[cogitator]

In point of fact, substantially reducing the soot and smoke emissions from India and China would do far more to reduce global warming over the next 25 years than full and complete compliance with the Kyoto Protocol. And it would be easier to do. China and India won't admit that's true, and they won't admit the health consequences of this level of particulate pollution on their country's citizens.

[Always Right]

Experts also noted there were ample studies which showed there was a blanket of chemicals and dust from cars, aerosols and industrial smokestacks in South Asia.

Instead of worrying about real pollution, we instead have focused on the boogyman of CO2.

[Owl558]

There has to be something wrong here, China and India are exempt from Kyoto. This clearly means that these countries do not pollute. Substitute "US" anywhere you see China or India written. Everyone knows pollution is Bush's fault.

(/sarcasm off)

[Americalover]

Maybe we should prove there is global warming before coming up with cures.

[Adder]

I beleive they are exempt from the Kyoto Protocols.

Btw...where are the pics of these massive clouds?

[Fatalis]

"Pollution is by no means restricted to the Asian region," countered Indian scientist A.K Singhal. "There is a haze over Los Angeles and a thick plume of pollution over most big North American cities," he added.

Ahem...

North America Absorbing Carbon Dioxide At Surprisingly High Rate, Team Reports

"We know that we who reside in the United States emit about 6.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year," said Taro Takahashi, Doherty Senior Research Scientist, associate director of Lamont-Doherty, Columbia's earth sciences campus in Palisades, N.Y., and an author of the report. "As an air mass travels from west to east, it should receive carbon dioxide and the East Coast concentration of CO2 should be higher than on the West Coast.

"But observations tell us otherwise. The mean atmospheric CO2 concentration on the East Coast has been observed to be lower than that over the Pacific coast. This means that more CO2 is taken up by land ecosystems over the United States than is released by industrial activities."

[Boundless]

NO₂ Polution from Space:

World's pollution hotspots revealed from space

[BenLurkin]

Kinda makes the Kyoto protocol look flakier than ever.

[colorado tanker]

This is obviously bad science. The Kyoto'ns have explained to us that American pollution is bad but Asian pollution is not.

[RightWhale]

This has been visible in the Tanana flats south of Fairbanks for over 20 years. The color ranges from yellow to brown, sometimes blue, and it is never clear anymore. The pollution moves through this area like it is directly funneled here from Asia.

[Spok]

The UN and the Left will quickly condemn this study, as it fails to fix the blame solely on America. Must be junk science. (sarc)

[WilliamofCarmichael]

Not to worry.

When we agree to Kyoto and cut our emissions to 1492 levels there will be room for their emissions -- they are exempt from Kyoto. So it's our fault that their emissions have no where to go.

[denydenydeny]

I would have more faith in the piece if it had mentioned that the Kyoto treaty would do nothing about reducing emissions from China and India.

[MonroeDNA]

Nuclear energy.

[BJungNan]

I don't know about China air "threatening to make the entire planet a drier place, experts warned" but in Shanghai the air is not doing anyone any good.

[farmfriend]

Rights, farms, environment ping.
Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.
I don't get offended if you want to be removed.

[Old Professer]

The general level of airborne aerosols and soot particles must have been far higher in the late 19th and early 20th century, even accounting for the increase in population, due to dependence on coal and wood for heat to warm buildings and drive steam engines and electric power plants. In my lifetime, I have watched the skies clear. Once, while driving through Steubenville, Ohio I asked someone there why the buildings were so blackened on the walls and rooftops and he simply said, "The steel plant."

[Veto!]

In 1998, Indian-born US scientist Veerabhadran Ramanathan ... track(ed) a cloud of pollution dubbed the "Asian Brown Cloud" that hung over the Indian Ocean.

That's no Asian cloud. It's US smog that's drifted to Asia. At least that's what a BBC weatherperson reported not long ago on BBC World News. No bias, of course.