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MarkusQ 3 hours ago [-]
> The warming impact is tiny, far less than the impact of carbon dioxide emissions, and only a fraction of the impact of soot.
So...they may be doing something. Or not. But if they are, it's not much. More study is needed to keep this ball in the air.
LeCompteSftware 2 hours ago [-]
This knee-jerk cynicism is badly undermined two sentences later:
> Researchers say that climate models may need to be updated to account for the warming effect of plastic, but the new study is far from conclusive.
So it's not scientific make-work, they are looking into whether climate models are missing something. That seems important. Perhaps local effects in India are more severe than "a fraction of the impact of soil" - India produces a huge amount of new plastic while also scavenging and recycling international plastic imports, all with very poor oversight and corrupt regulation.
Melatonic 3 hours ago [-]
Everyone has been worried about microplastics in water but what about floating in air? I cannot imagine this is good for our lungs.
Perhaps we end up with plastic based clouds to even reflect sunlight and combat global warming
So...they may be doing something. Or not. But if they are, it's not much. More study is needed to keep this ball in the air.
> Researchers say that climate models may need to be updated to account for the warming effect of plastic, but the new study is far from conclusive.
So it's not scientific make-work, they are looking into whether climate models are missing something. That seems important. Perhaps local effects in India are more severe than "a fraction of the impact of soil" - India produces a huge amount of new plastic while also scavenging and recycling international plastic imports, all with very poor oversight and corrupt regulation.
Perhaps we end up with plastic based clouds to even reflect sunlight and combat global warming