“The doomsday headlines (Sunbelt Moving North, Warming Spells Disaster) were unduly alarmist, and much of the information was well known to scientists. But last week a media brouhaha was triggered by new studies from the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Academy of Sciences. Both groups agreed on a startling prognosis: the earth is warming up from all the carbon dioxide being spilled into the atmosphere by the burning of fossil fuels, and worse, the first effects of the climatic changes could be felt as early as the 1990s. The EPA predicted temperature increases of nearly 4° F by the year 2040; a rise in sea levels of 2 feet by 2025 (thereby inundating some low-lying areas in coastal cities such as Charleston, S.C., and Galveston, Texas); and drastically changing rainfall patterns, especially in the breadbasket areas of the Midwest, where reduced precipitation could jeopardize crops.
Posted on: Wed, 18 Sep 2013 11:40:26 +0000
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