Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
nations to ask the industrialized nations alone to
xthe
problem, because they can
t. As I wrote earlier, in
business-as-usual projections (continuing with the same
mix of fuels as the world economy grows), the developing
nations as a whole will emit nearly as much greenhouse gas
from
'
as the industrialized nations will have
done in the three centuries between
to
.There
is no solution to the global warming problem without the
participation of the developing world. Policies have to
re
and
ect reality, and the richer counties will have to take the
lead. There is no excuse for the United States to stand aside
as it has done since
.The
first Kyoto Protocol expires
in
, and any new agreement has to include some gradu-
ated way to include all but the very poorest nations.
In
Garrett Hardin, then a professor of ecology at
the University of California, Santa Barbara, published an
enormously in
uential article,
“
The Tragedy of the Com-
mons
]. The metaphor of the title referred to how
overgrazing occurred on common pasture land in medi-
eval England. It did no good for only one person to limit
his sheep grazing because his contribution was so small.
Only if all worked together to limit grazing could the
common pasture be preserved. Hardin
”
[
'
s
“
Commons
”
today is the Earth
s atmosphere.
We can preserve our atmospheric commons. What we
know, how we know it, what the uncertainties are, and
what we should be doing are the subjects of this topic.
'
.
The Second Edition
The original manuscript of the
first edition was delivered
to my editor, Matt Lloyd, at the beginning of
, and
