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U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Greenhouse warming: Abatement and adaptation

Book ·
OSTI ID:6232171

This book focuses on two possible paths of living with a changing climate--abatement and adaptation. The adaptation path is well represented in the book, with chapters on responses to rise in sea level, future agricultural adaptations, Third World agriculture, possibilities presented by currently unmanaged forests, and water resource management. Although the adaptation discussions suggest that adaptive steps will be very difficult and very expensive unless the rate of climate change is slowed, abatement processes are much less well represented in the book. Climate scientists, here and elsewhere, do not report any estimates of how large a decrease in the emissions of infrared-trapping gases would be required in order to slow the climate heating rate by some amount. Only one chapter in the book discusses details of an abatement strategy, that of planting new forests to sequester carbon dioxide and so reduce the annual atmospheric increase. Beyond the discussion of forests, the only consideration of abatement is in a chapter on the use of an economic model to project future carbon dioxide emissions.

OSTI ID:
6232171
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English