So how is it that we can read that every four days, Moscow suffers the equivalent number of deaths from extreme heat and unhealthy smog as the US experienced during the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, and yet we don't react the same way? I doubt the lack of outrage is due to the three extra days. And while some of the numbness may be due to the lack of first-hand experience - it's something happening "over there," not here - our reaction to the kidnapping and slaughter of innocent schoolchildren by Chechen terrorists back in 2004 did not feel as remote.

I think our lack of reaction is due to the way our brains are wired. As primates, we're instinctively programmed to react to aggression and personal attacks, like most mammals. When the danger is caused not by our own kind or some other enemy that can be easily identified, our neurons don't fire the same way and we tend to tolerate, or at least ignore, the threat.

Global warming is a more abstract and vague threat than say, global terrorism or illegal immigration, yet we can now see how it's causing far more damage and death than the other two combined, and yet we don't react. Congress can't find the will to pass meaningful climate legislation; world leaders can't agree on a meaningful treaty to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. And yet nations go to war when a small group of terrorists commandeer a plane or a schoolhouse or a diesel van.

But the calamities we're seeing around the world now may represent a tipping point in our perceptions. I'll tell you who is now motivated to deal with climate change - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, that's who. Speaking at a Russian Security Council Meeting, Medvedev said, "Everyone is talking about climate change now. Unfortunately, what is happening now in our central regions is evidence of this global climate change, because we have never in our history faced such weather conditions in the past. This means that we need to change the way we work, change the methods that we used in the past."

Of course, while climate change does not cause any particular single event, everything from the record heat in Russian and the US, to the worst flooding in almost a century in South Asia, to continued Arctic sea ice melting - we're well on our way to setting a new second-lowest minimum of sea ice coverage this summer - are all consistent with the predicted overall effects of climate change. Already this summer, 17 nations have set or matched their all-time heat records, including the all-time highest temperature for Pakistan (128 degrees F) and possibly all of Asia.

The only good thing that might possibly come out of all the death and misery and flooding and crop losses from this summer's heat is that it might finally activate our simian minds enough that we start to take some action. I can only hope that Medvedev's commitment to action doesn't cool off as the temperatures do, and that other leaders follow his lead.

Are you listening, Obama?