Climax...(3/7)

Finally grasped the last chance to watch the exhibition on global warming at Cite des Sciences & de l'Industrie in the 19th arrondisement...The exhibition lasted until July 3.
A bit disappointed by the scale and coverage of the exhibition...I found that the display was actually very brief and yet informative. There was a elementary introduction of the situation of global warming; major sources of CO2 emission as well as its recommended means to tackle the problem such as installing solar absorption plate in Sahara; building windmills in coastal areas etc. to replace the sole reliance of fossil energy for human. There were two screening rooms in the exhibition area producing a graphical presentation of the topic, yet impressive. The most interesting part of the exhibition is the Forum session. There were video clips of interviews with ten experts of the subject discussing issues like the advantages of global warming; the responsibility / liability of global warming in developed and developing countries respectively; alternatives to fossil energy; feasibility of nuclear energy etc. Without offering too much evidence and data back-up, the debates still offered some insights to the issue.
Interestingly, I recognise more that global warming is not a question of science or technology but more a social issue (perhaps an economics topics relating to comparative advantage and externality too). With the continuous development of globalisation, preferences and options between boundaries are getting more and more confronting. The recent incidence of objection to the referendum of EU Constitution is already an obvious example. G8 is another concern to the world now. Inevitably, global warming would be a big problem that the world has yet seriously faced with. A consensus is difficult to reach at the moment. The Kyoto consent has yet been fully implemented by US. Well, the problem of excessive CO2 emission is not only caused by the developing countries like China (of course this is a headache to be seriously tackled before it's getting too late), but also the developed countries, in particular the US. Something worthnoting is that household consumption produces significant emission of CO2, and this speeds up the global warming process. There is a proposal in UK to introduce a CO2 consumption quota for every citizen, and I see this an idea that cannot easily be legislated and implemented, but fruitfully discussable at present.
An impressive figure about France is that around 80% of energy consumed within the country is now generated by nuclear power. The figure massively outcasts that of other developed countries where nuclear power may contribute only about 17% of the total energy generated. The mature development of nuclear power of France partly explains why the G8 considers to build the ITER plant in France instead of Japan, not to mention other political reasons.