MAR 07

A new study from NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies has identified on-road transportation as the most significant overall source contributing to global warming. Power generation, while having the greatest total impact, also includes a large number of compounds that increase cloud reflectivity and provide other effects to offset some of the warming they are responsible for.

In the study, rather than looking at specific chemicals and compounds, the range of airborne pollutants is broken down by economic sector. The study looks at the range of gases and aerosols that are released by each of 13 sectors of the economy, and finds that on-road transportation has the greatest overall effect on global warming.

"Cars, buses, and trucks release pollutants and greenhouse gases that promote warming, while emitting few aerosols that counteract it. The researchers found that the burning of household biofuels -- primarily wood and animal dung for home heating and cooking -- contribute the second most warming. And raising livestock, particularly methane-producing cattle, contribute the third most. On the other end of the spectrum, the industrial sector releases such a high proportion of sulfates and other cooling aerosols that it actually contributes a significant amount of cooling to the system. And biomass burning -- which occurs mainly as a result of tropical forest fires, deforestation, savannah and shrub fires -- emits large amounts of organic carbon particles that block solar radiation."

The intent of this study is to make the information about climate change more accessible and understandable. "We wanted to provide the information in a way that would be more helpful for policy makers," according to Nadine Unger, leader of the research team. "This approach will make it easier to identify sectors for which emission reductions will be most beneficial for climate and those which may produce unintended consequences."

No one should mistake the point of this study to indicate that coal burning and other power-generation and industrial processes are benign and therefore do not need to be scaled back. Although industrial processes mitigate their adverse effects with regard to global warming, the sulfates and aerosols that are beneficial in this one manner are responsible for a range of other, negative environmental impacts.

The paper was published online on Feb. 3 by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

via: Worldchanging

Comments (16)

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Solution
written by Chris Lawrence, March 07, 2010

Solution is not that complicated, however. More rail:

http://www.selfdestructivebastards.com/2009/11/case-for-rail.html

And car-free cities:

http://www.selfdestructivebastards.com/2010/02/car-free-cities.html

Some parts of the world are already pursuing this, no reason why we shouldn't in North America too.

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Diesel engines and nano particulates
written by Pete, March 07, 2010

The widespread use of diesel engines endangers human life, especially in cities. Diesel engines create nano particles which have been shown to pass directly into human cell tissue via the lungs. These particles carry traces of heavy metals and aromatic hydrocarbon. What it means is that you are effectively getting "gene therapy" whenever you inhale the exhaust from a diesel.

Diesel engines are probably the next asbestos.

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Air Polution Signs At Dinosaur National Monument Of All Places
written by David Leland Hyde, March 08, 2010

Many consider a battle over dams in Dinosaur National Monument to have been the birth of the modern environmental movement. The irony is that when you visit Dinosaur National Monument today, there are signs about air polution at the first overlook. Dinosaur is the most remote National Monument in the lower 48 states but air pollution carries 500-1000 miles from Southern California, Texas and Mexico. One of the signs reads, "If each commuter car carried just one more person we would save 600,000 gallons of gas a day."

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Nano gunge
written by repossessed cars, March 08, 2010

Hey Pete, I understand what you are saying - but why do you put it in such harsh terms? The widespread use of tobacco endangers human life but lets get this into perspective. Also I'd like to know what you mean by nano particles? Are you just talking size here? x 10^-9 particle size of heavy metals? Or are you trying to play into the grey goo camp?

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...
written by Evan, March 08, 2010

Gee. I thought we humans would've figured that out right about decades ago, when there was a lot of traffic and stuff (even up to now). I guess we need the numbers.

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@Mr "goo" re Diesel nano particles
written by Pete, March 08, 2010

Nano particles are particles 100 atoms in width or less. Given the ratio of surface area to size, diesel particulates are probably more dangerous than tobacco.

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SO2 & Particulate pollution from coal does not solve GHG problems
written by Carl Hage, March 09, 2010

I think the title of this article is wrong-- it's not true in absolute numbers, just in relative numbers to 2000 and then temporarily. (See below or read the article with graphs of the absolute amounts.)

I think it is a mistake to consider coal-based electricity less significant because the SO2 and particulates in the upper atmosphere block some of the light and temporarily mitigate some greenhouse effects from CO2. Drinking Irish Coffee (coffee & whiskey) may keep you alert a little longer than drinking just the whiskey, but you still get too drunk to drive and will destroy the liver if you drink too much.

The article is interesting from an academic point, but it's a mistake to draw a conclusion that transportation is more important from a policy point of view. Also, the charts remind me of collateralized debt swap securities-- a graph showing relative to 2000 figures rather than absolute numbers (a derivative statistic) confuses the issues. The absolute figures show power and industry much more significant in absolute terms.

But nevertheless there are big opportunities in reducing toxic pollutants and CO2 in the transportation sector, independent of land use changes (cities vs suburbs) or mass transit. Improving efficiency (e.g. lightweighting, streamlining, and hybrid drive) and use of biofuel (or even natural gas as Pickens advocates) can greatly reduce CO2 and petrodollars.

For diesel (or even gasoline to lesser extent) the emissions with the newest technology in production is 20-50 times lower than the typical equipment. Really, it's that dramatic! But we grandfather old polluting equipment and force only new purchases to conform to emissions limit and the old dirty engines pollute with no penalty. We should tax trucking, etc. based on the pollution they emit, not just the miles they drive. Then there is an incentive to clean up the equipment.

We really don't need to either address electricity or transportation-- both are needed and are independent. Also, we don't need to change where we live or change to rail-only to make a big difference.

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@Carl Hage
written by Pete, March 09, 2010

There are other factors which strongly weighs against truck transportation. Trucks cause a lot of wear and tear damage to roads but typically the cost of repairs is borne disproportionately by private car operators. In effect private motorists subsidize trucking. The true cost should be borne by the trucking operators.

There is also the social cost of road trauma caused by collisions between private vehicular traffic and commercial trucks. This cost can be greatly decreased by getting trucks off the highways.

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...
written by Adrian O, March 09, 2010

For perspective, satellite and ground measurements show that since 2002 climate has been cooling

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1900/mean:36/plot/gistemp/from:1900/mean:36/offset: -0.14/plot/uah/from:1900/mean:36/offset:0.04/plot/rss/from:1900/mean:36/offset:0.08

so all the released CO2 did until now (on the real Earth, not in models) was to make trees very happy - they grow now 4 times faster

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/science/earth/02trees.html

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...
written by VeruTEK Green Technologies, March 09, 2010

Not as simple as many people may think. Most rail systems are underfunded which make it very complicated to expand those rail systems. Even mass transit has its problems. However the silver lining may come with the high speed rails that are supposed to be built within the next 5 years.

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Look outside the domestic economy
written by DoctorRad, March 16, 2010

You also have to look outside the domestic economy. S I've read, the world's 14 most polluting ships have the same equivalent greenhouse gas emissions than ALL the cars in the world, and Denmark - a largely maritime country - estimates that it has 5,000 premature deaths per year due to the pollution from shipping.

We all now run our diesel cars on low-sulphur diesel... where do you think all the high-sulphur diesel is going to? That's right, ships...

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news?
written by Oemissions, March 18, 2010

Its not just emissions.
Its the NOISE, the health hazards, the stress and all the social costs that accompany support for the uses and abuses of the automobile.
They are our WMDs.

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We've gotta dump the old school thinking
written by Outside the parallelogram, March 18, 2010

There is one solution to every problem mentioned above. That is www.skytran.net. It's a personal mag-lev that hangs below a rail small enough to mount to telephone poles. Each car can carry 2 passengers (3 if small) or around 800 lbs of cargo autonomously to it's final destination in one non-stop, point-to-point trip. It's 10 times cheaper than light rail and equates to over 200 MPG. It's also one story above ground which eliminates accidents with everything except the occasional bird.

We need to start building infrastructures that make more sense like these. Personally, I'd love to see one quick-and-cheap-to-install system that could replace commuting, bussing (especially schools), pallet cargo, local and mid distance delivery, and possibly US mail that can coexist with existing systems until they are phased out or scaled back. This would allow us to replant a fair amount of grass or trees where we used to just have pavement. We can use this new 'easement' to carry more power to and from distributed generation sources (aka REAL net metering), carry internet and wi-fi access points, and possibly even host a few renewable panels or turbines itself.

I really like the idea that we could offer some communities "no roads" and just have sidewalks sized to handle the occasional delivery 4-wheeler. One unrecognized benefit is the elimination of sewer drains to catch all that road rain.

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Growing four times faster is NOT good for trees!
written by Weehawk, March 31, 2010

"so all the released CO2 did until now (on the real Earth, not in models) was to make trees very happy - they grow now 4 times faster"

Any tree growing that fast would be incredibly weak. It would shear off very quickly, probably from its own weight. Please take your pseudo-science elsewhere.

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Car Transportation
written by Car Transportation, September 04, 2010

No one should mistake the point of this study to indicate that coal burning and other power-generation and industrial processes are benign and therefore do not need to be scaled back.

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...
written by Nick Greyden, January 31, 2012

I'm dubious. The reason being is that water vapor is the single largest greenhouse gas in the atomosphere. I have seen no study on the effects of humans and their contributing factors to water vapor. Also, this article should be entitled "Road Transportation Is the Greatest CONFIRMED MAN MADE Culprit in Global Warming" as there are tons of naturally occurring Greenhouse gases none of which were covered by the study. Although given the study's purpose this is normal and it is sadly status quo for the environmental protection movement as the problem of global warming is complex and deserves through investigation including full information about the role of man made greenhouse gases vs naturally occurring phenomena.

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