Dimming the Sun, Entry #9

You'd think that people were doing something right with reducing air pollution (aerosols). Then you find out that there are two competing counter-effects: global warming & global cooling. I had never heard of such a thing as global dimming, but at first it seemed to contradict the idea of global warming because they are opposite. Global dimming has a cooling effect. It can easily make someone think that global warming is not as threatening anymore or that it shouldn't be an issue. Yet there is evidence of global dimming in highly polluted areas of the world. Global dimming due to pollution in certain areas had blocked the sun from getting through and caused a decline in evaporation. Pan evaporation is where there is a decline in water evaporating yet the global temperatures are increasing, which alters rainfall. It almost seems like this has the potential to take the focus off of global warming altogether in a political sense. They are in a tug of war with each other, but both are bad and lead to horrible outcomes if not curbed. You can't really ignore one or the other. On the one hand, we can't necessarily compromise our health in order to make the two effects more even. The same looming problem is that we need to lower emissions, or get rid of them completely. I think this is the more feasible alternative. We already know that we can't keep pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. We can imagine the fate of the world if we don't stop. The peculiar thing about these two competing effects is that continuing to reduce aerosol, while at the same time we continue to increase C02, will lead to a disastrous rise in temperature. Sadly, I don't think it will be that easy to reduce CO2 because everyone is reliant on oil. We would have to go completely solar and use all electric cars. Oils are used to make just about anything, like plastics and rubber. Our lifestyle is one of convenience and over-indulgence. How do you change that!?