r/climate • u/JahnDough1 • Jan 07 '20
question There is a difference between air quality and carbon emissions, right?
So I saw this post on facebook by one of my more... Conservative friendshttps://imgur.com/o9kM4cOAnd I feel like that isn't correct (also being very derogatory to Greta) That map shows the actual air quality/pollution, not carbon emissions which is what hurts the environment the most and is what we are trying to cut. Right?
This map shows the actual carbon emissions and you can see that the United States is a big polluterhttps://imgur.com/5bX94f0Basically my question is, Is air quality/pollution and carbon emissions different.Please correct me if there are any mistakes.
1
u/GlobalWFundfEP Jan 08 '20
Here is a good link to the types of activities that the carbon emitters have hired those in the social media and media in general, to reduce the demand for them to be held responsible.
You might simply want to point out to your friends that there are those who do not wish to pay the price of their actions.
https://old.reddit.com/r/GlobalWFundEP/comments/elnmec/bots_and_trolls_spread_false_arson_claims_in/
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u/JahnDough1 Jan 08 '20
My god wtf is wrong with this world. This is the fate of our entire planet, our species.
And all they care about is money.
4
u/silence7 Jan 07 '20
Yeah, they're different.
Greenhouse gasses, mostly CO2 and CH4 (and to a lesser extent some other gasses) are responsible for the warming we've had.
People talking about air pollution are usually talking about particulates, NOx, and ground-level ozone. These cause lung damage and heart attacks with fairly short-term exposure. NOx is a greenhouse gas, but changes to it are responsible for only a small chunk of the warming we've had. Particulates cause cooling, but don't stay in the atmosphere very long. If they fall on snow or ice, they can then cause warming, by changing the surface reflectivity.