April 02, 1990|, "EPA Chief Sees Job Losses for Miners," LA Times staff and wire reports
"William K. Reilly, the chief of the Environmental Protection Agency, acknowledged that a proposed new clean air law will put some coal miners out of work, but said he is hopeful that technology can save jobs. "We are prepared to work very carefully with those workers and with the states to try to ensure that we have as good a safety net and unemployment retraining provisions as possible," Reilly said on NBC's "Meet the Press." To reduce acid rain, the legislation would restrict sulfur dioxide emissions. The new limits are expected to cause thousands of job losses in the coal mines throughout Appalachia and the Midwest. Reilly said he is hopeful that advances in "clean-coal technology" can save some of the jobs in the East."
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George Bush #1 signs Clean Air Act amendments in 1990, making rules stricter than 1970 and 1977 versions. Top left, clapping, Bush EPA chief William Reilly, plucked from his job as WWF president by jackass Bush.
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2009 NASA graph shows warming of Arctic latitudes resulting from US Clean Air Acts of 1970, 1977 and 1990:
Image from Nasa.gov.
4/8/2009, "Half of recent arctic warming may not be due to greenhouse gases," Houston Chronicle, Eric Berger
That’s the conclusion of two scientists in a new Nature Geoscience paper (see abstract), which is more deeply outlined in this NASA news release....Clean air regulations passed in the 1970s have likely accelerated warming by diminishing the cooling effect of sulfates....This is potentially a huge blow to those who advocate immediate action on controlling carbon dioxide.
Finally, for those of you who hate James Hansen: Please note that the author of this study works for Hansen."
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NASA: "Over the past three decades, the United States and European countries have passed a series of laws that have reduced sulfate emissions by 50 percent. While improving air quality and aiding public health, the result has been less atmospheric cooling from sulfates....At the same time, black carbon emissions have steadily risen, largely because of increasing emissions from Asia. Black carbon -- small, soot-like particles produced by industrial processes and the combustion of diesel and biofuels -- absorb incoming solar radiation and have a strong warming influence on the atmosphere."...
4/8/2009, "Aerosols May Drive a Significant Portion of Arctic Warming," nasa.gov/topics
"Though greenhouse gases are invariably at the center of discussions about global climate change, new NASA research suggests that much of the atmospheric warming observed in the Arctic since 1976 may be due to changes in tiny airborne particles called aerosols.
Emitted by natural and human sources, aerosols can directly influence climate by reflecting or absorbing the sun's radiation. The small particles also affect climate indirectly by seeding clouds and changing cloud properties, such as reflectivity.
A new study, led by climate scientist Drew Shindell of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, used a coupled ocean-atmosphere model to investigate how sensitive different regional climates are to changes in levels of carbon dioxide, ozone, and aerosols.
The researchers found that the mid and high latitudes are especially responsive to changes in the level of aerosols. Indeed, the model suggests aerosols likely account for 45 percent or more of the warming that has occurred in the Arctic during the last three decades. The results were published in the April issue of Nature Geoscience....
Sulfates, which come primarily from the burning of coal and oil, scatter incoming solar radiation and have a net cooling effect on climate. Over the past three decades, the United States and European countries have passed a series of laws that have reduced sulfate emissions by 50 percent. While improving air quality and aiding public health, the result has been less atmospheric cooling from sulfates.
At the same time, black carbon emissions have steadily risen, largely because of increasing emissions from Asia. Black carbon -- small, soot-like particles produced by industrial processes and the combustion of diesel and biofuels -- absorb incoming solar radiation and have a strong warming influence on the atmosphere....
The regions of Earth that showed the strongest responses to aerosols in the model are the same regions that have witnessed the greatest real-world temperature increases since 1976. The Arctic region has seen its surface air temperatures increase by 1.5 C (2.7 F) since the mid-1970s. In the Antarctic, where aerosols play less of a role, the surface air temperature has increased about 0.35 C (0.6 F).
That makes sense, Shindell explained, because of the Arctic's proximity to North America and Europe. The two highly industrialized regions have produced most of the world's aerosol emissions over the last century, and some of those aerosols drift northward and collect in the Arctic. Precipitation, which normally flushes aerosols out of the atmosphere, is minimal there, so the particles remain in the air longer and have a stronger impact than in other parts of the world.
Since decreasing amounts of sulfates and increasing amounts of black carbon both encourage warming, temperature increases can be especially rapid. The build-up of aerosols also triggers positive feedback cycles that further accelerate warming as snow and ice cover retreat.
In the Antarctic, in contrast, the impact of sulfates and black carbon is minimized because of the continent’s isolation from major population centers and the emissions they produce.
"There's a tendency to think of aerosols as small players, but they're not," said Shindell. "Right now, in the mid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere and in the Arctic, the impact of aerosols is just as strong as that of the greenhouse gases."
The growing recognition that aerosols may play a larger climate role can have implications for policymakers.
"We will have very little leverage over climate in the next couple of decades if we're just looking at carbon dioxide," Shindell said. "If we want to try to stop the Arctic summer sea ice from melting completely over the next few decades, we're much better off looking at aerosols and ozone."
Aerosols tend to be quite-short lived, residing in the atmosphere for just a few days or weeks. Greenhouses gases, by contrast, can persist for hundreds of years. Atmospheric chemists theorize that the climate system may be more responsive to changes in aerosol levels over the next few decades than to changes in greenhouse gas levels, which will have the more powerful effect in coming centuries."...
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Added: Above NASA article notes Northern and Southern hemispheres have very different geography: Unlike the Arctic, the Antarctic is isolated from major population centers and emissions they produce. Antarctica isn't exposed to black carbon from Asia which is naturally transported across North America and the Arctic. Nor was Antarctica warmed by decades of US Clean Air Acts that removed cooling sulfates from the atmosphere.
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Added: Bush #1 EPA chief Reilly loved "global consensus" of Agenda 21:
Sept./Oct. 1992, "The Road from Rio," EPA Journal, by William K. Reilly (EPA Chief for George HW Bush)
"The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), the "Earth Summit," (in June 1992) was a watershed event in environmental history....
While the hopes of some developing nations for vast commitments of new foreign assistance did not materialize, what was extraordinary to me was how many expectations were met--and how much the world did achieve....
- Agenda 21. This was perhaps the most remarkable achievement of the conference: an ambitious, 900-page action plan for protecting the atmosphere, oceans, and other global resources. Many of the ideas--community right-to-know, compiling information about toxic releases, environmental impact statements--originated in the United States.
Agenda 21 represents an extraordinary new
global consensus on standards against which to measure the environmental
performance of governments. No doubt the press, non-governmental
groups, and the business community will mine these documents for years
to come. The human rights commitments of the 1970s and 1980s, the
Helsinki Accords, and others, offer a model for how committed nongovernmental interests can confer authority on moral obligations and
translate them into new policies."...
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https://archive.epa.gov/epa/aboutepa/road-rio.html
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