Some measures can be so simple and yet so effective that you sometimes stop to wonder how come you didn’t thing about them before. You probably heard this a dozen times, but it’s true. The same goes for air pollution control measures: simple acts like putting a filter or changing a house appliance can make a huge difference in time.
This is what a new NASA research revealed recently: 14 measures to help delay global warming and boost agricultural productivity.
The measures mostly tackle methane and black carbon, which is derived from biomass and burning coal. In the first case, methane would be reduced by capturing it from gas-burning facilities, eliminating the emissions produced by landfills and farms and aerating the rice paddies.
As mentioned above, the amount of black carbon would decrease just by attaching a filter to your diesel car or replacing your stove or boiler with a clean-burning one.
If one sticks to these rules for 30 years, estimates are that we’ll diminish the rhythm of global warming by 0.9 ºF (0.5 ºC), which would benefit especially the Asian and Middle Eastern regions. On top of that, worldwide agricultural crops would give forth a supplement of 135 million metric tons per season.
These measures may have more appeal than what has been proposed so far, for the one reason that people usually see global warming as something of relatively little importance, while public health problems and food shortage are here to stay if we don’t do something about them.
[via Goodcleantech]
