Global Warmers and Global Coolers A Cross-National Examination of Global Warming Dynamics

Carbon dioxide emissions are the largest anthropogenic contributor to global warming, a chief concern our society faces today. Carbon sequestration is a naturally occurring process of carbon absorption by the atmosphere, oceans, and terrestrial ecosystems, thereby decelerating warming trends. Indeed, the conservation of land to optimize carbon storage is an especially important strategy for nations to lessen changes in the greenhouse effect. Due to the significantly greater capacity of trees for carbon uptake per unit area compared to other vegetation, abundant national forests remain an especially critical defense against these noxious pollutants. Applying available cross-national data on carbon dioxide emissions and forest biocapacity (i.e., carbon storage capacity), the authors derive estimates for each country's net contribution to, or alleviation of, global warming trends-what we refer to as the "climate footprint." This is a new addition to the large literature on national greenhouse gas emissions and forestation dynamics as they relate to global warming that has not been examined empirically in the environmental sociology literature. We seek to fill this gap by constructing structural equation models with the climate footprint of nations as the dependent variable. Findings support world-system theory with mixed support for world polity predictions. The authors conclude with a discussion of the findings, public policy implications, and directions for future research.