Word: carbone
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Back in the Pliocene era, between 5 million and 3 million years ago, the average global temperature was about 7°F warmer than it is today, yet atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were about the same. If carbon dioxide were the sole factor in warming, that wouldn't make any sense. It isn't, of course; there are several other contributors, including the brightness of the sun and the location of the continents (whose positions dictate, among other things, where ice caps can form) - but these were all pretty much the same in the Pliocene as well...
...eight months after the House of Representatives passed a cap-and-trade bill, similar legislation remains mired in the Senate, its chances of passage dimming by the day. With midterm elections not far off - threatening serious losses in Democratic seats in Congress - it's reasonable to wonder whether the carbon-capping bill will ever become...
...days of former President George W. Bush's Administration, the Obama EPA has spent much of the past year preparing the groundwork for regulation. In the absence of a climate bill, the EPA has the power - and is legally mandated by the Supreme Court - to step in and address carbon emissions. (See pictures of the world's most polluted places...
...even bigger political minefield. Republicans are universally against it, claiming that clumsy top-down CO2 regulation will kill American jobs by strangling power plants and other industry. Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska, introduced a bill late last year that would explicitly prevent the EPA from regulating carbon, and she already has 40 co-sponsors. Many Democrats also have their doubts - eight Democratic Senators from coal-heavy states sent a letter on Sunday, Feb. 21, to EPA administrator Lisa Jackson listing "serious economic and energy security concerns" with greenhouse-gas regulation...
Still, it's far from clear exactly how the EPA will regulate carbon. Regulations would call for new plants to take on the "best available technologies" to control carbon emissions, but the EPA hasn't specified what those technologies are. Already-built sources of emissions could be even tougher to regulate - the Clean Air Act grandfathered in existing coal plants. And the agency is already facing lawsuits from the state of Texas and from industry groups that seek to prevent the EPA from issuing any regulations at all, arguing that the recent problems in climate science undermine the agency...