Word: carbonic
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...most efficient and effective way to spur conservation is to raise the cost of fossil fuels. Current prices fail to reflect the very real environmental costs of pumping carbon dioxide into the air. The answer is a tax on CO2 emissions -- or a CO2 user fee, if that is a more palatable term. The fee need not raise a country's overall tax burden; it could be offset by reductions in income taxes or other levies...
...user fee would have benefits beyond forcing a cutback in CO2 emissions. The fuels that generate carbon dioxide also generate other pollutants, like soot, along with nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide, the primary causes of acid rain. The CO2 tax would be a powerful incentive for consumers to switch from high-CO2 fuels, such as coal and oil, to power sources that produce less CO2, notably natural gas. When burned, methane generates only half as much CO2 as coal, for example, in producing the same amount of energy...
...easy to draw up a plan of action for protecting the earth. But that plan will fail unless it is forged with international fellowship and carried out on a global scale. How much good can one country do by reducing carbon- dioxide emissions if another nation offsets that with an increased output of CO2? How can one country keep its beaches clean if its neighbor down the coast dumps sewage or syringes into the sea? "On most environmental questions, the nation-state is obsolete," said Pace University's Nicholas Robinson. "We have to talk about multinational cooperation...
...nations of the world take immediate action, the destruction of the global environment can be slowed substantially. But some irreversible damage is inevitable. Even if fossil-fuel emissions are cut drastically, the overall level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will still increase -- along with the likelihood of some global warming. Even if toxic dumping is banned outright and that ban is strictly enforced, some lakes and aquifers will be tainted by poisons that have already been released. Even if global population growth could somehow be cut in half, there would still be more than 45 million new mouths...
From an international perspective, the most disturbing aspect of the Soviet economy is the enormous quantity of carbon dioxide it puts into the air. Because the machines in many Soviet factories are obsolete and inefficient, they consume an inordinate amount of energy, making the country one of the largest contributors to the greenhouse effect. The Soviets are aware of this problem and hope to solve it by importing technology designed to improve energy efficiency and pollution control. They hope that much of that technology will come from the U.S. Said Morgun: "We will go anyplace, over any mountain, over...