NORTH-SOUTH DIFFERENCES, GLOBAL WARMING, AND THE GLOBAL SYSTEM

The questioning of the nineteenth century baseline for anthropogenic c ontributions to global warming is important for its role in a wider de bate about the ''framing'' of this problem between the more-developed and less-developed countries of the world. An analysis of this debate raises such potentially important questions as: (1) How do historical/ developmental differences among nations affect global warming? (2) How does the prior history of one nation affect the subsequent history of another with respect to global warming? And (3), what are the consequ ences of the separation in time (and space) of the capacity to exacerb ate versus mitigate global warming? The larger question underlying all of these is: What is the relationship between differences in national histories, the problem of global warming, and the development of a gl obal system capable of addressing it?