四、 Hydrocarbon fuels (chiefly coal, oil and natural gas) were first used to create energyat the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, as mankind began to run short of traditional fuelslike wood and whale oil. The new fuels contained more latent energy than any previouslydiscovered, but they also came with a flaw: the carbon emissions that are an unavoidableby-product of their combustion.          These gases build up in the planet’s atmosphere, where they act like the panes ofglass on a greenhouse, allowing the sun’s warmth in but not back out. As heat that wouldordinarily radiate off into space is instead reflected once again toward the planet’s surface,temperatures begin to rise and the globe begins to warm.           Two of the sharpest spears created by global warming — flooding and drought —account for more than half the world’s deaths from natural disaster. Nations whose landlies close to sea level, like the Netherlands, Bangladesh and Indonesia, are at great risk, asare locations where natural barriers against water have been degraded by man. Scientistsbelieve that Hurricane Katrina would have packed a far less devastating punch if thewetlands that buffer New Orleans from the Gulf of Mexico had not been removed byimprudent levee-building and oil and gas development.