Conflating air pollution with climate change

Air pollution, in this context, is the result of faulty combustion of fuel or emissions from natural sources such as volcanoes or wind-blown dust from deserts and is usually visible.

It’s seriously bad for all forms of life but only has short-term effects on the local climate. Long-term global climate change is believed to be related to the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, this isn’t visible nor can it be smelled.

CO2 is mainly produced by burning fuels, animals breathing and volcanoes and is absorbed by plant life.

The aerosol particles that compose smog have been shown to reduce global warming slightly, they reflect some of the sun’s energy back into space, so cleaning up our atmosphere has slightly increased warming.

This effect is seen whenever a big volcano erupts, sometimes they can cause a brief ice age until the debris settles.

Incidentally, Riley blames Genghis Khan’s activities in the 13th Century for traces in the Arctic icecaps, accurate measurements of chemical composition now blame the eruption of the Samalas Volcano on Lombok Island, Indonesia; it caused a little ice age around the world for a few years.

Genghis Khan was bad but not that bad.

Anthony J Foster, Peterlee