Professor John Schellnhuber of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, one of the key advisors to the German government, suggested that North Americans know less about climate change than just about anyone else in the world.
Scientific illiteracy is not a badge of honor.
Yet there’s already a great shift occurring. Recent market analysis show that biomass-sourced fuels are expected to take 25% of the US gasoline market by 2030.
The science is increasingly clear that holding the global average temperature increase to no more than 2 degrees Celsius is likely to be essential for keeping climate change to a manageable level. It is likewise clear that having a good chance of meeting this goal requires that global emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping pollutants should level off by about 2020 and shrink thereafter to something like 50 percent of the current levels by 2050, with continuing declines after that. Economic and political realities, including recognition that emissions from the industrialized countries have caused the largest part of the problem up until now, suggest that the United States and other industrial nations should take the lead in this effort, reducing our emissions to well below current levels by 2020.