This article in Wired talks about how controlling soot might be an easy, effective way to curtail a significant amount of global warming. Supposedly, the unforgivable blackness of soot causes it to absorb the sun's rays, heating up the atmosphere. When soot falls onto glaciers, the increased absorption melts the snow, exposing the darker colored ground, causing a vicious cycle of increasing warmth. Some estimates said that soot accounts for a quarter of the warming trend.
Soot only stays in the atmosphere for a few weeks, so theoretically, if we could get everyone to curtail their soot emissions (which is supposedly feasible using filters and the like), the trend could begin reversing very quickly, possibly dropping temperatures by a full degree Fahrenheit within 15 years. That would erase half the warming that's occurred since the Industrial Revolution.
SUBSTANCE:
It's hard to get any one country to agree to limit CO2 because CO2 is almost entirely an externality: the benefits of emitting it are enjoyed primarily by the polluting country, while the destructive costs are shared equally by people all around the world. Soot, while contributing to global warming, also shits up the polluting country by making everything look like Pittsburgh. This means a given country will be more willing to acquiesce on soot than CO2. No one really wants to live in Pittsburgh, so common selfishness will save the day. But seriously, quit shitting up the planet with your motherfucking soot.
The Pittsburgh skyline, like Pittsburgh women, is best viewed in a haze.
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