Word: fossilizing
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...that everyone would agree. What happened in Kyoto will not, in and of itself, stave off global warming. The treaty now known as the Kyoto Protocol dictates that by 2012 the average output of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide--generated mostly by the burning of fossil fuels in factories, cars and power plants--must be reduced 5.2% below where it was in 1990. But it would take a 60% reduction to make much of a dent in the greenhouse gases that have been building up in the atmosphere since the start of the industrial revolution...
...riddle I'm most involved in is the question of the origin of flowering plants, which is almost everything you see except for pine trees," Donoghue says, adding that the fossil record of flowering plants was somewhat "mysterious...
...quickly the world's energy systems are transformed will depend in part on whether fossil-fuel prices remain low and the entrenched opposition of many oil and electric-power companies can be overcome. The pace of change will be heavily influenced by the climate agreement that emerges in Kyoto and the national policies that follow. In the 1980s, California provided tax incentives and access to the power grid for new energy sources, which enabled the state to dominate renewable-energy markets worldwide. Similar incentives and access have been offered by European countries in the 1990s. Sometimes such measures are needed...
Just as automobiles followed horses and computers displaced typewriters, so can the advance of technology make today's smokestacks and gas-powered cars look primitive, inefficient and uneconomical. Unlike fossil fuels, renewable energy never runs out, and geologists will not have to travel to the Alaskan North Slope or the shores of the Caspian Sea to find new sources. The sunlight falling on the surface of the earth each day contains 6,000 times as much energy as is used by all countries combined. Studies show that covering the existing flat-roof space of many cities with solar cells could...
...negotiators flying home from Kyoto this week with a climate-change agreement that may be less than they had hoped for, the coming generation of new energy technologies offers a ray of hope. In order to wean ourselves from the fossil fuels that are choking the planet, we need reliable alternatives. If anything can be done to accelerate the new technologies, we may all breathe a little easier...