Word: coal
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...earth was caused by only natural processes until less than 200 years ago. With the arrival of the Industrial Revolution in the early 1800s, man suddenly threw a new factor into the climatic equation. Carbon dioxide is released in large quantities when wood and such fossil fuels as coal, oil and natural gas are burned. As society industrialized, coal- burning factories began releasing CO2 faster than plants and oceans, which absorb the gas, could handle it. In the early 1900s, people began burning oil and gas at prodigious rates. And increasing population led to the widespread cutting of trees...
Imposing a CO2 fee would not be as difficult as it sounds. It is easy to quantify how much CO2 comes from burning a gallon of gasoline, a ton of coal or a cubic yard of natural gas. Most countries already have gasoline taxes; similar fees, set according to the amount of CO2 produced, could be put on all fossil-fuel sources. At the same time, companies could be given credits against their CO2 taxes if they planted trees to take some...
...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...
...construction and inappropriate irrigation projects have caused the level of the Aral Sea to drop 40 ft. It is possible that this body of water, the world's sixth largest sea, will not exist in 20 years. Siberia, once pristine, is laced with wastes from steel, chemical and coal industries. Worrisome numbers of dead sturgeon are floating atop the polluted Volga River, threatening the Soviets' prestigious caviar supply. Resorts along the Black Sea have banned swimming after the government's warning that the waters are contaminated with dysentery and typhoid germs...
...Federal Government dumped a hefty chunk of coal into Jim Bakker's Christmas stocking last week. In a 28-page indictment, the former top man of the scandal-plagued PTL TV ministry was charged with 24 counts of fraud and conspiracy. His wife and co-star Tammy Faye, televangelism's dolled-up super- shopper, escaped by an eyelash, but three associates were also charged: PTL's former No. 2 administrator, Richard Dortch, and Bakker aides David and James Taggart...