The following is a snippet from a radio show:

---------------------------------------------------
"If we continue to cut back on smoke pouring forth from industrial smokestacks, the increase in global warming could be profound," Kintisch writes in an opinion piece for the Los Angeles Times. Kintisch isn't talking about greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide; he's talking about another kind of pollutant we put in the sky -- "like aerosols from a spray can," he tells NPR's Guy Raz.

"It turns out that those particles have a profound effect on maintaining the planet's temperature." Greenhouse gases and aerosol pollutants work in opposing ways on the Earth's climate, Kintisch explains. "The greenhouse gases warm the planet when they're emitted, because they absorb heat reflected up from the ground -- the greenhouse effect. These aerosols, though, do the opposite. They block sunlight, they make clouds more reflective -- and by doing that, they actually cool the planet. "The problem is that we're cutting the cooling pollution as we make our air cleaner," he says.

Some scientists, he says, are confident that this is connected to global warming, but they don't know how large the effect is. "That's the frightening thing, because if it's a big cooling effect, it means that we've been actually warming the planet more than we know," Kintisch says. "As we take away that unexpectedly helpful cooling mask, we're going to be facing more global warming than we expected.
---------------------------------------------------


I think the trick here is to think logically about what is involved. Switching hair spray and cleaning products from aerosol to a trigger pump is quick and easy compared to cutting back our driving or improving our fossil fuel efficiencies dramatically. As we make decisions to improve our quality of life, reducing airborne pollutants as one example, all of the effects are not necessarily positive. We improve our health and well being as well as general health of the other life on our planet.

As we are generally reactionary, what this tells me is it is time to react. Wow, the aerosols had more effects than killing Ozone and opening higher possibilities for skin cancer? Yes. Apparently along with killing Ozone, they reflected heat away in the upper atmosphere. We had to make this change. Now we need to move faster toward the other changes on our list. Reducing fossil fuel use.

I'm sure we will find draw backs to renewable energies too, but they are currently a lot better choice. Lets keep perspective and seek balance, reduce - reuse - recycle.

For your interest, I have placed the forcing chart from the IPCC on the related link for you to look at. The chart is a summary of primary contributors to Climate Change and the direction of their impact illustrated with margin for error.