I’m not posting the link because The Economist is trash.
The aerosol masking effect is a real thing, and a reduction in aerosols (mostly due to burning less coal) is probably responsible for some of the very rapid warming we’ve seen recently. The important thing to keep in mind, though, is that it is the aerosol masking effect: it was hiding some of the warming that was already baked into the system. Cutting this stuff will result in less warming in the long run, and anything we’re seeing as a result of aerosols precipitating out was already there and inevitable. We’re just seeing something that was hidden before. It’s like someone with the flu stopping Tylenol and blaming the Tylenol for the fever.
Well put! It’s so frustrating how they take a sort-of-truth and strip it of context to paint a picture of China being so nefarious and ebil. It’s now their fault for showing us all how much worse it was the whole time!
Non-falsifiable orthodoxy and yadda yadda. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
Lifting their population out of poverty also ruined their economy somehow.
Air pollution used to cool the world
That bit’s actually sort of true albeit phrased in a horrible misleading and overly broad way. Certain pollutants, sulfides mainly IIRC, increase the albedo of the atmosphere and so reduced the impact of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses.
This is, of course, at the cost of causing toxic acid rain and other problems, hence why there’s been a concerted effort to reduce or eliminate them wherever possible. I believe they also tend to go along with the kinds of pollution that really fuck up the surrounding area and make it unlivable with smog, too, so there’s also an immediate pragmatic reason for eliminating them even when “this has serious widespread negative consequences that directly endangers infrastructure, agriculture, and the environment” isn’t enough to convince authorities to take action.
If you’re old enough to remember “acid rain” being a big topic in the 90s that kind of fell off the radar, like the “hole in the ozone layer”, this is why. The pollutants causing it have been significantly reduced across the world (as have the chemicals responsible for punching a hole in the ozone layer).
Iirc improvements to catalytic converters are a huge part of what reduced the pollutants causing acid rain
Damn! Yeah sucks we lost all that good pollution.
Anyway, let’s not get distracted. There’s still patches of snow and rain forest.
If he’s talking about aerosols, sure I guess….oh great, the porks will claim that they only pollute for our own good, aren’t they?
don’t cut the harmless gray clouds! You’re letting the scary red into the pretty blue!!BUT
AT
WHAT
COST
Sure, we kept huge piles of oily rags, old newspapers, and years worth of dead Christmas trees; while using unattended space heaters and candles. But the real villain responsible for burning down the house is the guy who let air in when he opened a window to escape the conflagration!
it would be cool if jpegs somehow kept track of how many times they had been recompressed over years of being posted and reposted
wonder what the top images would be if you ranked them by that number
You know I keep that mf thang on me
wot
Wood-chipper
