Word: carbonated
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
When the world begins a new round of negotiations on climate change next month in Bali, Indonesia, each of us will have a seat at the table. We are all emitters of carbon dioxide - the main cause of man-made climate change - each time we drive or use electricity. But even more importantly, we are all citizens. The U.S. Government, together with the other 190 governments at the negotiations, will have to set new rules of the game for producing and using energy. Our power as citizens is to ensure that they...
...plants created acid rain, so we changed the rules of the game to insist on smokestack scrubbers to eliminate pollutants like sulfur oxides. Second we learned that automobiles produced pollutants that caused smog, so we changed the rules to insist on catalytic converters. Now we've learned that the carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels is causing dangerous climate change. We'll need to change the rules of the game one more time...
There is a difference, however, between the problems of carbon dioxide emissions and those of acid rain or smog. The carbon dioxide emitted by power plants, automobiles, steel mills and home furnaces doesn't just affect our local environment or the lakes and forests a few hundred miles downwind; it accumulates in the atmosphere and affects the entire planet. U.S. emissions are changing the climate in Africa and Asia, just as the soaring emissions of China are affecting America's climate. The results are already deadly, causing failed crops in Africa, killer heat waves in Europe, extreme droughts...
...therefore need a global agreement on new rules of the game to take carbon emissions out of our energy system. Part of the answer will be akin to the smokestack scrubbers. Engineers have shown that it is possible to capture the carbon dioxide before it is emitted from a coal-fired power plant, and to transport it to long-term underground storage, in a process known as "carbon capture and sequestration." They've also dramatically reduced the costs of non-fossil-fuel electricity from wind, solar power and geothermal power, with further savings achievable based on experience and more research...
...punch. In October, he abruptly announced that he would hold a referendum on amending the Constitution to recognize Aboriginal people. It was his "generation" that had prevented his seeing the need for this sooner, he said. He talked more about climate change and went ahead with preparations for a carbon emissions trading scheme. He said future and plan more often. He started wearing a more stylish tracksuit on his morning walks. In the final week of the campaign he did an old-married-couple interview with Treasurer Costello, explaining how the succession would go. Howard would resign, he said, Costello...