Peter,

You are right - CO2 is not the only issue. However, be it CO2 or small particles we know that burning fossil fuels appears to be leading to undesirable outcomes.

A strategy is to stop burning fossil fuels and to move to other forms of energy generation that have a lower impact on the environment. Clearly if CO2 is not the whole problem then measures such as putting a price on CO2 will at best be a partial solution.

Another approach is to encourage investment in ways to generate energy that have a lower impact on the environment. We can do this by increasing the price of energy from burning fossil fuels through putting a price on carbon - but that only increases the price of all energy.

An alternative to price increases is to reduce the finance costs associated with energy production from other sources of energy. That will bring down the price of energy. That is we reduce the cost of investing in alternatives. From the point of view of wealth creation this will increase our overall output for lower costs - that is we will become richer not poorer from changing to lower impact alternatives.

One way this can be done is to change the way we increase our money supply which also has the positive effect of stimulating the economy in productive ways.

http://stableproductivemoney.wordpress.com/2009/05/18/amasset-an-economic-tool-for-managing-economies/

An interesting article, though strange in that the effects of particulates are presented as being much more significant than CO2, regardless of timeframe or context. Surely the author is aware of the enormous differences of longevity in the atmosphere involved: raised CO2 and some other greenhouse gases can stay in the atmosphere for 100 years or more, whereas particulates have a very short life in the atmosphere and are only sustained if particulate injections into the atmosphere are near-continuous. This is underlined by the short-term temperature effects of particulates after volcanic eruptions, and by the suppression of warming during the 1940-1970 period due to high levels of sulphate aerosol pollution.

Also, it would be useful to clarify that, while it may be true that "with complete abandon, a vociferous body of claimants is insisting that CO2 alone is the root of climatic evil", this body of claimants does not include climate scientists. Climate models take account of many greenhouse gases and a large number of other influences beyond CO2, of course.

An interesting article though the issue of particulate matter and the adverse impacts of this pollution on climate (and human health) is far from new. Particulate matter (PM) has not been ignored by climate scientists.

In fact Daniel Rosenfeld was a researcher in the INDOEX project in 2000 which involved more than 150 scientists across several disciplines from Austria, France, Germany, India, Maldives, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United States.

The $25 million project, sponsored by the National Science Foundation and funded in part by NASA, the Department of Energy, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, focused on the Indian Ocean region in a "multiplatform" analysis approach of satellites, aircraft, ships, surface stations, and balloons.

The project was designed to assess the nature and magnitude of the chemical pollution over the tropical Indian Ocean and to assess the significance of the region’s aerosols.

A wide range of results from the project—from meteorology to chemistry—were presented in 25 papers published in a special issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research released in November 2001.

Early in the project, INDOEX researchers documented a human-produced brownish-gray haze layer of about 10 million square kilometres over the Indian-Asian region which scientists say is impacting on Northern Australia.

I take exception to the author’s view that scientists have tunnel vision. Industrial particulate matter is a regulated substance in developed countries (though regulations are continually violated) and the IPCC have advised on particulate matter. Major research is ongoing and improvements are constantly taking place in the modelling processes.

This month, researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California published a paper advising that “sulfate is commonly mixed with atmospheric soot in the same particles, which means in some regions sulfate could lead to more warming as opposed to more cooling as one would expect for a pure sulfate aerosol”:

http://www.physorg.com/news165517024.html

contd.....

In 2007, the American Chemical Society found that epidemiological studies consistently link ambient concentrations of particulate matter (PM) to negative health impacts, including asthma, heart attacks, hospital admissions, and premature mortality.

They estimated global and regional mortalities by applying ambient PM increases due to ships to cardiopulmonary and lung cancer concentration-risk functions and population models.

Their results indicate that shipping-related PM emissions are responsible for approximately 60,000 cardiopulmonary and lung cancer deaths annually, with most deaths occurring near coastlines in Europe, East Asia, and South Asia.

Under current regulation (and resistance from pseudo-sceptics) and the expected growth in shipping activity, they estimate that annual mortalities could increase by 40% by 2012.

The ongoing research on particulates in no way mitigates the destructive forces of carbon dioxide. Carbon based pollutant emissions and CO2 are bound together by an inextricable fate. They are inseparable. Therefore, carbon dioxide remains the “bête noire.”

I continue to ask why recalcitrant deniers and pseudo-sceptics persist in raising the issue of CO2 and global warming but refuse to acknowledge the issue of carbon pollution? The evasion is surely due to uncertainties which deniers desperately latch onto rather than act responsibly and address the whole picture.

CO2 is the progeny of pollution – ie. benzene (a category 1 carcinogen) burns to CO2 as does carbon monoxide after elevating tropospheric ozone and methane - etc etc. Unburnt hydrocarbons are contaminating and destroying the planet’s ecosystems. Unintended byproducts of industrial stack emissions include bio-accumulative dioxins and other chlorinated substances and toxic, ground-water plumes are contaminating Australia's rivers.

Corporate Australia is polluting with impunity.

Capping particulate matter and other fossil fuel pollutants will mitigate carbon dioxide emissions.

Capping carbon dioxide emissions will mitigate fossil fuel pollutants. The science is elementary.

All things are bound together. All things connect. That too is elementary.

Matt Andrews

I would have thought that the particulates that the auther is referring to are characterised by being peculiar to the Victorian power stations which operate 24/7/365,and there by effect the rain fall patterns in that region.

The evidence certainly seems to support that, more so than the supposed attribution studies done by CSIRO/CMAR et al whereby they blame Co2 and only co2.

Further the persistance of A/Co2 in the atmosphere of 100 years is an exagerration. There is no reliable evidence to support that.

“Further the persistance (sic) of A/Co2 in the atmosphere of 100 years is an exagerration (sic.) There is no reliable evidence to support that.”

Bigmal

Could we have a link to support your claim please?

In the meantime, do you realise that climate science is forever evolving? Perhaps it’s catch-up time for you.

“Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Stanford, California and University of Chicago oceanographer David Archer, who led a study with Caldeira and others, is credited with doing more than anyone to show how long CO2 from fossil fuels will last in the atmosphere.”

As Archer puts it: "The lifetime of fossil fuel CO2 in the atmosphere is a few centuries, plus 25 percent that lasts essentially forever.”

"The climatic impacts of releasing fossil fuel CO2 to the atmosphere will last longer than Stonehenge," Archer writes. "Longer than time capsules, longer than nuclear waste, far longer than the age of human civilization so far."

http://www.nature.com/climate/2008/0812/full/climate.2008.122.html