Webster: Thunberg on climate | Commentary | rutlandherald.com - Rutland Herald

Webster: Thunberg on climate | Commentary | rutlandherald.com

I recommend reading carefully “The Climate Book” put together by Greta Thunberg who creates and introduces 18 themes related to the climate crisis and which contains commentary from 102 experts (if I counted accurately), mostly scientists writing pretty cogently and understandably, especially if you read each commentary twice. I have decided to focus in this commentary of mine on a) one of “The Climate Book” commentaries that especially caught my attention; and b) on a major theme pushed by Greta.

a) Drew Shindell, Duke University professor who has authored submissions to the IPPC, pointed out a distinction between warming caused by climate change and increased air pollution, both caused by increased emissions in general, but each phenomenon with different characteristics. Additional heat exposure kills tens of thousands of people per year, a figure no doubt much larger due to the recent heat waves. Air pollution or smog exposes people to fine particulate matter which causes even more, approximately 10 million, deaths per year. This fact is not as well-known. Lowering emissions is doubly beneficial. Both global warming and air pollution have harmful results, effects that are disproportionately felt by the poor, not the wealthy.