article thumbnail

Reducing Black Carbon Emissions and Ground-Level Ozone Would Provide Immediate Benefit Against Climate Change

Green Car Congress

Reducing emissions of black carbon soot and ground-level ozone would quickly make a considerable dent in the climate change problem and would also contribute to public health and protect crop yields, according to an essay in the September/October issue of Foreign Affairs. Besides a danger to breathe, ozone lowers crop yields.

article thumbnail

UCI-led study finds California’s strict air quality regulations have helped farmers

Green Car Congress

They found that reductions in ground ozone during this 35-year period resulted in $600 million in increased production annually by the early 2010s. Another difference is that some grains can be annually modified to withstand greater heat and even higher ozone levels in the air. An open-access paper on the work appears in Nature Food.

Ozone 186
article thumbnail

Cutting Non-CO2 Pollutants Can Delay Abrupt Climate Change; The Fast Action Climate Agenda

Green Car Congress

Noting the references in scientific and policy literature to the need for fast-action mitigation to help avoid DAI and abrupt climate changes, the authors define “fast-action” to include regulatory measures that can begin within 2–3 years, be substantially implemented in 5–10 years, and produce a climate response within decades.

article thumbnail

Study finds anthropogenic PM and dust undercutting global solar energy production

Green Car Congress

According to a new study led by a team at Duke University, airborne particulate matter and dust are cutting solar photovoltaic energy output by more than 25% in certain parts of the world, with roughly equal contributions from ambient PM and PM deposited on photovoltaic surfaces. Credit: ACS, Bergin et al. Click to enlarge.

Solar 218
article thumbnail

Test of Planet-Cooling Scheme Could Start in 2022

Cars That Think

Up there, 10 to 50 kilometers above the Earth’s surface, ozone molecules absorb the sun’s ultraviolet light, protecting life far below. The proposal calls for what’s known as “solar geoengineering”: cooling the planet by deflecting sunlight that would otherwise strike the planet. Concentrations of greenhouse gases are at.

Ozone 122
article thumbnail

Climate Expert: Don't Call It Geoengineering

Cars That Think

The leaders of the world have just returned from the UN's latest climate change summit, COP26 , in which the countries that have signed on to the Paris Agreement upped their commitments to fight climate change. IEEE Spectrum : What role does Silver Lining play in climate research or advocacy? In 2015, the U.S.

Climate 144
article thumbnail

Royal Society Report Concludes Geoengineering and its Consequences May be the Price for Failure to Act on Climate Change; Recommendations for Plan B

Green Car Congress

It is an unpalatable truth that unless we can succeed in greatly reducing CO 2 emissions we are headed for a very uncomfortable and challenging climate future, and geoengineering will be the only option left to limit further temperature increases. Professor John Shepherd, chair of the Royal Society’s geoengineering study.