``We have a daunting task ahead of us to dramatically change the way in which we fuel our economy over the next half century,'' said Tim Wirth, outgoing U.S. undersecretary of state for global affairs. ``And that's going to require a very significant technological revolution.''
* What if rich countries with large investments in fossil-fuel technology _ like the oil- and gas-powered electricity plant at Port Everglades _ are allowed to keep using more than their fair share of fuel as allowed by a climate-change treaty? And in exchange, they must help developing countries install newer, cleaner technologies? The Clinton administration is counting on this to ease the transition in the United States.
* How do you weigh the benefits you get from cutting back on fossil fuel use _ if Sally Shanks' farm is saved, for instance? What about health damages caused by dirty air? A study released last month by the World Resources Institute calculated that some greenhouse gas targets being considered in Kyoto could save about 700,000 lives each year because of cleaner air.
* Would people and businesses change their behavior? If fuel taxes are raised, would consumers simply grumble and pay more? Or reduce their fuel use? Would manufacturers install energy-efficient equipment? Or cut their production?
A group of about 2,500 U.S. economists, including eight Nobel Laureates, earlier this year said if the free market is leveraged to reduce the nation's dependence on fossil fuels, ``. . . sound economic analysis shows that there are policy options that would slow climate change without harming American living standards, and these measures may in fact improve U.S. productivity in the long run.''
The negotiators in Kyoto will not tell individual nations how to cut fuel use. But many observers expect a tax to be imposed to discourage fuel use in the United States. How high that tax is set and how the money is used could have a big effect on the U.S. economy.
By some industry estimates, reaching the goals proposed by Clinton would require raising gasoline prices 26 cents a gallon and electricity rates an average of 28 percent. Higher industry estimates call for 50-cent-a-gallon gas tax increases. Environmentalists call estimates in that range completely overblown.
There's more than one way to handle this, though.
Some economists oppose a tax now, arguing that the same cutbacks on fossil fuel could be achieved less painfully later when climate-friendly energy technologies are more efficient.
But there's another way: Let's say taxes go up 10 cents a gallon on gas and $20 a month on a $150 electric bill, and that those taxes would gradually increase. In exchange, let's say you get a modest cut in your income tax.
What would you do? You might buy efficient-but-expensive light bulbs, get the old jalopy tuned up and inflate the tires correctly while you're at it. Combine that trip to the post office with one to the grocery store.
The effect would be to reward you for working more, which helps the economy, and penalize you for driving or using electricity, which causes pollution, the World Resources Institute study maintains.
Farmers in jeopardy
As a wagon takes corn out of a harvester and prepares to unload it in her dump truck, Sally Shanks explains how she and her husband, Jim, are struggling to preserve a way of life in the Bay Delta despite the floods and other problems.
``We love the delta, love what we're doing here,'' she says.
Delta farmers fear that the state may just give up on protecting their farms. The water engineers could just build a huge canal around the place to deliver water to Los Angeles and the rest of the state, leaving the farmers without a water supply.
But over the long term, they know that rising seas and a warming world could mean the end of this way of life they love _ not for them, but for a future generation of farmers.
Jim holds out hope that somehow nuclear energy can be salvaged, its waste products somehow turned harmless. That way people could quit using the fossil fuels that appear to be warming the world.
But neither Sally nor Jim is hoping for much from the meeting in Kyoto.
Says Sally, ``If it was easy, it would have been solved a long time ago.''