Word: coaling
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Only a decade ago, the debate over global warming dealt mainly with whether it was a real problem or a Chicken Little scare story. In theory it made sense: we are burning more and more coal and oil; coal and oil generate carbon dioxide gas; carbon dioxide traps the sun's heat like the glass of a greenhouse. In theory, therefore, the earth's temperature should be on the rise--with potentially disastrous consequences that could include inundated coastlines, drastically altered weather, severe disturbances to agriculture, and tropical diseases' pushing into new territory. But the effect was still too small...
...because they already have--through various accidents of history and politics--a big head start. The collapse of East Germany in 1990 forced many inefficient, pollution-belching factories and power plants out of business, cutting Europe's emissions as a side benefit. Similarly, when Margaret Thatcher broke the British coal miners' unions in 1985, Britain was able to switch to cleaner-burning natural gas. France, for its part, never had much coal and is heavily reliant on nuclear power today. With relatively powerful Green parties and citizenries that tend to care about these things, the E.U. is almost required...
...real fun of any movie season is encountering the unpredictable. A critical darling like The English Patient can become a crowd pleaser; a surefire hit can be just a lump of coal in a studio's stocking. For now, only Santa knows...
...effect. In fairness, while the European Union has taken the problem more seriously, some of its success was due to political accident. The collapse of the Soviet bloc, for example, allowed Germany to shut the former East Germany's most antiquated factories. And in England, the declining power of coal miners' unions enabled factories to switch to cheaper but less polluting fuels they'd long favored anyway...
...doesn't have to cost a lot more. Last month the Department of Energy released a report saying a 20% cutback to 1990 emission levels would be possible by 2010 without raising energy costs, through the spread of new technologies and finely targeted incentives like tax breaks for old coal-fired power plants...