Air Pollution Falls By Unprecedented Levels In Major Global Cities During Coronavirus Lockdowns (cnn.com) 176
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: Lockdowns restricting travel and industry imposed to halt the spread of coronavirus have resulted in unprecedented reductions in deadly air pollution around the world, new analysis shows. Major cities that suffer from the world's worst air pollution have seen reductions of deadly particulate matter by up to 60% from the previous year, during a three-week lockdowns period. Researchers from IQAir -- a global air quality information and tech company -- studied 10 major cities around the world which have relatively high numbers of coronavirus cases and Covid-19 lockdown measures.
The study compared levels of harmful microscopic particulate matter known as PM 2.5. The pollutant, which is smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, is considered particularly dangerous as it can lodge deep into the lungs and pass into other organs and the bloodstream, causing serious health risks. Seven out of the 10 cities studied, including New Delhi, Seoul, Wuhan and Mumbai, saw significant improvements in air quality. Those with historically higher levels of PM2.5 pollution witnessed the most substantial drops in pollution. The report was released to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, which this year is focused on climate action. The report's authors say that while they do expect air pollution to rise again when economies restart after coronavirus, "out of these extraordinary circumstances, we can see how changes in our society's activities can have a momentous impact on our environment and the air we breathe," said IQAir's marketing specialist Kelsey Duska.
The study compared levels of harmful microscopic particulate matter known as PM 2.5. The pollutant, which is smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, is considered particularly dangerous as it can lodge deep into the lungs and pass into other organs and the bloodstream, causing serious health risks. Seven out of the 10 cities studied, including New Delhi, Seoul, Wuhan and Mumbai, saw significant improvements in air quality. Those with historically higher levels of PM2.5 pollution witnessed the most substantial drops in pollution. The report was released to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, which this year is focused on climate action. The report's authors say that while they do expect air pollution to rise again when economies restart after coronavirus, "out of these extraordinary circumstances, we can see how changes in our society's activities can have a momentous impact on our environment and the air we breathe," said IQAir's marketing specialist Kelsey Duska.
Takeaway: Stay in a walled garden (Score:2, Interesting)
Or metaphysical equivalent.
Solveable (Score:5, Insightful)
The deniers always claim we can't fix things. This shows how simple things actually work. Change to electric cars (and the power plants from fossil fuels) and we can have this nice clean air all the time.
Of course idiot deniers is going to pretend that we want the current crisis - we don't (nobody but a shmuck would - and believing we do insults their own intelligence more than ours). We want to upgrade out tech so that it is just as good as the current situation. Which modern tech already can do, it just needs to be cheaper. And cheap comes from research.
Re:Solveable (Score:4)
You forgot "shut down all industry" as part of your list of things that need to change. That massively dropped air pollution in Europe? That just happens to be in its major industrial areas. It's not just people with cars, it's the work they do as well.
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It's extremely hard for me to believe there's much pollution inside of an average US or European city that isn't car related.
Europe is not the US, and there is plenty of industry left here (how did you think Germany gets the biggest trade surplus in the world?). Industry in this context means chemical, oil, steel, etc. - what we commonly refer to as "heavy industry". Here's before and after pictures of the Netherlands:
https://nos.nl/artikel/2328537... [nos.nl]
Notice how "before" there was lots of activity to the left of Amsterdam (the harbor is an industrial zone, with a big steel plant among other things), to the left of Rotterdam (aka.
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"This shows how simple things actually work."
Yes, very simple - it only takes something effortless and painless like a global epidemic, widespread deaths, and a crash of pretty much the entire planet's retail economy to sort of start reaching a world you want to see.
"simple"
Maybe all out genocide would finally let you reach your goals completely? That's simple too.
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Give it time. Long term factors and recent developments in renewable energy does not favor hydrocarbons (particularly oil).
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My neighbor even has a pair of Tesla PowerWalls to go with his PV cells. That's how he charges his Tesla Model X.
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There are three reasons that I know of why electric cars will not be practical for a while to come, and none of them have to do with electrical grid capacity.
The first is that they are more expensive than a conventional automobile in an otherwise equivalent class. Typically, the difference in price is more than what you would have spent on gasoline over the course of one or sometimes even more years. While this is more than compensated for over the lifetime of the vehicle if you do end up owning it lon
Re:Solveable (Score:5, Informative)
Sure EVs aren't for everybody. That's why we have so many transportation alternatives. But there are a *lot* of people who can and do buy and drive them.
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I need to drive for 2 seconds to see a car with ICE engine. Yes, eventually I will see a Tesla. As for electric BMW, it normally takes about two months to finally see one of those. Of course, SoCal are a weird place where people often drive a car to make a political statement.
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Would be nice if they'd come up with some sort of standard battery-swapping/exchange system, even if it wasn't the car's
How much do you love going to gas stations? (Score:5, Interesting)
People who have changed to electric report that the biggest and most unexpected benefit wasn't the money saving - it was not having to go to gas stations. The didn't understand how much they hated it, how much it interrupted their lives, until they didn't have to do it any more. They plug their car in overnight, or while they were at work, and always had a fully charged car. Far from having 'range anxiety', they found themselves never even thinking about the 'gas gauge'.
Then, when they do make long trips, they drive for 4 or 5 hours, then stop for a much needed break while the car charges - they find this a much more relaxing way to make long trips.
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I understand your points and I have long argued for standardised battery modules that can be swapped at service stations.
That said -- I'd suggest that if you are driving 8 to 10 hours and haven't factored in a few rest stops you are doing yourself and fellow road users a disservice.
Driving whilst tired can be as dangerous as driving under the influence of alcohol - concentration has been objectively measured to diminish after 90-120 minutes. Couple this with natural bodily functions and a general need to s
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People who have changed to electric report that the biggest and most unexpected benefit wasn't the money saving - it was not having to go to gas stations.
I'm not sure where you are getting your data, but that is a false statement from anything I could find. This survey [cleantechnica.com] asked electric drivers their favorite things about driving electric, and here are their top five benefits (in order of the most liked):
1. Environmental benefit
2. Smooth & quiet drive
3. Fun/Convenience of instant torque
4. Convenience of EV charging
5. Low Maintenance
You can certainly make the claim convenience of EV charging is the most unexpected benefit, since probably only smooth & qu
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If saving 5 minutes a week
That is less than half the average time a person spends on a forecourt, and less than the detour time for most people.
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[5 minutes] is less than half the average time a person spends on a forecourt, and less than the detour time for most people.
While I nearly always fill up my gas with a station which is on my route to work, I'll concede that isn't always the case for everyone so my estimate is probably low. I doubt the average time is more than 10 minutes per fill-up including detour time though, since I still assume most of the time people are filling up when they would have driven by the station anyway. If they are really that forgetful of where their tank level is, they probably won't be too good with connecting their electric car either.
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What kind of idiot smokes at a gas station?
It's against the law, and the attendant would not allow you to fill your vehicle, turning off the pump from inside the store before you even started to fill up. Hell, they'll usually do the same thing if they see you are using a cell phone while filling up, and that isn't even actually against the law
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Having to plug in my car every few days is the least of my first world problems.
It's certainly less of a problem than visiting petrol stations was.
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Would be nice if they'd come up with some sort of standard battery-swapping/exchange system, even if it wasn't the car's full capacity that is swappable (perhaps 20%).
Given the use case you present a plug-in hybrid would make *way* more sense.
Battery packs are big, heavy, cumbersome and expensive. They are a valuable investment you wouldn't trust to exchange for some unknown device with unknown history and condition. I just don't see battery swapping as workable.
Current EVs are best for round trips shorter than 80% of their battery capacity. If you need to go further you'd be better off with a plug-in Hybrid with a reasonably sized battery pack. That would give y
Re:Solveable (Score:4, Insightful)
1. This always the case in the beginning - look at back to the advent of CDs and CD players and what they cost when they first came out. It will come down
2. Most EV owners will charge when they are asleep. And if they are travelling the country average daily journey (20-40 miles), they won't need to recharge very often with more and more EVs doing 150-250 miles per charge.
3. This is more difficult but if you are determined not to pollute, it will just be a minor inconvenience (see 2nd sentence of point 2 about forgetting to charge). Street lights converted to provide charging as well, supermarkets, work places, car parks are also adding chargers, might come a time where all parking meters also double up as a charge point.
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This point is repeated everywhere when almost anyone mentions the inconvenient recharging time for electric cars compared to filling with gasoline. The problem with it is highlighted by the third problem I mentioned above. In high-density cities, where most people live in apartments without a private garage, EV's are impractical for those people, at least for the time being. I'll agree that in time this problem will eventually solve itself as rentable apartm
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The second is that charging an electric car takes more than 5 times longer than filling a car with gasoline.
Most people charge at home, so charging time makes no difference whatsoever. You need to charge outside only if you travel long distance (like, more than 250 miles).
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Of course, but extended charging time for EV's can have a serious impact if you do happen to forget to charge it at night... because, you know, humans are imperfect and do forget things from time to time.
You might forget to fill up your car with gasoline as well, but the inconvenience of having done so is measured only in a matter of taking a few extra minutes to stop somewhere on your way and put gasoline in. The inconvenience of forgetting to charge your EV when you needed is far greater.
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Of course, but extended charging time for EV's can have a serious impact if you do happen to forget to charge it at night... because, you know, humans are imperfect and do forget things from time to time.
I see you've never owned an EV.
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What you see is someone who has, on several occasions, forgotten to fill up the car when they rightly should have and had to leave slightly earlier in the morning to stop for gas.
Also, I have never owned an EV because, as I said, I do not have a place to charge it at night. Public charging facilities exist, but even they are still less convenient than stopping at a gas station only once per week for about 5 minutes.
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While this is more than compensated for over the lifetime of the vehicle if you do end up owning it long enough, it doesn't do much to help the up-front cost that is going to factor into being able to afford it in the first place.
Most people finance their new car anyway.
As for the rest, it will be more practical for some people than it is for others. The transition won't happen overnight, nor does anyone expect it to.
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Let me get this straight. You think the activist/movie producer Michael Moore is a lefty whacko, yet the fact that he personally doesn't know how to do something has convinced you it is impossible?
Are you going to consult the ghost of Karl Marx next? Perhaps you could ask Trump for some medical advice after that.
The problems you mentioned are exactly the kinds of thing that are solvable.
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Michael Moore is a leftist wacko, and yet his movie Fahrenheit 9/11 was completely one hundred percent spot on. The only people still defending the Iraq war are the most hardline neocons and Bill O'Reilly, who still blames it all on a massive mistake by the intelligence community.
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Ooh, Ooh, I KNOW this one! One square meter of sunlight = I kilowatt!
A square meter is sort of like if you laid 2 yard sticks cross wise.
1 yard =~ 0.9 meters. (Score:2)
A cross made of 2 yard sticks would fit in 0.7square meters.
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Oh, well. If Michael Moore can't figure it out, I guess nobody can.
PM is really nasty stuff (Score:5, Insightful)
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I see plenty of cars driving around. I see far fewer large diesel trucks driving around. I suspect the reduction in the latter has had the largest effect. I don't think my electric cars, charged mostly via the local hydropower dams are contributing much at all.
That said, towns without ICE vehicles and with excellent public transport would be excellent places to live. Sign me up.
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Re: PM is really nasty stuff (Score:3)
You are just proving their point.
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Suck it up, sweetheart.
Has anybody worked out (Score:3)
How much CO2 we haven't emitted since the lockdown began
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Right (Score:3, Interesting)
Right ... the problem isn't that you are packed in like sardines, it's that you move around and do stuff. I see.
What the pandemic has cast a bright light on is how unhealthy it is to live in crowded conditions. The very conditions that our betters say that we should live in.
Packed into cities, using public transport ... that's the way that "they" say you should live. Until now, of course, when "oops, guess it's a bit difficult to not breathe each others air directly when living like that."
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It's the number of people you contact during a pandemic. Moving around AND crowding both increase this.
I've been looking at county-level data on COVID-19, and right now there are a lot of rural county and small city hotspots, like that meat packing plant in Iowa. They don't look remarkable when you look at raw numbers, but their cases per 100K inhabitants are eye popping.
I've been paying particular attention to Georgia; there's a band of counties running from southern/central Georgia west into Alabama pos
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Meanwhile, Wyoming is looking ok.
North Carolina is doing better than Wyoming, as are Hawaii, Kentucky, West Virginia, Maine and Oregon, all places with much higher population density -- and several of them are doing far more testing than Wyoming.
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Swillden is right. Going by the reported numbers Wyoming is doing pretty well, but six states with higher propulation density are doing better on a per capita basis, although I expect Minnesota to overtake Wyoming in the next week.
One thing about all these places in that bottom decile or so for cases per capita is that they are all *still* showing robust linear case growth; there is little drop off in new cases. This suggests that they're really just a couple of weeks behind more populace places on their
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Showing that business, not ppl, are cause of pollu (Score:2)
As such, we need to focus efforts ON businesses cleaning up; commercial trucks, construction, Ag, buildings, electricity.
Re: First Peace (Score:5, Funny)
_____________________
Sent from my Huawei
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Microns, Idiot (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Microns, Idiot (Score:5, Informative)
Microns and micrometers (Score:4, Informative)
Micrometer is ALSO a word for a device to measure small things. Micro, meaning small, attached to meter, a device to measure.
Two different words with the same spelling.
(and, conventionally, slightly different pronunciation. For the distance unit, accent is on the first syllable.)
And, yes, people who work in the field usually use "micron". It's not the official SI unit, but everybody know what it is. It's like using ml instead of cc; micron and micrometer both mean the same thing.
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MICRON. Use this unit or its abbreviation
Tell us how you use the unicode micron symbol (mu) in a Slashdot comment
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People clinging to units like the micron, along with others like the metric tonne and the hectare, are how customary systems of measure are born. We have a beautiful and rational system of easily scaled and converted units and still idiots insist on turning it into a bizarre system of customary units.
Re: Microns, Idiot (Score:2)
It's almost as if scientists don't dictate linguistics. Do you really want to live in a world where "cock" is a rooster and "dick" is dude's name? Where "twat" is looked upon with confusion? Where "cunt" is a quaint anachronism? I don't.
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Much like "envelope" and "envelope", they are pronounced differently..
One's the noun describing an item designed to wrap around its contents -- like a paper envelope -- with a long "o" and a strong "env". The other is the verb that describes wrapping something, like a blanket envelopes a person -- with strong "vel" and a short "o".
A "thermometer", as it's normally pronounced, is a device used to measure temperature. A "speedometer" is a device used to measure speed. A "micrometer" pronounced like the usu
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In my experience the verb is "envelop". But the point works equally well with "record"
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Well, I feel like a moron for not knowing how to spell a word that I speak daily, but I feel brilliant for having expressed myself so well as to inspire your "record".
I do feel stupid for not thinking of "Recording a record" one my own.
Maybe I'm emotional today. I've heard that can happen to men.
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~your'e faithfull moderation msmash
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"master baiting"
I see what you did there...
Re:There you go then (Score:5, Insightful)
Very good post comrade. Many rubles will be transferred to your account.
Trump 2020!
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Well in his defense his username checks out.
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Nobody wants the coronavirus and nobody wants all this economic harm. But this is an unprecedented opportunity to collect data on what happened when certain things were taken offline. The goal is to have our cake and eat it too and green tech can do that for us.
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have our cake and eat it too
Everybody poops.
Not everybody poops cake though.
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Planet Of The Humans
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk11vI-7czE [youtube.com]
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:There you go then (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately, the average shmo with extremely limited critical thinking skills lap this shit up as the YouTube comments show. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate them shining a light on the bullshit and corruption in the renewable energy industry, but the more astute half of the target audience have probably tuned out by the time they start looking at that stuff.
I'm always torn on how I feel about liberal leaning messengers who take their message to such extremes that it resembles the propaganda they complain the "other side" using. On one hand I am frustrated because it shouldn't be necessary since they have actual facts on their side. But on the other hand if they don't sensationalize then perhaps they won't actually make enough of an impact. I don't believe most people don't have enough critical thinking skills to make careful judgments while being bombarded with strong media narratives (from either side), so if there are only over the top messages coming from bad actors things would only get worse.
Michael Moore is the poster child for spinning false narratives about real and important problems, so it is a good bet there will be a lot of misinformation in this documentary. Even if the central message is mostly accurate, while they generally also are in his films.
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Username checks out.
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It's performed by automated stations, so it can be done while working from home. Has any country prohibited working from home?
Re:There you go then (Score:4, Interesting)
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OTOH, the population is learning that CO2 reductions = misery.
The exact opposite, actually; we are learning misery --> CO2 reductions.
Re: Wait for later (Score:2)
Troll
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See, what you're doing is speculating.
The reduction in pollution is a definite.
BILLIONS starving is speculation.
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And yet Zimbabwe feels confident that it's wiser to extend their shutdown and suffer the economic damage than to risk a disease that'll kill a few percent of their people. Somehow, if Zimbabwe doesn't think more than a few percent will die from economic fallout than I find it rather hard to believe that it's going to be a significant issue anywhere else.
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The effects, both positive and negative of the reduction of pollution is also speculation.
Re: And It Would Work, Except.......... (Score:2)
Polluting isn't normal, or sane, much like your trolling.
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It's not? Most animals (including humans) poop, and while some of that poo can be beneficial to some organisms, it's not to quite a few others. More so, large amounts of poo, say from even a concentration of people will often end up in centralized locations (because who wants to be near/around the poo?) Isn't that... pollution? More so, eventually that stuff will end up in running water. Sure, your village can use the river to dispose of what you don't want... what of the folks downstream from you?
Yes, poll
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You claim that, yet his post doesn't actually say that.
Humans have been polluting in countless other ways for a long as we have existed. Sure, killing an animal and harvesting only the parts we wanted from it leaves waste which some other parts of the environment may consume, for much of our history we have long been used to cooking our meats, which means fire, burning things, carbon spewing things for ages... that's pollution as well.
Please, inform the class of the magical time when a certain kind/degree o
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No, it's only pollution when it overwhelms nature's ability to deal with it. If you keep that poo locked up in storage tanks then it isn't pollution. If you treat it well enough for nature to deal with it and then release it, it still isn't pollution.
It's easier to treat poo that's located in a centralized location than poo
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Re:This is news? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, because its more economical to dump your trash in the river than to have it properly processed. Companies do this on a massive scale for "the sake of the economy".
If you expect your neighbors to not dump their trash on the streets, then perhaps we should start holding companies to some higher standards as well.
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An absurd absolute is...
... claim like "there's a 1:1 ratio between economic activity and pollution". There's a great deal of non-polluting economic activity, and even much industry that used to be polluting is now non-polluting or less-polluting. Your claim of an absolute 1:1 ratio is absurd.
Re:This is news? (Score:5, Informative)
It's always been known that there is a 1:1 ratio between economic activity and pollution
What a nonsensical statement. This ratio is not fixed and varies over time, space, and jurisdiction. Why you inserted a fixed numerical qualifier baffles me.
We've always known that we could reduce pollution to zero by crippling ourselves and reducing ourselves to poverty.
And we've also always known that we can change this ratio. For example by scrubbing mercury out of our coal, containing nuclear waste, or switching from carbon heavy fuels to methane. In fact, historically this ratio fallen as a side effect of improving economic efficiency.
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And we've also always known that we can change this ratio. For example by scrubbing mercury out of our coal, containing nuclear waste, or switching from carbon heavy fuels to methane. In fact, historically this ratio fallen as a side effect of improving economic efficiency.
Not just coal, the brine from natural gas fracking is laden with radionuclides like radon and radium. It's being used to keep dust down on dirt roads.
https://www.rollingstone.com/p... [rollingstone.com]
https://www.sciencemag.org/new... [sciencemag.org]
Air pollution, water pollution and, radionuclides is what oil and coal have to offer us. I think the more wind, solar and geothermal electricity we can generate the better.
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Why do you think environmentalists are all about reducing our activity to negligible?
I don't think that. You spend an awful lot of effort opposing strawmen.
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With ongoing debate between believers and climate change deniers, we have an opportunity to take a snapshot of global temperatures, and finally equate carbon emissions to a temperature degree with hard data instead of guesstimated models.
No. Climate is not weather.
The higher levels of CO2 are still there in the air. Even if we stopped producing CO2 today completely. It would take a very long time for the extra CO2 to leave the atmosphere. [theguardian.com]
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we have an opportunity to take a snapshot of global temperatures, and finally equate carbon emissions to a temperature degree with hard data
The amount of warming caused by the CO2 released in a single year is so small that it's not measurable in the climate. The change we are looking at from CO2 released for all of history has caused a change of temperature in the climate of about 1 degree (with a large margin of error). A 40% reduction in emissions for three months is therefore going to cause a change on the order of 1/100th of a degree (also with a large margin of error), an amount lost in the noise.
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The effect of clouds is complex. It depends on the time of day (obviously heat trapping exceeds shading at night) and type of cloud. Ambient temperature matters too; clouds reflect more light in cold air than in warm.
There *is* an effect called "global dimming" that's the result of aerosols and particulates; less solar radiation reaches the Earth's surface. This has been documented since the late 40s, and from around 1950 to around 1980 there was global *cooling* due to the vast increases in fossil fuel u
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Go back 30, maybe 40 years, and you will find these levels of pollution back to the dawn of man.
Wow no! Look at how cities looked 40-50 years ago! [citylab.com] Notice the picture of the river so polluted that it caught on fire.