The gist of the article is that China has reduced its usage of aerosolized sulfur dioxide over the last few decades. Sulfur dioxide is a dangerous chemical that causes acid rain and potentially respiratory illnesses. But apparently this is bad.
According to “The Hill” this will actually increase the speed of global warming because that harmful sulfur dioxide also offers a layer of protection against the suns rays that are now going to be absorbed in slightly higher amounts by the atmospheric CO2 to which the article concludes “we also must reduce CO2 emissions”
China has set a goal to be carbon neutral by 2060 while the current U.S. president seems to be doing everything possible to crush environmental regulation altogether.
This is what passes for journalism here in the USA.
But
at
what
COST???
“you can tell it’s bad because it’s a thing China is doing”Funny how they can take a legit finding but then editorialize it to bash China for doing a good thing. Yeah, cutting SO₂ does let more warmth through and will cause a 0.05 Celsius/decade growth but it’s literally just showing the warming we are already creating and is tiny compared to the 0.2 Celsius/decade growth we’re getting from CO₂ and methane. They also don’t mention the fact that the USA and Europe also cut their sulfate emissions decades ago and contributed to this same type of “unmasking” effect.
Yeah I saw this study in Nature a while back and every coverage of it has been a naked attempt at activating the china bad reptile brain component of Western consciousness. There is no effort made to contextualise this one specific observation within the extremely large gamut of other kinds of emissions, China’s efforts as a nation to switch to renewables and, as you said, the other effects of these sulphate emissions other than the cooling aspect.
China is doing something good and it is bad, don’t look that way guys! We doing way better here! What do you mean we doing something bad? Don’t be silly, China and Russia are the problem, that why you see as a bad thing!! What do you mean you don’t take us serious anymore?! Tiktok is a problem, so China is the problem again! We were right all along!!!
China is a totalitarian state and America is the freest country. Now get in the van
It’s bad because we can’t compete with China. If, we can do and won’t do what China is doing that’s “but at what cost?”
