Word: worlds
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...years at current consumption rates. Plainly, that is good news in one respect. Burning coal has made the Chinese people (somewhat) warm in winter for the first time in their history. But multiply Zhenbing's story by China's huge population, and you understand why 9 of the world's 10 most air-polluted cities are found in China and why nearly 1 of every 3 deaths there is linked to the horrific condition of the air and water...
Equally alarming is what China's coal burning is doing to the planet as a whole. China has become the world's second largest producer of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, and it will be No. 1 by 2020 if it triples coal consumption as planned. But the U.S., the other environmental superpower, has no right to point a finger. Americans lead the world in greenhouse-gas production, mainly because of their ever tightening addiction to the car, the source of almost 40% of U.S. emissions...
China could use 50% less energy if it only installed more efficient electric lights, motors and insulation, all technologies currently available on the world market. Americans could trade in their notoriously gas-swilling SUVs for sporty new 80-m.p.g. hybrid-electric cars. Better yet: hydrogen-powered fuel-cell cars, expected in showrooms by 2004. Since their only exhaust is water vapor, fuel-cell cars produce neither smog nor global warming...
Mark Hertsgaard's most recent book is Earth Odyssey: Around the World in Search of Our Environmental Future
...really bad news is that most of the planet's 6 billion people are just beginning to follow in the trash-filled footsteps of the U.S. and the rest of the developed world. "Either we need to control ourselves or nature will," says Gary Liss of Loomis, Calif., a veteran of recycling and solid-waste programs who advises clients aiming to reduce landfill deposits. As he sees it, garbage--maybe every last pound of it--needs to become a vile thing of the past...