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Confronting the Climate-Energy Challenge

^* Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University
20 Oxford Street
Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
E-mail: schrag{at}eps.harvard.edu

Combustion of coal, oil, and gas has raised the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to levels higher than they have been for millions of years. A brief review of the history of Earth's climate puts the next hundred years in its natural context, suggesting that most predictions based on climate models may be underestimating the problem. Reducing risks of future climate change requires changes in existing energy systems. These changes will be in three areas: increasing energy efficiency, increasing the stock of non-fossil energy generation, and adopting technologies for capturing and storing carbon dioxide from fossil fuels.

KEYWORDS: climate change, paleoclimate, energy, carbon sequestration