Global Warming | ||||
The Issue Carbon dioxide is the primary greenhouse gas responsible for global warming. Most carbon dioxide is produced by coal-burning energy plants and the use of the automobile. Climate change will likely trigger droughts, famines and weather-related disasters that could claim millions of lives and exacerbate tensions among nations. Annual financial losses from extreme events rose from $7 billion in 1950 to $70 billion in 2003, of which floods, fires, storms, drought and earthquakes accounted for 84% of insured losses. Scientists expect that the average global surface temperature could rise 1-4.5°F in the next 50 years. Evaporation will increase as the climate warms, with soil moisture likely to decline in many regions and intense rainstorms likely in others. Sea level is likely to rise two feet along most of the Despite the potentially catastrophic consequences of global warming and the opportunity for new technologies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, Americans frame environmental issues in opposition to jobs and a sound economy. On July 29, 2005, Congress passed an energy bill that eases environmental restrictions on oil and gas companies drilling on public lands and gives billions of dollars in tax breaks to the same companies, despite the ballooning profits they are enjoying. Energy efficiency and renewable energy sources (such as wind and solar power) received just $5 billion of the bill's $14.5 billion in tax incentives. The nuclear industry (which has not signed off on new plant construction since 1973) received billions of dollars in subsidies and tax breaks for everything from research to "risk insurance" if new nuclear plants run into construction and licensing delays. The global warming crisis has sparked a debate among environmentalists, some of whom (like James Lovelock, who postulated the Gaia theory; Jared Diamond, best-selling author of Guns, Germs, and Steel; Stewart Brand, former editor of The Whole Earth Catalog; and Patrick Moore, cofounder of Greenpeace) argue that nuclear energy is necessary to address climate change adequately. Detractors of nuclear energy claim that it is very expensive if the cost of building the plants is factored in with operations, and that if the money that it takes to build a nuclear power plant (about $2 billion) were put into energy-efficiency measures like insulating buildings, driving hybrid cars or using highly-efficient appliances, it would make unnecessary seven times more carbon consumption than the nuclear power plant would. IHMs in Action
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