitute for it. (Trees absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and thus are useful "carbon sinks".)
The US along with Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Norway and Japan continue to resist the very idea that there should be any concrete ceiling. They would prefer the actions taken to combat climate change to be as painless as possible, rather than tackle powerful oil and coal interests or cut their own consumption of these fossil fuels.
In perhaps the most positive step, negotiators in Buenos Aires agreed that the World Bank's Global Environment Facility should be used to provide funds for developing countries to assist them in adapting to climate change - starting with those most vulnerable to natural disasters, such as small, low-lying island states.
The EU Environment Commissioner, Ritt Bjerregaard, took a benign view of the outcome, saying that "concrete progress" had been made. There was now a "common understanding by all parties" on the need for a strong compliance regime, and she believed the issues the EU regarded as important could still be resolved.
Though some environmentalists characterised the Buenos Aires deal as a "manana mandate" because it put off crucial decisions for another two years, the US-based Environmental Defence Fund said it showed that governments had "begun to roll up their sleeves and get down to the serious business of reducing greenhouse gas emissions".
Underlining the urgency of reaching agreement, the International Energy Agency produced a new forecast at the conference that world energy demand would rise by 65 per cent and emissions of carbon dioxide - the main greenhouse gas - by 70 per cent unless governments delivered on their commitments under the Kyoto Protocol.
Ireland is no exception. Under an EU "burden-sharing" deal agreed in Luxembourg last June, we are now legally obliged to limit the growth of our greenhouse gas emissions to 13 per cent above the 1990 levels by 2010, and with energy consumption rising due to rapid economic growth there are serious doubts that this is achievable. Earlier this year the Department of the Environment estimated that our carbon dioxide emissions had risen to more than 38 million tonnes a year.
"If this is the case, Ireland used up the additional increase allowed under the Luxembourg agreement," according to a recent paper by Prof Frank Convery and Dr Peter Clinch of UCD. What they say is needed as a matter of urgency to prevent Ireland's greenhouse gas "allowance" being used up is a range of policy measures to "ration this scarce capacity" in an equitable manner.
A detailed report by British consultants ERM, published last June, suggested that converting the huge coal-fired power station at Moneypoint to high-efficiency natural gas offered the largest "single hit" in reducing carbon dioxide emissions. And even though this would cost £200 million-plus, it could be a "profitable investment."
Last month, the Italian government concluded an agreement with its social partners - including industry, trade union and environmental interests - aimed at achieving that country's target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 6.5 per cent through improved energy efficiency and the promotion of renewable energy systems.
Next month the Environment Minister, Noel Dempsey, is due to publish his greenhouse gas abatement strategy for Ireland, following consultations with the various interests here. By setting out what needs to be done in concrete terms, this in itself should serve to provide a firmer focus for public debate on the issue.
Charlie McCreevy whose department does not yet seem to have come to grips with the commitment made in Luxembourg last June, said in his Budget speech that the question of imposing an energy tax would be left to the next round of negotiations to replace Partnership 2000. In a sense, the economy is seen almost as a free-standing entity, subject only to the vagaries of international markets. But the devastating trail of destruction caused by Hurricane Mitch in Honduras should remind us that the economy is merely a division of the eco-sphere. Take that away, as Mitch did, and everything people have worked for is lost.