That’s not a joke. OK. It’s kind of a joke to most of us around here. But it’s not a joke at all to Science magazine correspondent Eli Kintisch, who penned an oped for Sunday’s Los Angeles Times. He warned that the great strides we’ve made in the last 40 years reducing air pollution are actually going to make global warming worse. Please sit down for this. Are you sitting down? Go ahead. I’ll wait. Ready? OK. Here’s the gist, from Kintisch’s piece: You’re likely to hear a chorus of dire warnings as we approach Earth Day, but there’s a serious shortage few pundits are talking about: air pollution. That’s right, the world is running short on air pollution, and if we continue to cut back on smoke pouring forth from industrial smokestacks, the increase in global warming could be profound. Cleaner air, one of the signature achievements of the U.S. environmental movement, is certainly worth celebrating. Scientists estimate that the U.S. Clean Air Act has cut a major air pollutant called sulfate aerosols, for example, by 30% to 50% since the 1980s, helping greatly reduce cases of asthma and other respiratory problems. But even as industrialized and developing nations
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