Slashdot Mirror
More on Global Dimming
dtolman writes "According to the New York Times (registration required) if the world seemed brighter to our grandparents 50 years ago, they were right. While the sun's output hasn't dropped, the amount of sunshine reaching the Earth's surface has dropped an average of 10% since the 1950's. In Hong Kong, the sunlight reaching the surface has decreased even more - 37%! Scientists are theorizing that this is mainly due to air pollution - so this trend might reverse if air pollution clears up." We had a another story on global dimming last year.
For a second there, I was under the impression that this was a study on the intelligence of humans.
*whew*
Here is a copy of the exact same news story that does not require a registration link.
Stories like this are typically SYNDICATED, which means that you can find the exact same thing in 50 or so other newspapers, right?
Why, oh why, do people choose to link to a page that requires registration when it's totally unnecessary?
Finally, does this remind anyone else of the Animatrix, on how the skies were darkened to stop the machines?
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
Before anybody asks the question we know you want to ask:
There's heat, and then there's visible light. They ain't the same thing.
Just because it's "dimmer" doesn't mean it isn't getting warmer.
There, I feel better.
Future not so bright, shades no longer required.
to make sure that solar energy will never be cost-effective. Clever, but diabolical.
Wrong. (Not just because you're too lazy to provide any links. You know, like this or maybe this.)
No, you're actually wrong because you fail the reading (and understanding) the articles test - it didn't warm the earth up. It increased the temperature range for each day - that is, both the high and the low temperature - just like a clear day versus an overcast one.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
This from Environmental History Timeline:
1661 -- John Evelyn writes "Fumifugium, or the Inconvenience of the Aer and Smoake of London Dissipated" to propose remedies for London's air pollution problem. These include large public parks and lots of flowers. http://users.synflux.com.au/~ant/Evelyn/fumifug.h
"The immoderate use of, and indulgence to, sea-coale in the city of London exposes it to one of the fowlest inconveniences and reproaches that can possibly befall so noble and otherwise incomparable City... Whilst they are belching it forth their sooty jaws, the City of London resembles the face rather of Mount Aetna, the Court of Vulcan... or the suburbs of Hell [rather] than an assembly of rational creatures..."
In his diary, Evelyn writes in 1684 that smoke was so severe "hardly could one see across the street, and this filling the lungs with its gross particles exceedingly obstructed the breast, so as one would scarce breathe."
And this from Air Pollution:
In the Middle Ages London air was so polluted by smoke from coal fires that in 1273 Edward I passed a law banning coal burning in an attempt to curb smoke emissions. In 1306 a Londoner was tried and executed for breaking this law. Despite this, pollution was not checked, and on one occasion in 1578 Elizabeth I refused to enter London because there was so much smoke in the air. Smoke killed vegetation and ruined clothes, and the acid in it corroded buildings.
I always wondered if this early pollution may have contributed to Europe's mini-ice age
The folks in Pittsburgh during industrialization are familiar with the loss of sunlight. So were those in London and Manchester in England during industrialization there. The "English Disease", or rickets, resulted from low levels of vitamin D production due to a lack of sunlight attributable in part to (1) long working hours out of the sun and (2) particulate pollution from burning coal.
An interesting book that deals, in part, with that is Coal: A Human History. Also available here or from your local library.
GF.
Lots of petrified grits