The information on this website is not a substitute for diagnosis and treatment by a qualified, licensed professional.

Click here for information on ordering this book online

Clearer, Cleaner, Safer Greener
Copyright (c) Gary Null, 1990

Part 1 Chapter 1
The Greenhouse Effect

NOT very long ago reports that our life styles and consumption patterns were turning the earth into a giant greenhouse would have been met by skepticism, if not outright cynicism. Of course, there are a few cynics who persist in labeling the ever mounting evidence as science fiction but then again, how long did the tobacco industry, and even members of the medical establishment, insist that smoking presented no proven danger to human health? As well illustrated in the smoking debacle, opponents to change often couch their arguments in an aura of scientific legitimacy, claiming that there is "no proof, no definite scientific proof that smoking is linked to disease, or in the case of the greenhouse effect, that certain pollutants are turning the planet into a hothouse. Fortunately, the public has started to become wise to these tactics. Elementary logic shows us that the only proof that can be absolute in environmental issues, particularly one as potentially damaging as the greenhouse effect, is irreparable damage to the earth. Rational scientists are realizing that while the scientific method is still the preferred model of proof, protocol should not be inviolate when the future of the planet is at stake.

 With the greenhouse effect, the nation is beginning to mobilize on an issue while it is still at the probability stage for the first time in environmental history. This is an encouraging move, which may be heralding a big shift in American consciousness toward action oriented problem solving and away from avoidance and denial.

 While scientists have been discussing the greenhouse effect for a number of years, debates picked up considerably during the summer of 1988 when one hundred degree temperatures and withering drought seemed almost undeniable proof that global warming had indeed begun. One of the first announcements came from scientists testifying before a Senate hearing in mid-June 1988, when they suggested that the greenhouse effect could be contributing to the droughts that parched farmlands and resulted in the designation of 40 percent of the counties nationwide as disaster areas.

The 1988 heat wave prompted James E. Hansen, director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Institute for Space Studies, to speak out, even though he admitted that doing so he was risking his professional reputation as a cautious scientist. Hansen's clear and unequivocal statement that the greenhouse effect was indeed upon us, coming from a scientist of his reputation, caused the nation to stop and listen. Hansen's message, a combination of hard, scientific analysis and bottom line urgency, had a huge impact on political thinking. Bipartisan congressional support grew to allocate financing for climate research and to draft legislation for control of greenhouse producing gases emitted into the atmosphere.

Commenting on the impact of Hansen's statements, Michael Oppenheimer, an atmospheric physicist for the Environmental Defense Fund, said that he's never seen an environmental issue take hold so quickly. "It took a government forum during a drought and a heat wave and one scientist with guts to say, 'Yes, it looks like it has begun and we've detected it.

 LET'S TALK ABOUT THE WEATHER

 In simple terms, the greenhouse effect can be defined as yet another way in which our planet is adversely reacting to air pollution. More specifically, scientists now believe that certain gases are concentrating and forming a barrier that admits the sunlight but traps in the sun's heat, which would otherwise be released into space, like the glass in a greenhouse. The overall effect is a global warming predicted to range between three and eight degrees over the next one hundred years. Temperatures have already risen more than one degree over the last century. This may not sound like very much of an increase, but on a global level small changes in' average temperature can drastically alter the face of the planet. During the ice age when the planet was almost entirely covered with ice, the global temperature was only eight degrees cooler than it is today.

 To those of us living in colder climates or who simply "can't stand the cold," a global warming still may not sound like such bad news. But scientists warn that increases in temperature will be erratic and unevenly distributed around the globe. The greenhouse effect will not necessarily mean noticeably milder winters for quite some time, but it could, as was seen in 1988, make hot summers even hotter and dry seasons even drier. In addition, two researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology note, "Greenhouse theory does not preclude extreme cold or extreme heat in any particular place or time," so that even unusual cold spells like the freezes in Florida are consistent with the theory.

 Scientists also warn that while there may be benefits, the negative factors associated with such a global rise in temperatures will be far more predominant. in a draft report prepared by the normally cautious Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in October 1988, the predictions of chaos and disaster were unprecedented. Global warming caused by industrial pollutants will diminish forests, destroy coastal wetlands, and cause extensive environmental damage over the next century.

 The report concludes, "Global climate change will have significant implications for natural ecosystems; for when, where, and how we farm; for the availability of water to drink and water to run our factories, for how we live in our cities; for the wetlands that spawn our fish; for the beaches we use for recreation, and for all levels of government and industry."

 Surprisingly, the primary culprit in setting off this thermal time bomb is not a highly noxious or toxic gas, but rather carbon dioxide, a naturally occurring component of the earth's atmosphere. Consequently, one lesson to be learned from the greenhouse effect pertains to the delicate balance of environment even substances that are not normally pollutants can become harmful when their concentrations increase beyond levels that the earth and atmosphere can accommodate. Other gases suspected of combining with the carbon dioxide to create this hothouse effect are already notoriously linked with ecological damage. The following gases also have many times more capacity to trap heat than carbon dioxide: 

* nitrogen oxides, one of the components of acid rain with 250 times the heat trapping capacity of carbon dioxide;

 * chlorofluorocarbons, which are recognized as the primary offenders in the destruction of the earth's protective ozone layer, with up to 20,000 times the heat trapping capacity; and

* methane, a gas released during the decomposition of organic matter with 25 times the heat trapping effect per molecule.

 The levels of these gases increase each year. Prior to the industrial revolution, the levels of carbon dioxide in the air were 275 parts per million (ppm). Today, the concentration has increased to 346 ppm, and is increasing annually at a rate of 0.4 percent. Similarly, methane's preindustrial level has more than doubled, nitrogen oxide's is increasing at a rate of 0.2 percent per annum, and fluorocarbons, which were not even known prior to the industrial revolution, are now increasing at an annual rate of 5 percent.

 One of the major sources of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the burning of fossil fuels. Scientists are now saying that the impetus behind the global warming is so great that even drastic reductions in the burning of fossil fuels will not halt the trend from occurring. They also warn that without strong measures to decrease fossil fuel combustion, changes could come upon us so suddenly and drastically that society might suffer a virtual breakdown. Climatologist for the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, Stephen H. Schneider believes that the faster changes occur, the more "surprises and imbalances" we will experience. "The effects on forests, and of sea level change, will be more damaging. But if the change is slow enough, you can learn how to adjust. You could develop seeds that will be able to take advantage of a longer but drier growing season."

 Biding time will be particularly important for planning how to preserve our beaches, harbors, and coastal areas. Researchers studying the warming of the globe believe it likely that the melting of glaciers and the expansion of seawater as it is heated will cause ocean levels to rise, although nobody knows for sure how much. City officials in Charleston, South Carolina, in planning for a new storm sewer, are among the first to take these factors into account. EPA economists estimate that it could cost between $10 billion and $50 billion to salvage beaches washed away from rising tides. While most coastal cities could be protected by pumps and levees, hundreds of thousands of acres of lowland in Louisiana could end up underwater, and the port of New Orleans would have to be moved. Meanwhile, Dennis Tirpak, head of strategic studies for the EPA, says that many roads, dams, water supply systems, and storm drains are going to have to be designed keeping drastic changes in weather in mind.

 THE INTERNATIONAL DILEMMA

 Since the greenhouse effect is a global problem, one of the difficulties in reaching any sort of solution stems from the necessity of international cooperation. How could curbs in energy use be divided among those who use different amounts of the world's fuels? For instance, many of the world's developing nations, including China, base their plans for economic growth on the use of coal, the most plentiful of the fossil fuels, the cheapest, but also the one that releases the most carbon dioxide.

 A related problem stems from the massive destruction of the tropical forests in the Amazon jungle. Thick clouds of smoke rise over the rain forest as the man-made fires of the annual dry season sweep the Amazon. On some days, thousands of fires roar across the Amazon basin, following a broad swath where settlers destroy the jungle frontier. For many, fire is the only tool for transforming forest into farm or pasture.

 According to American and Brazilian scientists monitoring the Amazon, the fires are so numerous and the destruction so widespread that these annual burning rituals may be accounting for as much as 10percent of the global man-made output of carbon dioxide. Brazilian scientists estimate that in 1987 alone, seventy-seven thousand square miles of forest were burned, equaling an area about 1.5 times the size of New York State. Startling reports concerning the Amazon fires reveal that the resulting pollution has traveled thousands of miles. Among other things, these observations have led researchers to query whether the fires are related to the damage of the earth's protective ozone layer over the Arctic.

 Brazilian researcher Alberto Setzer, coordinator of satellite data collected at the Space Research Center in Sao Jose Dos Campos, points out that this deforestation is doubly damaging not only do the fires add tremendous amounts of carbon dioxide to the air, but by eliminating trees that utilize carbon dioxide as part of their photosynthetic process, the fires reduce the earth's capacity to absorb and neutralize the carbon dioxide that does exist in the atmosphere. The world is currently sending about 5.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, about half of which is absorbed by the oceans and forests.

 According to a report issued by the Space Research Center, the fires in 1987 alone produced carbon dioxide containing more than 500 tons of carbon, 44 million tons of carbon monoxide, more than 6 million tons of particles, almost 5 million tons of methane, 2.5 million tons of ozone, and more than I million tons of nitrogen oxides and other substances that can circulate globally and influence radiation and climate.

 The Brazilian situation provides a good example of the problems involved in coming up with solutions to the greenhouse effect on an international level. It is easy for us as Americans, living in an affluent society, to point our fingers and cry out in dismay at what the Brazilians are doing not only to their own country, but also to the world. Not surprisingly Brazilian president Jose Sarney has denounced foreign meddling in his country's internal affairs and demands that developed nations clean up their own backyards before they concern themselves about their neighbors. Says President Sarney, "Brazil is being threatened in its sovereign right to use, exploit, and administer its territory. Every day brings new forms of intervention, with veiled or explicit threats aiming to force us to take decisions that are not in our interest." According to President Sarney, the industrialized nations are engaged in "an insidious, cruel and untruthful campaign" against Brazil, designed to detract attention from their own wanton pollution and "fantastic nuclear arsenals" that threaten all life on the planet.

 Brazilian officials claim they are being blackmailed. They contend that foreign loans on the national debt are conditional, dependent on Brazil's taking adequate measures to protect the Amazon. While this may not seem unreasonable to us, the Brazilians are irate. One government official is quoted as saying, "There is true danger of foreign occupation of the Amazon. We are seeing a concerted international effort to hold back development in Brazil."

 There is an irony in all this. One of the primary reasons for the felling of the Amazon in the first place stems not from Brazilian greed, but from the American appetite for beef. A World Bank study determined that official subsidies have made ranching in the Amazon artificially profitable. The study found that from 1975 to 1986 the Brazilian government in effect promoted deforestation with more that $1 billion in subsidies for ranchers. Subsidies were made to encourage export of Brazilian beef to the American market.

SAVE THE WORLD'S FORESTS ...
AND THEY MAY SAVE US

 Now, in addition to decreasing our consumption of red meat for health reasons, we have an ecological purpose too. We need to let the government and industry know that we do not want to participate in any way to encourage further destruction of the Amazon. It is not surprising that President Sarney was indignant about our demands to stop burning the forests when our own consumerism was the incentive for the burning in the first place. On the other hand, Brazil and other South American countries are developing nations, often strapped with enormous international debt. This requires them to produce goods for export. With a largely illiterate population, the most feasible products are agricultural goods. But agriculture requires land; hence, the burning of the forests.

 Environmental issues that threaten our planet are no longer separable from economic development, consumption patterns, or any other aspect of life anywhere on the planet. If we are to solve or at least put a rein on the greenhouse effect, then the developmental needs of countries like Brazil need to be addressed in a responsible, not exploitative, manner. There is nothing wrong with conditioning debt concessions on adequate efforts to preserve the tropical forests, but such conditions cannot leave the debtor country without any means to support itself. For all too long we have treated the nations of South America and Africa as though they existed simply to provide us with an inexhaustible supply of natural resources. We are now seeing one of the results of this selfish and narrow-minded mentality in the destruction of the Brazilian forests.

 How much do we value the forests of the Amazon? Do we cherish them enough to give Brazil and other Amazonian countries the money required to declare the forest a national- or world heritage park? What if funds were then necessary for massive educational and training programs to enable today's peasants to support themselves without the land they are currently retrieving from the Amazon?

 Ironically, the domesticated jungle does not provide very good farmland or even ranching land, which is one of the reasons that such massive amounts of forest continue to be cut. The peasants clear an area-, then, when it no longer produces adequately, they move on to clear another area. So the question is, why aren't these peasants cultivating the good farmland? This, of course, raises all of the questions of politics in South America where a very few elite control 75 to 95 percent of a nation's assets. Often these governments receive political and financial support from the United States. The questions of international politics and economics is obviously beyond the scope of this book. We merely mention this dimension to draw attention to the interdependence between our foreign policies and the environmental problems we are facing today.

 Senator Robert Kasten of Wisconsin has said, "In my work on the Foreign Operations Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee, I have been shocked to learn the extent to which the United States has actually subsidized this kind of environmental devastation.

"If we're serious about preventing the global greenhouse effect from becoming a disastrous reality, we have to go to the source and make sure our development lending stops financing ruinous projects....

 "The specter of the greenhouse effect will not be laid fully to rest until these concerns become an integral part of America's foreign assistance policy."

 A SIMPLE REMEDY

 Destruction of the Amazon is having a doubly harmful effect first, the huge fires release large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and second, the destruction of the trees decreases the earth's capacity to absorb and neutralize the carbon dioxide. In recognition of the natural capacity of trees to absorb carbon dioxide, scientists from the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) have come up with a particularly brilliant and painless way to help slow down the global warming: Plant more trees. According to the EDF, an additional ten million acres of forest would be able to absorb all the carbon dioxide emitted by power plants to be built in the next decade. Nor is the EDF proposing such a scheme without reasonable and feasible means of implementation. The environmental group suggests that the planting be undertaken by the Federal Conservation Reserve Program, which is a project of the Department of Agriculture. The Federal Conservation Reserve Program encourages farmers to lease land to the government for the planting of the trees. This accomplishes two additional benefits: The project targets lands, which are currently overproducing crops for which the government now pays subsidies, hence saving the taxpayer money, and also seeks out lands subject to erosion, which can benefit by the planting of the trees. The program is estimated to cost between $1 and $2 billion, much of which would be derived by increased assessments on the utilities building the new plants. Although this sounds like a large sum of money, it is by far the most cost-effective means to reduce the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

 Another exciting pro-forest project is already under way due to a major funding grant from the MacArthur Foundation. The foundation gave more than $7.5 million to ten environmental groups working in Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and the Florida Keys to acquire and preserve tropical forest areas in these regions. While these efforts are designed to protect the tropical forests in the United States and its protectorates, they also send positive messages to countries like Brazil that the Americans are at last willing to undertake responsible action themselves. Botanist Peter Raven, one of the leading advocates of rain forest preservation, says, "The U.S. has got to express leadership in the preservation of its own tropical forests." He asks how we can expect other countries to preserve their forests while we continue to destroy our own.

 FACING UP TO REALITY--CURBING FOSSIL FUEL USE

 We here in the United States have also actively contributed to the greenhouse effect by our paving of America. We have chopped down trees, blacktopped fields and meadows, and replaced this vegetation that thrives on carbon dioxide with asphalt roads for our automo­biles. This trend must stop. Take the example of the Santa Clara Valley, about forty miles south of San Francisco, where some of the world's best apricots, cherries, and prunes were once grown. Today, all those fruit trees are gone, the rich orchards paved over to make room for Silicon Valley. in typical California style, the automobile is the only means of transportation for the thousands of people who commute every day to and from various parts of the valley. As each acre of orchard was felled, new cars were added to the valley, until it became what it is today asphalt-paved, grid-locked, smoggy, and a symbol of one of America's greatest contributions to the greenhouse effect.

 A number of years ago the rest of America could have watched that, as it watched Los Angeles, and said, "Well, that's their problem. If they want to live like that, let them go ahead." For most issues, that holds true. No one is going to help California out of gridlock until Californians are ready for it, but we cannot remain so blasé. The time has come for Americans to wake up to what has been abundantly clear for many years. Now our dependence upon the automobile is destroying our environment and very likely our planet. The private car just isn't a viable means of transportation any longer.

 Much of the discussion about curbing the greenhouse effect has centered around the need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from utility plants burning fossil fuels, not decreasing dependence on the automobile. We need to realize that the vested interests of certain industries have worked long and hard to get us to our current dependency on the automobile. The destruction of the public transportation system in Los Angeles is but one example. Likewise, the beleaguered nuclear industry, which has seen each of its plant orders canceled or abandoned during construction since 1974, welcomes predictions of global warming as the long awaited answer to its business woes, evoking promises that only the nuclear industry can provide the panacea for global warming.

 Very little is being said about what is possibly the single greatest contributing factor to the greenhouse effect. Transportation systems consultant Jack Brannan is one of the few who speaks clearly on this point. He says this country's greatest source of air pollution is the internal combustion engine, which powers all our private automobiles and intercity trucks and aircraft. "The number one air polluter in North America is the private automobile, not the coal-fired power plant.... The automobile consumes almost forty-five percent of all the petroleum used in our country every year ... The internal combustion engine's waste products are mainly oxide gases of carbon and nitrogen, plus water vapor. They contribute more than fifty percent to the carbon dioxide content of the air and the acid in acid rain!

 "So, if anything is to be accomplished in controlling the green house effect, plus acid rain, plus smog, petroleum use in transportation will have to be materially reduced.

 "Proper employment of rail mass transit and rail freight can accomplish this reduction in the burning of fossil fuel, especially oil."

 As in every debate about issues requiring change, discussions of a needed decrease in our consumption of fossil fuel draw varying reactions. Most of these reactions can be divided into two camps: the rational and the hysterical. These in turn seem to coincide with the different approaches to the problem.

 The rational camp is largely composed of those people who have chosen to study all the issues carefully, rather than avoiding some or all of them or pretending that they do not exist. Their approach to the greenhouse effect is reasonable, measured, and practical. Their discussions go to the root of the problem and look at long-term, common sense approaches to solving them. Irving Mintzer, a scientist for the World Resources Institute, a Washington, D.C., research center, believes that cuts in carbon dioxide output can be made relatively painlessly and in ways that are beneficial to us in the long run. His proposals include automobiles that get forty miles per gallon rather than the current twenty, more efficient light bulbs and electrical appliances, urban planning that reduces traffic congestion, and a halt to deforestation in the tropics.

 Equally constructive and realistic is atmospheric physicist Michael Oppenheimer of the Environmental Defense Fund. He endorses a solution proposed in a report by two United Nations agencies and a subsequent Canadian government conference: "Use fossil fuels efficiently in the short term, while investing in new energy sources for the long term."

 According to Oppenheimer, efficiency is an important first step in moving to curb our use of fossil fuels. "The United States' economy grew thirty percent over the last fifteen years," he says, "but net energy use hardly budged. A United States carbon dioxide emissions reduction target of twenty percent in the next fifteen years could be reached by further increases in efficiency and some substitution of natural gas for coal and oil."

 More is required than efficiency, however. "Only a gradual switch to renewable sources can fuel industrial growth while capping warming at tolerable levels," says Oppenheimer. Moving toward nonfossil fuel, renewable energy sources demands the expenditure of research and development dollars right now. Otherwise, says Oppenheimer, "ln a decade or two the world will be faced with a Hobson's choice: switch to a full-blown nuclear fission economy or suffer the warming. Given the problems dragging down the nuclear power industry economic, safety, waste, and weapons proliferation issues, the development of renewable energy sources and the diffusion of technology to the fast-growing world is the wisest choice."

Oppenheimer believes that an efficient nonfossil fuel, non-nuclear society is the unavoidable way of the future. He foresees the use of photovoltaic or solar power to generate electricity~- and as to those automobiles that still run on gasoline, they will be averaging one hundred miles per gallon. To the skeptics he replies, "A nation that could put a man on the moon or build the bomb in less than a decade can afford a Manhattan Project for alternative energy. America can either position its industries for the future, or end up buying energy technology elsewhere, as we have done with the high-milage auto."

 As illustrated by Mintzer and Oppenheimer, people in the rational camp take a hands-on pragmatic approach to the problem. They come up with positive and constructive solutions grounded in good common sense. Persons in the opposing camp are noticeably more hysterical and reactionary. To them, doom and gloom is upon us, nothing can be done without totally uprooting society. In short, their message is one of disempowerment, one of being overwhelmed, and for the most part, at least a portion of their bottom line solution lies in nuclear power. There is a consistency in this. Those who are reacting hysterically now are those who have been avoiding and denying the existence of the problem. They are the ones who adhere to the need for more time to study the problem, for more concrete proof. They stall, and find obstacles instead of solutions. Now that they are finally grappling with the problem, they adopt the same irrational and short-term approach that caused them to avoid the problem in the first place.

 THE REBUTTAL

 The arguments of the nuclear industry are persuasive. One industry spokesperson says, "It seems that the major solution that's available presently is to stop burning. The only one you're really left with in a very pragmatic sense is nuclear." Other spokespersons tell us of a new generation of nuclear power plant that has more backup safety systems and is "user friendly." Senator Timothy E. Wirth, a Colorado Democrat, who has introduced a bill to spend $4.3 billion to study the greenhouse effect, says that it is time for the country to get over its case of "nuclear measles." His bill provides $500 million for research on a safer nuclear reactor. "We have to rethink nuclear;" he says. "We really have to start all over again, but we've got time to do it. The environmentalists will come around. They can't help but come around."

 Readers need to remember what has been said previously:

* that power plants represent only a part of the problem, the use of the internal combustion engine and the burning of the tropical forests playing very significant roles as well;

* that even when we are talking about finding solutions to the carbon dioxide emissions of power plants, there are other alternatives to fossil and nuclear energies.

 Photovoltaic energy is a viable alternative, and its costs are dropping. Given the real costs of nuclear energy safety, waste disposal, and nuclear weapons proliferation is it really true that it is our cheapest and most viable alternative? Significant inroads have been made by engineers at the Electric Power Research Institute, a nonprofit group based in Palo Alto, California, in the fabrication of photovoltaic cells to suggest that the technology will soon be competitive with the more expensive fossil fired electric plants.

Efficiency is also a very important factor. Says Scott Denman, director of the Safe Energy Communication Council, a coalition of environmental and antinuclear groups in Washington, D.C., "Today we spend ten percent of our GNP on energy. Japan, our primary competitor in many areas of the economy, spends only five percent on energy. If we want to mine for oil, Detroit is the biggest field we have."

 There are many different scenarios about what life on a warmer planet would be like. Some scientists are saying that the greenhouse effect is upon us, others are making a last ditch effort to rebut the evidence. In January 1989, after the flurry of news stories on the greenhouse effect throughout the summer and fall of 1988, The New York Times ran a story that claimed that "researchers agreed" that the greenhouse effect was not the cause of the 1988 drought and heat waves. "While most climate experts believe that the greenhouse effect ... will have a major impact in the decades ahead&,, even those who argue most strongly for that point of view agree that last year's drought was overwhelmingly a product of natural forces. Even if a warming trend is already under way, as some experts believe, on a year-to-year basis events such as last year's changes in the Pacific exert a far stronger influence on the weather, scientists say."

It appears that scientists who set their mind to it can disprove anything. That is not to say that their theory is not correct. The theory about which "researchers agree" pertains to a strip of abnormally warm water that sometimes stretches westward along the Equator from South America. When this stretch of water, El Nino, comes into contact with another stretch of abnormally cold water, then all sorts of havoc break loose trade winds can collide in unusual places, storms can result that disturb the atmosphere and create high- and low-pressure systems, which can in turn cause a lack of rain.

 it is not clear why scientists can be so certain that all of these climatic coincidences are purely natural phenomena, unrelated to the greenhouse effect. Most scientists who have spoken on the effects of a warming planet indicate that all sorts of climatic, oceanic, and atmospheric changes can take place. While they have computer models of various scenarios, these models are ultimately man-made and cannot anticipate every variable.

 Nineteen eighty-eight was a year of abnormally drastic weather. Apart from what we were experiencing in the United States, an unusually heavy monsoon season brought record floods to Bangladesh, resulting in death and misery. Australia also had unusual rainfall. The outback was greener than ranchers ever remembered seeing it, but the heavy rains damaged crops; and while rains in New South Wales did not reach flooding proportions in the spring and summer, 1988 was one of the wettest years on record.

 We now have a choice. Either we can accept the claims of scientists that the greenhouse effect had nothing to do with this unusual and often ruinous weather, or we can address the inevitable. Even if the droughts, heat waves, and monsoons of 1988 were due to phenomena wholly unrelated to the greenhouse effects, all of the factors contributing toward a warmer planet are still in effect. just because natural phenomena can evoke the same results does not mean that carbon dioxide and other gases in our air are not stilr6uilding up and trapping the radiation from the sun close to the planet and the lower atmosphere. Scientists have already documented a global warming over the last century. As the planet heats up, scientists admit that they do not yet know how the oceans will react. NASA's James Hansen has assumed for the moment that nothing unusual will occur. "The ocean is an uncertainty," he says. -We don't have a good model for ocean circulation. But we assume the ocean will continue to operate in the near future as it has in the past." But Stephen Schneider, a climate specialist from the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, believes that oceanic changes will turn out to play a very important role. According to another specialist, Wallace Broecker of Columbia University, if the seas do change dramatically, "all bets are off."

 Even Hansen's model does not mean that we will see no changes. As the globe heats up, surface temperatures will rise in the oceans as well. That factor alone can cause the destructive force of hurricanes to increase. According to Kerry A. Emanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the energy in a hurricane results primarily from two different factors: the difference in temperature between the surface waters of the ocean and the upper atmosphere, and the difference in pressure between the normal atmosphere and the air mass within the hurricane. Normal atmospheric pressure is about 1,013 millibars. The lowest pressure ever recorded within a hurricane is 870 millibars. Emanuel warns, however, that if the temperature of tropical waters rise, "the minimum pressure possible in hurricanes in the tropics may go down to as little as eight hundred millibars. That would mean the destructive potential of the most intense hurricanes would go up by forty or fifty percent."

 We know that we are emitting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year, and that we are destroying tropical rain forests, thereby lessening the earth's capacity to absorb that carbon dioxide. We also know that the earth's temperature has risen one degree in the last century, and that carbon dioxide combines with other gases to trap the sun's radiation and thereby cause a global warming of the planet. According to Hansen's computer models that means that "the probability of having a hot summer will go up from thirty percent [as it was in the 1950s] to between sixty and seventy percent in the 1990s. That's enough so the man in the street will notice we're having a lot of hot summers."

 Hansen believes 1988 was one degree Celsius above normal for the continental United States. Since that should be typical ten years from now, you can see that one degree is a significant warming.

 So, the question remains: Is the greenhouse effect upon us, or isn't it? Or does it really matter? Our environment is giving us very strong messages that our cooperation is needed if it is going to continue to provide us with a safe, hospitable place to live. Many of the changes necessary to curb a trend toward a warmer planet are changes whose time have come anyway. Decreasing our dependency on fossil fuels, on the automobile, preserving our rain forests, participating on an international level to find ways to growth that do not endanger our environment. Why not learn our lessons now and make life easier for ourselves, future generations, and the planet?

 It is a mistaken belief that the changes are going to bring hardship and deprivation upon us. Thousands of people in this country, for instance, have already moved away from a meat-and-potatoes diet to one rich in grains, fruits, vegetables, and legumes. They are healthier, happier, and have no regrets about leaving red meat behind them. Many more people would readily abandon their cars for mass transit to commute to work each day if such transportation was made available to them. Most would not even object to a reallocation of tax dollars or even a tax increase to subsidize transportation projects. Americans have had very little trouble adapting to smaller, more energy efficient cars throughout the 1970s and 1980s. In fact, with many people finding life much more expensive these days than it was in the past, they would welcome any innovation that would save energy and money.

 It is time for policymakers to realize that the American public is not a gigantic inertial mass that constantly resists change. As Michael Oppenheimer believes, if American policymakers and industries refuse to respond to current demand, we will end up having to go abroad to purchase new technology.

 America has some of the most spectacular national parks, coastal areas, and wilderness areas in the world. We do more fishing, backpacking, cycling, jogging, and other outdoor actn4fies than most other nations do. We lead the world in the pursuit of health, fitness, and exercise. Our environmental groups and conservation efforts are among the best anywhere. America sets trends around the world in music, medicine, film, sports, and environmental awareness. Isn't it time for us to show real leadership to the world when it comes to cleaning up our environment and developing the technology of the future, the technology that aims at preservation rather than destruction of our wonderful planet?

 HANDS-ON SOLUTIONS

 We interviewed Alden Bryant, president of the Earth Regeneration Society, who feels that our food supplies and farms are in serious trouble because of the heat, drought, freezing, and overall climate destabilization caused by the greenhouse effect. About 170 billion tons of CO, need to be taken out of the atmosphere within fifteen years in order for us to get back to our regular living conditions and to prevent our foods from being destroyed.

 Bryant suggests we support the bill presently in Congress to estab­lish a carbon dioxide budget. it will monitor the amount of CO, produced in your area and promote action to help start stabilizing the climate. The California CO, budget is presently a model for the United States and other countries in how to lay out a local jobs program around environmental problems resulting from the greenhouse effect.

We may forget that photosynthesis provides an easy remedy, at least in part, for the greenhouse effect dilemma. To make up for the trees that have been felled in the rain forests of South America and elsewhere, why not plant some additional greenery here at home? In the process of growing and producing their own food, plants and trees absorb CO, from the atmosphere and "breathe out" oxygen. By planting some trees in your yard, near the street, in a park, or even some flower pots on your windowsills, you can help the effort while adding to the natural beauty that surrounds your home. City and state nurseries can provide seedlings free of charge.

 Farmers should be encouraged and helped to plant more trees around farm areas. In addition to stabilizing the oxygen-carbon dioxide balance, they can also protect the land from wind erosion, Farmers should use good rock dust to re-mineralize soil and bring it back up to good natural conditions; to save trees that are dying, add twenty to fifty pounds of good gravel dust or rock dust to the surrounding soil.

 The best solar electric utility in the world is in southern California and supplies power to between 270,000 and 280,000 people. It costs under eight cents a kilowatt-hour and is supplied by the Luz Corporation. This kind of technology can serve most of the country's electrical power needs. Use of solar powered technology can also help cut down on fossil fuel use and acid rain.

More information can be obtained from:

Earth Regeneration Society
(510) 525-4877