A report released last week by the U.S. climate science program paints a murky but grim picture of the effort needed to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Three independently developed models of how that might be done came up with costs that varied by a factor of 8 and ranged to "substantial" levels, even with some optimistic assumptions. "Technically," stabilizing atmospheric greenhouse gases "is not impossible," concluded report author ]ames Edmonds of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Similar work summarized by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggested that tackling the problem "is affordable," says economist William Pizer, of Washington, D.C.-based Resources for the Future, who said this report's "central tendencies" were "closer to the truth."
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