Slashdot Mirror
Cleaner Air Could Speed Global Warming
Hugh Pickens writes "Scientists estimate that the US Clean Air Act has cut a major air pollutant, sulfate aerosols, by 30% to 50% since the 1980s, helping greatly reduce cases of asthma and other respiratory problems. But NPR reports that this good news may have a surprising downside: cleaner air might actually intensify global warming. One benefit of sulfates is that they've been helpfully blocking sunlight from striking the Earth for many decades, by brightening clouds and expanding their coverage. Researchers believe greenhouse gases such as CO2 have committed the Earth to an eventual warming of roughly 4 degrees Fahrenheit, a quarter of which the planet has already experienced. But thanks to cooling by aerosols starting in the 1940s, the planet has felt only a portion of that warming. And unlike CO2, which persists in the atmosphere for centuries, aerosols last in the air for a week at most, so cutting them would probably rapidly accelerate global warming. The author of 'Hack the Planet' says: 'As we take away that unexpectedly helpful cooling mask, we're going to be facing more global warming than we expected.'"
I'm getting pretty tired of everything causing/amplifying global warming. We're fucked, we get it it!
If we are to err, I'd rather we erred on the side of clean air than polluted air.
Climate change scientists have now resorted to trolling us.
Seriously. Cleaner air is bad for the planet? Shut up. As someone who has asthma, this pisses me off. I like breathing, thanks. Stop wasting time blaming the Clean Air Act and look at practical ways to cut carbon emissions in ways that don't knock us back to the stone age.
KTHXBAI.
--
BMO
It is a little know fact that, given the uncertainties of what is happening in our climate system, the warming seen over the last few decades is entirely attributable to the reduction in aerosols in recent years. This is mentioned in WGI chapter 2 of the IPCC report. Of course, that fact didn't make it into the "Summary for Policy Makers." In fairness I should mention that the chances of the temperature change being entirely attributable to the change in aerosols is actually quite low, but it's still something worth considering.
Qxe4
Seriously. Cleaner air is bad for the planet? Shut up. As someone who has asthma, this pisses me off. I like breathing, thanks. Stop wasting time blaming the Clean Air Act and look at practical ways to cut carbon emissions in ways that don't knock us back to the stone age.
This will probably sound wrong, or at least politically incorrect but... Cleaner air can speed global warming while still killing everyone who suffers from asthma.
Natural facts don't usually care about consequences on human health.
So, I think you're point should be more oriented towards something like: "The fact that cleaner air, which we need, may have a cooling effect, should only make us fight much stronger against the original sources of the warming itself."
If the media has taught me anything, it's that every single substance, whether artificial or naturally occurring, both causes and cures cancer.
I didn't see anyone saying that we should start pumping aerosols into the atmosphere again. They're just saying it will have an effect. Would you prefer scientists that pretend nothing good ever has a downside?
why hasn't anyone noticed that the next ice-age is due soon, and maybe it might be a good idea to do something about it?
Martinis and beer are why. They're both better cold.
This ain't rocket surgery.
Air pollution (gases like co2) accelerate global warming.
Air pollution (dust and other stuff that blocks sunlight) slow global warming (aka "global dimming").
Whether or not humans are contributing to this is not an issue I'll get into but these two points are fairly obvious to anyone with half a clue.
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
To paraphrase George Carlin, the planet has been here for what? 4 and a half billion years, and we've been here a hundred thousand years, maybe 200 thousand. And we've only been engaged in heavy industry for a little over 200.
Do the math. If the entire age of the Earth was reduced to one calendar year, when did humans appear?
December 31st, 11:59pm.
The planet isn't going anywhere.
*** WE ARE. ***
IANAS but to the best of my knowledge sulfur aerosols also trigger a complex chemical reaction with notorious pollutant chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) that generates chlorine monoxide (ClO) which destroys ozone.
Destroying ozone is bad? Right? Or scientists would say otherwise? May be that's the major reason why scientists didn't recommend to trigger volcano eruption to negate greenhouse effect back in 90s? Now there're scientists told me aerosols are good? I'm not sure whom to trust anymore.
Anyone would help me citing are welcome, as I've already transformed the corresponding references into carbon dioxide which joined the greenhouse gas party in the heaven.
This has been well known science for many decades. Since long before the media cared about it. So I doubt it is a media scare or Climate change trolls.
I don't think anyone is arguing we repeal the clean air act or anything like that. We all like breathing. Also it really wouldn't help. It'd be like if your house caught fire and to avoid death you go to another room. Sure it helps you ignore the problem a few minutes at best, but you aren't doing fuck all to put out the fire. (apologies for the shitty analogy, where is BadAnalogyGuy when you need him?)
That would be exactly the scientists point.
There really are some studies suggesting small amounts of mercury, and other heavy metals, may be healthy.
Hormetic Effects of Heavy Metals in Aquatic Snails: Is a Little Bit of Pollution Good?
http://www.springerlink.com/content/y54l3x43016p6530/
The Changing Science of Toxicology -- Hormesis Makes a Comeback
http://www.mongabay.com/external/toxicology_1203.htm
Wikipedia entry regarding hormesis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hormesis
Ron
Eminently put. The planet is not in trouble, global warming or not. The planet has been much hotter and much colder, with significantly different atmospheric conditions (higher CO2, higher O2, vastly different contents pre-O2, etc), not to mention the continents that have been in vastly different positions. In fact, the time we are living in is comparably speaking an anomaly. For most of the time since the Earth was formed, there has been no ice on this planet whatsoever.
So the Earth is absolutely not in trouble. We, on the other hand, might be in trouble. If the worst predictions of the climate scientists become reality, sea level rises may destroy a lot of our fixed infrastructure, such as cities. Humanity will likely survive, but life wouldn't be as easy as now.
If we are to err, I'd rather we erred on the side of clean err than polluted err.
"If we continue to cut back on smoke pouring forth from industrial smokestacks, the increase in global warming could be profound," Kintisch writes in an opinion piece for the Los Angeles Times. Kintisch isn't talking about greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide; he's talking about another kind of pollutant we put in the sky -- "like aerosols from a spray can," he tells NPR's Guy Raz. "It turns out that those particles have a profound effect on maintaining the planet's temperature." Greenhouse gases and aerosol pollutants work in opposing ways on the Earth's climate, Kintisch explains. "The greenhouse gases warm the planet when they're emitted, because they absorb heat reflected up from the ground -- the greenhouse effect. These aerosols, though, do the opposite. They block sunlight, they make clouds more reflective -- and by doing that, they actually cool the planet. "The problem is that we're cutting the cooling pollution as we make our air cleaner," he says. Some scientists, he says, are confident that this is connected to global warming, but they don't know how large the effect is. "That's the frightening thing, because if it's a big cooling effect, it means that we've been actually warming the planet more than we know," Kintisch says. "As we take away that unexpectedly helpful cooling mask, we're going to be facing more global warming than we expected.
BINGO!
Dear BonquiquiShiquavius,
The LA Times and NPR aren't part of the scientific community. They reported on a book written by Eli Kintisch who is a journalist who writes about science. Also not really part of the scientific community.
I don't think geoengineering is a viable solution, so I don't care to read Kintisch's book. But in the article he seems to be repeating the well known facts that aerosols cool Earth's surface and have a shorter lifetime in the atmosphere than CO2. This doesn't "wildly contradict previous findings"-- I've been explaining for years that these nuances are described in detail by the IPCC AR4 WG1 report.
Sincerely,
A dumb member of the scientific community
Climate change scientists have now resorted to trolling us.
Seriously. Cleaner air is bad for the planet? Shut up.
It would be nice if it were simple, wouldn't it? If we could just say "pollution bad, stopping pollution all good effects."
Grow up. Reality is often quite a bit more complicated than we'd like it. Wshat seem like mixed messages mirror that. Cholesterol can be good and bad, different types. People shouldn't use heroin, but for a small subset of users, sudden withdrawal can actually cause death. Antibiotics kill bacteria in an infected patient, but if you dump in enough drugs to kill all the bugs at once the patient could also die because of an immune response to a chemical released by the dying bacteria.
It's entirely possible that some pollutants are currently having good effects, and when we clean up our act things will get worse before they get better. Shooting the messengers is an immature response.
Anyway, this business about this pollutant countering global warming has been known since the early 90's at least. It's not like the scientists just suddenly made this up, you just weren't paying attention until it showed up on slashdot.
You mean something like volcano ash, but higher?
Hmm... maybe we need a bigger volcano...
>>However the current ecosystem is in a bit of peril, some say that we're currently living through the 6 great extinction of earth, but iirc the jury is still out on that one.
Yeah. While species are going extinct, it's not the "10,000 species a day going extinct" bullshit I heard every time I went to the San Diego Zoo back in the 1980s. The study for that number was based on insect surveys. They dug up a 10 meter square patch of earth, counted the species, then counted them again the next year. Stag horn beetles moved 30' away? They're extinct!
It's one of those memes that everyone knows, but doesn't know just how badly that number was derived.
The actual number of species going extinct is actually very hard to calculate, but it's nowhere near these humans-are-evil numbers tossed around by tree huggers. Just by way of reference, there's only a million animal species or ten on the planet. If these numbers were true, there'd be negative 90 million species left by today.
The author of 'Hack the Planet' says: 'As we take away that unexpectedly helpful cooling mask, we're going to be facing more global warming than we expected.'
...along with more CO2-scrubbing photosynthesis caused by more sunlight reaching the the ground. Did he not consider this?
>>It would be nice if it were simple, wouldn't it? If we could just say "pollution bad, stopping pollution all good effects."
Indeed. When lecturing on AGW last Thursday, it was amusing when my students asked if the volcano erupting was good or bad for the environment.
The simple fact is that there's no simple answer. If you're an endangered bird who only nests on whatever-the-hell that volcano is, you're pretty much fucked. If contrails from airplanes have a cooling effect, then grounding a bunch of planes might warm the atmosphere. The particulate matter will slightly cool the atmosphere. If you're a specialized form of algae that eats volanic ash in saltwater, it might be great for you, but terrible for the fish nearby.
The really tragic fact about Greens, is that they're stupid. They simply don't understand that every choice is always a mixture of pros and cons, good effects and bad effects and side effects. Their mindset (based on the precautionary principle) is that if ANYTHING is negative about an option, they must file a lawsuit and get it banned.
This has led to:
1) A ban on nuclear power here in California. 40% of America's CO2 comes from coal and gas energy plants - if we'd gone nuclear since the 70s we'd have not killed tens of thousands of people (what? people die from coal?), and met every CO2 target out there, beyond Copenhagen or the farcical disaster that is Kyoto.
2) The Sierra Club successfully shutting down a massive solar plant. (What? Solar is a green energy? But think of all the DESERT that would be covered by those panels! 25 tortoises live there!) Good luck getting more companies to put money into proposing green power generators, assholes. Similar stories exist for wind and tidal projects across the country.
3) Demolition of hyrdoelectric dams. (What? Hydro is a green source of energy!? But fish are friends, not food!) Spending $300M to blow up two hydro plants seems like a good investment, right? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elwha_Ecosystem_Restoration)
4) The introduction of the SUV. CAFE killed the station wagon, but idiot legislation can't kill demand for a product. So we no longer have the wood-paneled station wagon (1972 Country Squire: 18MPG) and now have the most Green-hated thing ever, the SUV (2009 Nissan Armada: 14 MPG).
5) The Clean Air Act lowering particulate counts, as the article says. Not that Clean Air is a bad thing - I certainly wouldn't want to live next to one of those belching, polluting smokestacks. (Like the cooling tower on a nuclear plant, like idiot wunderkind Al Gore showed in an Inconvenient Truth, but I digress.) But it does reduce the "protective" cooling effect particulate matter has in the atmosphere.
As long as idiot Greens continue thinking in all-or-nothing terms, they'll continue making decisions that are horribly bad both for the environment and for the economy.
>>They want to pump sulfur compounds into the atmosphere, including. When I heard this, also on NPR, I wanted to scream, "What about acid rain you stupid fuckers!?"
They've thought about it. I've read the analysis and it's reasonable. The reason WHY they want to use SO2/SO4 is because we know that this is what happens when volcanoes erupt, and it doesn't cause catastrophic effects. There's plenty of other possible solutions - really, anything that increases the albedo and cloud nucleation would work. I think they've also suggested salt sprayers, for example.
Given how cheap it would be to build one of these things (Bill Gates could fund it out of his evil scientist slush fund), I find it hilarious and sad at the same time that people will talk about how great the threat of AGW is on one hand, and absolutely, positively, refuse to consider any alternative besides us moving into caves and eating granola all day. (And 6 billion people dying in the process, but it's considered gauche to talk about that.)
Hey, could everyone please stop using words like "denialists" and "deniers" to describe those who believe concerns about anthropogenic global climate change are overstated? Labels like "denier" really don't foster open and thoughtful discussion, and it shows a certain contempt for independent thought. Let's attack and defend ideas, not people.
There are lots of idiot "deniers" (the Fox News viewer) and idiot "believers" (the California soccer mom saving the planet with her Prius). If we're trying to have a productive discussion about A-GCC, these people should be ignored, since they only rile people up and make them forget about the important details
For those "believers" out there looking to challenge their own views, there are some thoughtful "denier" arguments about A-GCC that you should read. The "believers" out there have an intellectual duty to read them, just as "deniers" have an obligation to contemplate arguments from "believers". If you're on a "side" with A-GCC, you're probably doing it wrong, because the scientific method isn't about picking sides.
Here's an excellent speech from a well-known "denier".
*Disclaimer: I personally don't know what the hell's going on with A-GCC, and I don't think anyone really does. I have seen thoughtful, analytical, convincing arguments from "believers" and "deniers" alike. I have also smelled a lot of money getting involved on both "sides", which makes me even more hesitant to trust anything I read. The oil industry is on the "denier" side, and Goldman Sachs is on the "believer" side. I don't know which I trust less.
Luckily, someone has condensed the opinions of that most reliable of sources, the Daily Mail, into a handy list!
"Climate change scientists have now resorted to trolling us."
Climate scientists have known about the negative forcing of areosols since at least the 1950's. It's the half truth behind the widely repeated troll that "most climate scientists predicted an ice age in the 70's". I know of no reputable climate scientist* who would advocate repealing the clean air act and going back to pea-soupers and acid rain as a sane method of tackling AGW.
* = Eli Kintisch (the author of the original opinion piece in the LA times), does not advocate increasing pollution. He is simply pointing out that man made areosols are currently masking the full impact of CO2 emissions. His book Hack the Planet is an informative work about the pros and cons of geoengineering options that governments may be tempted to consider if things continue on a BAU basis. As the Nature review points out; "Kintisch is skeptical about the idea that we can tame and control ecosystems, let alone the whole planet."
Like the vast majority of scientists his prefered geoengineering option is to wind down the current uncontrolled geoengineering experiment in a responsible manner, but as we have seen there is some mighty stiff oposition against that option from powerfull vested interests. And how surprising is it to learn that they are the same vested interests who, for almost a century, successfully used anti-science and economic alarmisim to fight tooth and nail against any and all proposals for clean air regulations?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
the planet has been here for what? 4 and a half billion years, and we've been here a hundred thousand years, maybe 200 thousand. And we've only been engaged in heavy industry for a little over 200.
Not according to the next US president.
"His thing is geo-engineering though, so his take is that this means we must start geo-engineering now.
No it doesn't, Kintisch is a reporter for the journal Science and as this Nature review of his book points out...
"Both Goodell and Kintisch make it clear that geoengineering is at best a complement to drastic cuts in carbon dioxide emissions. “We have to immediately launch a worldwide program to stop polluting our atmosphere with this surprisingly pernicious trace gas,” Kintisch argues. Most scientists feel much the same, viewing geoengineering strictly as a possible emergency backup plan that should be used only if things get really dire....[snip]...Kintisch also digs deeper than Goodell into explaining the details of how geoengineering might work — and why it would be so difficult to do well....[snip]...That's not to say Kintisch argues in favour of geoengineering, but that he writes from firmly within the world of science, and for an audience who's comfortable with science, too....[snip]...Kintisch is sceptical about the idea that we can tame and control ecosystems, let alone the whole planet."
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
the people who are firmly in the man made global warming camp will keep throwing things at the wall until something sticks.
In the last year or so it really comes across as if they are desperate to find an angle. When holes (read doubt) start getting punched in one idea they first defend it by relentless attacking those who question it and then they drop their stance and move to another idea. It really has gotten old. Too many of them have vested interest in companies that are making a killing off the whole FUD (both sides do it, but the MMGW side is king lately) and they just come across as bad marketers.
After reading this story it all comes down to, we are damned if we do and we are damned if we don't.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
There has been extensive reporting that the lack of statisticians in the climate research area is a problem.
Some chap called Wegman did a report for the NAS (National Academy of Sciences) that was rather critical of the lack of statistical expertise, and some of the most consistent complaints about climate research are in the area of statistics.
I'm not an expert and don't have an opinion on this, though!
Rational thought is the only true freedom
The irony is that you ask people to not have such a black and white view on the environment, yet you have a black and white view on politics. When environmental issues come up, it is always very complicated. It is NEVER just greens being naive.
For example, in the wiki article that YOU site, it claims the removal of the dam was for reasons of safety, the salmon, erosion, and nutrients in the riverbed. Which of those is a "green" issue? While "green" folks supported this in various ways, I'm sure there where others who supported this for selfish reasons.
The dam wasn't producing much power either. It could have had a system to support the salmon. It was built unsafely, even broke at first, but was hacked together later. I think the point with that dam is that it was a piece of crap that did more harm than good.
Wait! you found the missing link!
It's not that everything gives you cancer....
It's that the MEDIA gives you cancer!
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
"The fact that cleaner air, which we need, may have a cooling effect, should only make us fight much stronger against the original sources of the warming itself."
So... you're planning to get rid of the Sun? ;)
Of course I didn't RTFA.
>>You mix up the meaning of the precautionary principle. It's not the idea of not doing anything because something might have something negative. Rather, often, if something has great risks, even if relatively unlikely, it is better to do the other alternative. And the more unknown things are, the more cautious you should be.
No, I hit the precautionary principle dead on. It paralyzes the decision making process by replacing the weighted balance of pros and cons (which is the alternative, mind you) by allowing anything to block action.
In practice, it means that no power plants get built for thirty years in a state that has grown rather significantly since then.
The worst part is, people don't even realize it is self-contradictory. Sometimes doing nothing is the worst possible alternative, by a long shot.
>>The irony is that you ask people to not have such a black and white view on the environment, yet you have a black and white view on politics.
Since I apparently have a black and white view of politics, I'm vastly interested in what you think those are.
>>For example, in the wiki article that YOU site, it claims the removal of the dam was for reasons of safety, the salmon, erosion, and nutrients in the riverbed. Which of those is a "green" issue?
Indeed. (I'm aware of this, having linked the article for you to read.) As I said with the volcano example, there's always a lot of effects, both good or bad, with every decision. But the trend in general to blow up dams is a very troubling one. We need more power plants, not less.
And flood control is a not-insignificant issue, also. In Japan, the Shinto nature-loving country on the other side of the Pacific, every single (well, over 95%) of every river and stream in Japan is dammed. Mainly for flood control issues, but they also produce about 10% of their total power needs from hydro in places like (the very lovely) Kiso River Valley. It's quite jarring to the American eye to see square waterfalls, square streams, and massive hydro plants in the middle of what could be their Yosemite Valley. But they do have something to it.
They won't have to — under the current rate of ignoring the problem, Earth will take care of the mass extinction on its own.
"I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain