Regulations
designed to improve public health and reduce smog by reducing air
pollution from trucks burning diesel fuel in the US state of California
have been found to have an additional side benefit.
Over the past
two decades, these measures also resulted in a 50% reduction in black
carbon, a potent climate change agent generated from diesel fuel
combustion and agricultural or other biomass burning. As a result,
organizations like the Arctic Council and the Climate Institute have
been focusing on the further reduction of this substance to bring about
more rapid planetary cooling.
Scientists and policy makers in
the past have been concerned that reducing black carbon would also
diminish other aerosols, whose presence has actually been attributed to a
cooling effect. However, in this California study, Dr. Veerabhadran
Ramanathan of Scripps Institution of Oceanography calculated that the
reduction of black carbon resulted in a significant cooling effects for
both the region's heat and water supplies.
Moreover, according
to World Preservation Foundation Senior Scientist Gerard
Wedderburn-Bisshop, one of the leading sources of black carbon is the
deforestation that occurs to clear agricultural land, 70% of which is
used for livestock raising.
California Resource Board, Dr.
Ramanathan and Dr. Bisshop, many thanks for helping us understand the
role of black carbon in climate change. May we each act to reduce this
and other potent greenhouse gas sources for their Earth balancing
benefit to all lives.
Speaking during an October 2009
videoconference in Indonesia, Supreme Master Ching Hai addressed the
changes needed to most effectively reduce planet-warming substances such
as black carbon.
Supreme Master Ching Hai :
Now, methane and black carbon are what scientists call short-lived
gases, meaning, although they are very potent climate warmers, they
dissipate and exit the atmosphere very quickly.
The United
Nations Food and Agriculture Organization said that the livestock
industry is the major cause of the most pressing world problems, namely,
global warming, land degradation, air and water pollution, and loss of
biodiversity.
With no animal breeding industries, we immediately
stop the number one cause of greenhouse gas emissions. Not just CO2,
not just carbon dioxide, but also methane, nitrous oxide, black carbon
from burning down the trees for the livestock, and also toxic gases like
hydrogen sulfide.
If the world's people all become vegans, we will see a dramatic change in a short period of time, a couple of months, yes.
These changes would be just the beginning signs of a real Eden on Earth.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUS352047229820101229http://blogs.kqed.org/climatewatch/2010/12/17/the-other-effect-of-cas-clean-air-laws/,