Hold Your Breath, Or We're All Gonna Die!

In order to avert a global warming catastrophe, we have to achieve zero carbon emissions by midcentury. Who's going to tell China and India? On the other hand, some people think (well, one guy thinks so anyway) that we'll be 100% solar by then.

The task of cutting greenhouse gas emissions enough to avert a dangerous rise in global temperatures may be far more difficult than previous research suggested, say scientists who have just published studies indicating that it would require the world to cease carbon emissions altogether within a matter of decades.

Their findings, published in separate journals over the past few weeks, suggest that both industrialized and developing nations must wean themselves off fossil fuels by as early as mid-century in order to prevent warming that could change precipitation patterns and dry up sources of water worldwide.