Most of you would have heard about global warming and even have done your bit to reduce your personal contribution to global warming but what I found out about global dimming scared me pretty bad. The irony could not be more explicit - I am cradling the sleeping Adith and watching the PBS special about global dimming.
While I encourage all you to real all about it at the aforementioned link, here is the short summary. We all know that global warming is raising the global temperature and is caused chiefly by greenhouse gases - so far so good. But do you also know that a second type of pollution (particle pollution) actually causes a cooling effect (and hence termed as global dimming or dimming the sun by man-made clouds) and therefore hiding the real impact of the greenhouse gases. Particle pollution is caused by factories, airplanes etc. With the advent of carbon scrubbing technologies, particle pollution is being reduced significantly in the developed world. But in the short term, it appears that this might lead to a double whammy effect. Temperature increases of 3 degrees centigrade are expected in the next 20 years or so.
What kind of world will we leave to our children? The future looks harsh at the moment. I am thinking of investing in a submarine since San Jose and Chennai are likely to be under water by 2040 ...
While I encourage all you to real all about it at the aforementioned link, here is the short summary. We all know that global warming is raising the global temperature and is caused chiefly by greenhouse gases - so far so good. But do you also know that a second type of pollution (particle pollution) actually causes a cooling effect (and hence termed as global dimming or dimming the sun by man-made clouds) and therefore hiding the real impact of the greenhouse gases. Particle pollution is caused by factories, airplanes etc. With the advent of carbon scrubbing technologies, particle pollution is being reduced significantly in the developed world. But in the short term, it appears that this might lead to a double whammy effect. Temperature increases of 3 degrees centigrade are expected in the next 20 years or so.
What kind of world will we leave to our children? The future looks harsh at the moment. I am thinking of investing in a submarine since San Jose and Chennai are likely to be under water by 2040 ...
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