Word: co2
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...hard to imagine electric cars solving the serious pollution problems in China or in electricity-starved Africa. More than 90% of China's power comes from overstretched coal-burning stations. "You could end up substituting CO2 emissions from a tail pipe with CO2 emissions from a power station," says Morsing. "If you cannot produce alternative energy, the whole idea of electric cars falls apart." In the end, governments will have to decide what is more urgent: cutting imports from the Middle East or cleaning up the planet...
...enhance the growth of plants. That could be good for agriculture - though warming temperatures and changing rain patterns in a warmer world might wipe out that advantage. But there are no unalloyed gifts from climate change. Recent research suggests that global warming will also exacerbate respiratory allergies, as higher CO2 concentrations lead to vast increases in ragweed pollen production. "There's no denying there's a change," says Paul Ratner, an immunologist with the American College of Allergies. "It's definitely bad news for people who have allergies." (Hear Ratner talk about the connection between warming and asthma on this...
...asthma, with 250,000 dying from the disease each year. That rate is up considerably over the past few decades, and scientists say a number of factors could be at work. One clear reason is rising levels of ragweed pollen - which can be connected directly to rising levels of CO2. Researchers have shown repeatedly that elevated levels of CO2 stimulate weeds to produce pollen out of proportion with their growth rates - meaning you get more pollen per plant, which means more allergies. Even worse, it seems that the weediest species seem to thrive disproportionately in high CO2 environments. The wave...
...pollen counts rarely go back more than 20 years - certainly would indicate that warming will only make things worse. So, what can be done to help millions of sneezing, watery-eyed patients? As allergy sufferers already know, not a whole lot. But any action taken to control rising CO2 levels might at least help stem the increase in global allergy rates. So far, the global asthma epidemic shows no signs of abating, and in a warmer world, effective treatments for allergies will likely become even more important. One option for allergy suffers might be to start agitating for action...
...though those ozone-destroying chemicals have been banned for years, meaning the company is asking for applause for just following the law. Another is the sin of the hidden trade-off--the paper towels that come from a sustainably harvested forest but are then shipped to global markets aboard CO2-spewing trucks and planes...