Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Greenhouse Earth
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If this were a science
fiction story, I would tell of the
underground cities on Mars that get their heat from the
still-warm core of the planet. I would tell of the under-
ground cities on Venus too, and their struggle to insulate
themselves from the killing heat of the surface. In the
story I would sympathize with the Martians because
through no fault of their own, they lived on a planet that
was too small to keep its atmosphere and with it the
greenhouse effect that kept it warm enough for liquid
water to
flow. As for the Venusians, I would write with
sadness of their blindness to the dangers of global
warming and the runaway greenhouse effect that forced
them underground.
There is no question about the reality of the green-
house effect, even from those who still deny that human
activities have anything to do with global warming. This
chapter and the next three tell the story of how we can be
so sure there is an effect, why almost everyone has
finally
concluded that our planet is getting warmer and that we
are primarily responsible for it, and what the future holds
if we continue on our present course.
To understand the issues, we can call on information
about other planets in our Solar System as well as on what
we can measure on our own. We and our nearest neigh-
bors, Venus, closer to the Sun, and Mars, further out, are
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