Volume 48, Number 11 · July 5, 2001
Some Like It Hot
By Bill McKibben
Climate Change 2001:Third Assessment Report
by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
The Scientific Basis, by Working Group I.
Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability, by Working Group II.
Mitigation, by Working Group III.
("Summaries for Policymakers" available on line at www.ipcc.ch)
National Energy Policy: Report of the National Energy Policy Development Group
Dick Cheney, Colin L. Powell, Paul O'Neill, Gale Norton (Secretary of the Interior), Ann M. Veneman (Secretary of Agriculture), Donald L. Evans (Secretary of Commerce), Norman Y. Mineta (Secretary of Transportation), Spencer Abraham (Secretary of Energy),
US Government Printing Office, $21.00 (paper)
The two documents listed here, each issued since the first of the year, offer competing blueprints for the twenty-first century. They are diametrically opposed in their implications; paying heed to one would mean ignoring the other. Since they concern the greatest threat to Earth's physical stability in human history—the warming of our planet caused by the consumption of fossil fuels—the choice between them carries unusual significance. In fact, it would not be hyperbole to say they outline the first great choice of the new millennium, a choice that may well affect the planet throughout the thousand years to come.
Review, 5505 words
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