Word: fossilize
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...effect of CO2 in the atmosphere is comparable to the glass of a greenhouse: it lets the warming rays of the sun in but keeps excess heat from reradiating back into space. Indeed, man-made contributions to the greenhouse effect, mainly CO2 that is generated by the burning of fossil fuels, may be hastening a global warming trend that could raise average temperatures between 2 degrees F and 8 degrees F by the year 2050 -- or between five and ten times the rate of increase that marked the end of the ice age. And that change, notes Schneider, "completely revamped...
...contemporaries scoffed. Arrhenius, however, was exactly right. In his time, the CO2 concentration was about 280 to 290 parts per million -- just right for a moderately warm, interglacial period. But today the count stands at some 340 p.p.m. By 2050, if the present rate of burning fossil fuels continues, that concentration will double, trapping progressively more infrared radiation in the atmosphere...
...limiting the use of nitrogen-based fertilizers, would have only a slight effect. A more important step would be to protect the tropical rain forests, a move that would certainly be resisted by developers. Obviously, the most far-reaching step would be to cut back on the use of fossil fuels, a measure that would be hard to accomplish in industrialized countries without a wholesale turn to energy conservation or alternative forms of power. In developing countries, such reductions might be technologically feasible but would be all but impossible to carry out politically and economically...
...level fluctuations are part of a natural cycle, but scientists suspect that this one may be different. They believe it is magnified by a fundamental change in world climate caused by a phenomenon called the greenhouse effect. Since the Industrial Revolution, people have been burning greater quantities of fossil fuels, such as coal, oil and gas. One by-product is carbon dioxide, which has entered the atmosphere in ever increasing amounts...
...Peale, his greater achievement was the invention of the first scientifically organized American museum open to the public on a continuous basis. His Peale's Museum in Philadelphia began modestly, with a few stuffed birds, and gradually expanded to include other "wonders" of science, nature and art, from a fossil mastodon to specimens brought back by Lewis and Clark from their trek across the continent, and a gallery of portraits of American heroes as well. He said he wanted "to bring into one view a world in miniature," and that was the gesture he painted himself making...