Wholesome 8===D

Air pollution particles have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching the surface of the Earth. This effect is called global dimming and has been counter-acting the effects of global warming by reflecting solar radiation back in to space and decreasing the rate at which the average temperature of the Earth is rising. As a result efforts to reduce air pollution while not reducing green house gas emissions will accelerate the average temperature increase of the Earth, and we'll all be under water that much sooner (actually not us in Colorado, but all of you on the coasts are fucked).

Several documentaries have already been made on global dimming. I just saw NOVA's which, unfortunately, you can't watch completely online. Though, a nice person did post a clip of it on YouTube.

The BBC has made two documentaries on the topic, you can find transcripts here and here. There is a good outline of them on the globalissues.org blog.

And like with any valid scientific phenomenon, some crazy people have to be interested in it and run around making crazy documentaries about it (e.g. Aresol Crimes) to marginalize it's scientific credibility among main stream news consumers.

So, to all of you autodidacts reading my livejournal, there's your "assignment" for today.