The Nation - News from Dec. 11, 1985

Astronomer Carl Sagan said “the time . . . is now” to seek answers to a global warming trend that scientists say will eventually turn Midwestern croplands into dust bowls and flood coastal cities. Sagan, testifying at Senate hearings, said scientists agree the problem is “real” but it is not known exactly when higher temperatures produced by the “greenhouse effect” will reach critical levels. However, “the time to solve the problem is now,” Sagan said at Senate hearings. Sagan, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and television personality, said the greenhouse effect--the trapping of the sun’s heat by the Earth’s atmosphere--makes life possible. But either too much or too little could make the Earth too hot or too cold for life to continue, he said.