If we clean up air pollution, the weather gets hotter and wilder. From Norway, Dr. Bjorn Samset explains the stakes. Then from Harvard, Dr. Francesca Dominici reveals shocking new science: just a short exposure to bad air kills seniors! I’m Alex. This is Radio Ecoshock clearing the air. Replay.
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We all know air pollution is killing millions of people around the world. Nobody likes the smog. But what happens if we clean it up, if electric cars reduce carbon pollution, if governments finally react to climate change gases? We get hotter. In fact, new science suggests the initial burst of heating from cleaner air could come close to the amount of warming we’ve already experienced. That means more hot times and bad weather.
Here to explain is Dr. Bjorn Halvard Samset. He is Research Director at CICERO, the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research, in Norway. Bjorn is a physicist. He’s widely versed in climate science. Bjorn is often quoted in Norwegian media. He specializes in extreme precipitation and the role of atmospheric aerosols in a changing climate.
The paper “Climate Impacts From a Removal of Anthropogenic Aerosol Emissions” was published in January 2018 in Geophysical Research Letters. You can read that full paper here.
Find more about our guests, with links to follow up in the original show blog here.
Dr. Samset has many good things to say. But I take issue with a small but telling notion. He states easily that carbon dioxide pollution is a side effect of our use of fossil fuels. I believe this is a standard view and an unconscious fallback stance that betrays a flawed and failed mind state. The release of this waste is exactly what must take center stage and be as a primary fact such as the explosion of a fired gun with its smoke and noise is essential to sending a bullet on its path. The so called work done by things we call fuels is actually the side effect that we manipulate to greater or lesser degrees; always with major losses of efficiency but never loss of the primary effect: the creation of waste heat and gas. I would appreciate you asking if your learned guests would stop and take stock of this kind rationalization we tend to take for granted. Thinking we can change results by doing the same thing is absurd. Thinking the same thing is asinine.
For the purposes of clarification, you should read this paper by Philip Haff. I think he places your concern(though I’m unsure of your precise point) in the best context I’ve come across.
https://pne.people.si.umich.edu/PDF/Haff%202013%20Technology%20as%20a%20Geological%20Phenomenon.pdf