Introduction - Beyond Smoke and Mirrors - page 5

Next is a review of what the economists say about the
best way financially of controlling emissions. There are

no economists that I know who are saying do nothing
now. The argument is over how fast to go. The natural
removal time for the major greenhouse gases is measured
in centuries, so if we wait until things get bad we will have
to live with the consequences for a long time, no matter
how hard we try to fix things. The issue is the problem

that we will leave to our grandchildren.
Part II goes on to look at the sources of anthropogenic
(human-caused) greenhouse gas emissions and what we
might do about them. Two broad categories dominate: the
energy we use to power our civilization; and agriculture and
land-use changes that have accompanied the increase in
world population. I focus on energy use, which is responsible
for % of greenhouse gas emissions. Agriculture and land-

use changes contribute the other

%of emissions, but their
coupling to food production and the economies of the poor
countries are not well understood. I leave this to others,
except for biofuels which are part of the energy system.
I review what kinds of energy we use in the world
economy and what each contributes to greenhouse gas
emissions. The conclusion is the obvious one: fossil fuels
are the culprit, and the only way to reduce their use while
economic growth continues is by some combination of
increased ef ciency and a switch to sources of energy that

do not emit greenhouse gases either by their nature or by
our technology. In truth, we can continue our old ways of
using fossil fuels for about another t

care about our grandchildren. Even with business as usual
there are unlikely to be supply problems until the second
half of the century, though there may be price problems.

years if we don '