Word: globalization
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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After Hurricane Katrina flattened New Orleans exactly four years ago, on Aug. 29, 2005, the city emerged as an inadvertent symbol of global warming, the first American victim of climate change. More than 200,000 homes were destroyed during the Category 5 hurricane. But in the years since, the Crescent City has quietly embraced a new and unexpected role as a laboratory for green building. Sustainable-development groups like the international nonprofit Global Green as well as earth-friendly celebrities like Brad Pitt descended on New Orleans, determined not just to build the city back but to build it back...
...exact concentrations and consequences of the gas. The investigators found that although N2O is only one-sixtieth as dangerous to the ozone layer as CFCs on a gram-by-gram basis, the sheer amount of N2O - each year nearly 1 billion metric tons of CO2 equivalent are released globally - means that it now poses a more significant threat to the atmosphere. (N2O emissions are calculated in terms of their impact on global warming, and CO2 is used as a kind of base level.) (See Q&A: "Regional Nuclear War and the Environment...
...quickly - N2O is all around us, tied intimately to our industrial way of life. The millions of tons of soil fertilizer used in U.S. agriculture alone add N2O into the atmosphere, as do livestock manure, sewage treatment and automobiles. And it's not just our doing: two-thirds of global N2O emissions come from the planet itself, as bacteria in soil and the oceans break down nitrogen. Though N2O is regulated by the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 as a greenhouse gas - and one that is nearly 300 times more potent for global warming than CO2 - that treaty doesn't cover...
...phasing out these gases, both for climate and the ozone," says Robert Portman, an atmospheric scientist at NOAA and a co-author of the study. If we fail, we won't be laughing about nitrous oxide. (Read "Can Steven Chu Win the Fight Over Global Warming...
...confluence of factors has led Japan to its likely political upheaval - not least of which is the global economic crisis. Figures released Aug. 28 - two days before the election - show Japan's unemployment rate for July at a record 5.7%, up from the six-year high in June of 5.4% and well on its way to the 6% figure analysts expect by year's end. Japan's July exports dipped to 36.5% over last year, falling for a tenth straight month. Exports to China and the U.S., Japan's top two trade partners, fell 26.5% and 39.5%, respectively, over last...