A shift in the debate over Global Warming

Tittle: A Shift in the debate over Global Warming.
Author: Andew C Revkin.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/weekinreview/06revkin.html?_r=1&oref=login
Date of Publication: April 6, 2008.

Vocabulary:
-Cap: verb, to cover the top or the end of something with something.
-Prod: verb, to try to make somebody do something, especially when they are unwilling.
-Bluntly: adverb, in a very direct way, without trying to be polite or kind.
-Stifle: verb, to prevent something from happening.
-Curb: verb, to control or limit somenthing, especially something bad.
-Lick: verb, infromal, to easily defeat somebody or deal with something.
-Overhaul: noun, an examination of a machine or a system, including doing repairs on it or making changes to it.
-Deploy: verb, formal, to use something effectively.
-Avert: verb, to prevent something bad or dangerous from happening.

Main ideas:
-In the last few years, most of the focus of the debates over Global Warming has centered on imposing caps on green house gas emissions to prod energy users to switch to nonpolluting technologies.
-Now, with recent data showing an unexpected rise in global emissions and a decline in energy efficiency, scientists are saying that whatever benefits the caps approach yields, it will be too little and come too late.
-The economist Jeffrey D.Sachs (Earth Institute, Columbia University) says that if we try to restarin emissions without a new set of technologies, we will end up stifling economic growth. Our current technology cannot support both, a decline in carbon dioxide emissions and an espanding global economy. What is needed is a development of advance low carbon technologies.
-Proponents of treaties and legislations say that cap emissions don't disagree with this call to arm for new, low carbon technologies. But they say the cap approach should not be ignored, either.
-Joseph Romm, member of a non-profit group for legislation to restict greenhouse gasses says that if we don't start aggresively deploying the technology we have now for the next quarter century, then all the new technologies in the world won't avert catastrophe.
-Roger A. Pielke, a political scientist at the University of Colorado, emphasizes that the recent rise in emissions points the need for government to push aggresively for technological advances instead of waiting for the market to force reductions in emissions.
- Mr. Sachs points to several promissing technologies (capturing and burying carbon dioxide, plug-in hybrid cars and solar-thermal electric plants). Each will require a combination of factors to succed: more applied scientific research, important regulation changes, appropiate infraestructure, public acceptance and early high-cost investments. A failure on one or more of these points could kill the technologies.
-In short, what is needed is a major overhaul of energy technology financed by large-scale public funding of research, development and demostration projects.

Personal Reaction:
In the fight against Global Wraming's consequences, time is key. It is a critical factor. Debates continue to occur all over the world without any parctical result, at time at which counties such as China and India keep on developing into the modern world. And in a way in which they will soon become the dominant producers of greenhaouse gasses.
There's no plan or idea which is useless when taking about saving our planet. The problem is how to make them work, and more important, how to make them work quickly. The only way colud be through the co-participation of every entity that should assume responsibility for our climate change problem.
As the article states, we cannot wait the market to promote and consumers to buy planet-friendly products if governments do not support them with adecuate campaigns. At the same time, we cannot expect the industry to reduce gas emissions if there are no laws or regulations truly approved in which the people can base on.
The real fact is that while scientists, economists, politicians and students of energy policy continue discussing the problem, our planet keeps on suffering the long term effects of global warming. Thant's why time should be the first factor to be taken into account in climate debates so as to force the results to appear as soon as posible.