Word: co2
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Sure, a worldwide rise in temperatures brought on by increasing atmospheric concentrations of CO2 could produce coastal flooding, choking droughts, crop failures and widespread food shortages. But the greenhouse effect does have its sunny side...
Evidence that greenhouse warming has already started is at best tenuous. Even though some scientists believe the concentration of CO2 in the air has shot up 25% since the early 1800s, the average global temperature has risen by no more than 0.5 degrees C (1.1 degrees F), and even that measurement is suspect. Moreover, the rise has been uneven. From about 1940 to 1970, a cooling period inspired some forecasters to predict a return of the ice ages...
...help combat global warming. Among other things, the White House has 1) earmarked $1 billion for global climate research next year; 2) committed the U.S. to phasing out production of chlorofluorocarbons, potent greenhouse gases, by the year 2000; and 3) vowed to plant a billion trees, which would absorb CO2 from the air. But Administration officials admit that Bush advanced most of the measures for reasons other than reducing global warming. And environmentalists argue that the Government should do much more to discourage the burning of fossil fuels. Among the possibilities: raise the gasoline tax or use financial incentives...
Skeptics say evidence for the greenhouse effect is not so hot. But many scientists counter that failure to curb CO2 emissions amounts to a dangerous experiment with the atmosphere...
This proposal, designed to head off global warming, has gone nowhere, despite the efforts of the United Nations Environment Program to forge a worldwide treaty limiting the release of carbon dioxide. In the U.S., a primary producer of CO2, new taxes are anathema to the current Administration in any case. The President has declared that global warming is a problem that needs study, not immediate action...