Word: fossilize
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...upsetting nature's equilibrium, that intricate set of biological, physical and chemical interactions that make up the web of life. Starting at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, smokestacks have disgorged noxious gases into the atmosphere, factories have dumped toxic wastes into rivers and streams, automobiles have guzzled irreplaceable fossil fuels and fouled the air with their detritus. In the name of progress, forests have been denuded, lakes poisoned with pesticides, underground aquifers pumped dry. For decades, scientists have warned of the possible consequences of all this profligacy. No one paid much attention...
...continues to increase rapidly and that the human race is thus conducting a dangerous experiment on an unprecedented scale. The possible consequences are so scary that it is only prudent for governments to slow the buildup of CO2 through preventive measures, from encouraging energy conservation to developing alternatives to fossil fuels...
...flow of CO2 on 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...
Tree planting will have negligible impact, however, if people continue to pump CO2 into the atmosphere at current rates. While wood and fossil-fuel burning will never be eliminated, they can be cut down significantly. An immediate way to do so is through conservation. When oil prices soared in the 1970s, industries responded by becoming much more energy efficient. But the plunge in the price of oil from $36 per bbl. in 1982 to less than $12 per bbl. this fall has cooled the enthusiasm for conservation. Governments must rekindle that interest and boost energy saving by setting or raising...
...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...