Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
preindustrial level, but only if they get to work, and if the
largest emitters set an example that the rest of the world
can follow. In the United States and the European Union
there is much talk about reducing emission to
% below
their
. That is probably not
possible for the rich countries using only today
values by the year
s technol-
ogy, and is certainly not possible for poor countries that
are trying to increase their per capita incomes and move
up out of poverty. The rich countries have to develop the
needed technologies for all to use, and some accommoda-
tion is required between what the rich are expected to do
and what the poor are expected to do. Later I will show
what a pro
'
le of world average emissions versus time has
to be to stabilize the atmosphere at some agreed green-
house gas level (I use double the preindustrial level).
When the world agrees on a program, the rich countries
will have to do more and the poor countries less initially,
while later all will have to do the same thing.
I have two very young granddaughters, and it would
not be responsible of me to leave this problem to them.
Whatever problem we leave them will take centuries to
fix. With apologies to Shakespeare, I rewrite Hamlet
'
s
soliloquy as:
To act, or not to act: that is the question:
Whether
tis nobler in the mind to have our children suffer
The slings and arrows of global warming,
Or to take arms against this sea of troubles, And by opposing
end them?
'
Ending them is what we should be doing. How to act and
how fast to act are the next questions.
