Source: The Vindicator
URL: http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=rKM_AAAAIBAJ&sjid=RVYMAAAAIBAJ&pg=3633,6912687&dq
Date: 12/12/1985
Event: Carl Sagan: Only solar, nuclear and "a new global consciousness" can stop global warming
Credit: The Vindicator
THE VINDICATOR - DEC 12, 1985
Carl Sagan - Fossil fuels bring trouble
By Robert Engelman
Scripps Howard News Service
WASHINGTON - Only major shifts to solar and nuclear energy - and a new global consciousness - can prevent the Earth from warming up in the next century, scientist Carl Sagan predicted Tuesday.
Few scientists now dispute that today's soaring levels of carbon dioxide and other gases in the atmosphere will cause global temperature
averages to rise by as much as nine degrees Fahrenheit sometime after the year 2000, Sagan said.
The Cornell University astronomer and author testified before a Senate subcommittee studying the so-called "greenhouse effect," the
name applied to the predicted phenomenon.
"Here we are pouring enormous quantities of these gases into the atmosphere every year with hardly any concerns for their effects," Sagan said. "The overall picture is quite clear and quite widely accepted."
The only arguments remaining, he said, are over how warm the Earth will get and how long will pass before the process is noticeable.
The warming of the Earth will mean major weather disruptions expected to turn the American Midwestern breadbasket into "semi-desert," returning it to the dustbowl conditions of the 1930s, scientists testifying at the hearing said.
Melting or the polar ice caps - especially the collapse of a vast ice shelf off the Antarctic continent - will cause sea levels to rise by as
much as seven feet, causing flooding of the world's coastal cities, they said. This shift should be evident by the middle of the next century, the scientists predicted, as today's children reach old age.
"We're passing on extremely grave problems for our children," Sagan said. "The time to take action is now."
Both industrial and developing nations should be encouraged to shift to solar and nuclear energy to reduce the burning of wood and
fossil fuels. he said. But he added that he still had reservations about the safety of nuclear energy in the United States.
Growing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, spewed out of the smokestacks and automobiles of industrialized society, cause the
Earth to absorb more of the sun's energy, warming the air. Based on the growing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide alone, the National Academy of Sciences two years ago predicted temperatures could rise eight degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the next century and sea levels move up by 2½ feet.
At the same time, the Environmental Protection Agency examined the contribution of various other atmospheric gases - chlorofluorocarbons, methane and nitrous oxide among them - to global warming.
The study that agency released predicted a nine-degree increase in global temperatures and an eight-foot increase in sea levels.
Unlike Sagan, both the NAS and EPA were pessimistic that serious reductions in fossil fuel use could be achieved early enough to restrain
the coming global warming. The reports suggested that nations begin to prepare now for the impact of climatic change that will be felt
next century.