Humans impact the environment? No Way!

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I get so tired of the yahoos that argue that human impact on the environment is miniscule. Just the other day I heard some global warming denialist saying that the human contribution to global warming was nothing - natural events like volcanic eruptions are the big contributors. Well, maybe you have heard about the "Asian Brown Cloud." It has been under the eye of the UN Environment Program since 1999. It made the news once again today (2/24/04) in a Reuter's article - Scientist Says 'Asian Brown Cloud' Threatens Gulf

The "Asian Brown Cloud" now called simply the "Brown Cloud" (because US and other nation's pollution is traveling the world as well as "Asian") is a blanket of chemicals traveling in a "global pollution circuit" several miles off the ground. This chemical blanket consists of aerosols, automobile emissions, and "industrial and agricultural waste."

The article notes:

A body of pollution which has been identified in the skies across Asia is now threatening to engulf the Middle East and make the planet a drier place, a leading environmental scientist said on Tuesday.

Veerabhadran Ramanathan, who led 1999 research into what was dubbed the "Asian Brown Cloud," said there was evidence the Gulf region was being sucked into a global pollution circuit moving several miles above ground.

This is certainly bad news for the Middle East which is already largely a desert area. Ramanathan said that the research he has been doing already shows a 10-17 % decrease in sunshine actually reaching the ground in the agricultural plain of northern India.

So those who argue minimal human impact on the environment or the climate, go stand under the Brown Cloud and try to explain that away as an insignificant event - or perhaps a "natural" phenomenon.

Posted by rowan at February 24, 2004 07:17 PM | TrackBack | Printable Version | [eMail this article!] |