By TOM HENRY, Toledo Blade

It is, if nothing else, a bit unorthodox to compare an invasive species' potentially devastating behavior to the consequences of a historic petrochemical catastrophe. But that is what leaders from Great Lakes states say about the Asian carp crisis in the Midwest.

You may have heard that thunderstorms, lightning, sleet, hail, damaging winds, and hurricanes will occur more frequently later this century if the Earth's climate continues to warm as rapidly as America's top climate scientists believe it is now.

But tornadoes? Not so fast.

Efforts to curb greenhouse gases that cause global warming have sparked interest in new technologies, rejuvenated pleas for energy conservation, and resulted in development of co-generation projects in which steam from one industrial facility is captured and used to generate electricity at another.

Global warming could devastate the Great Lakes region's shipping industry by lowering water levels, as predicted under the current regime of climate-change scenarios.

"I don't think there has been much thought put into it by anybody," said Scott Thieme, chief of the U.S. Corps of Engineers' Great Lakes hydraulics and hydrology office.

PORT BURWELL, Ont. -- With 66 turbines and plans for another 18, Ontario's $200 million Erie Shores Wind Farm could be a sign of things to come for the Great Lakes region.

To the layman, they all look the same: towering, commercial-scale turbines jutting into the sky, each about the height of a 25-story building.

A lot of people are probably OK with leaving their parkas behind and enjoying balmy weather that's predicted across much of the Midwest this week.

But the Great Lakes take a beating from these on-again, off-again winters.