Scientists say that reducing soot from tens of thousands of cooking stoves — called chulhas in north India — used in the villages in developing countries is a relatively simple climate fix and should be pursued immediately. From the New York Times:
Kohlua, India: “It’s hard to believe that this is what’s melting the glaciers,” said Dr. Veerabhadran Ramanathan, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, as he weaved through a warren of mud brick huts, each containing a mud cookstove pouring soot into the atmosphere.
As women in ragged saris of a thousand hues bake bread and stew lentils in the early evening over fires fueled by twigs and dung, children cough from the dense smoke that fills their homes. Black grime coats the undersides of thatched roofs. At dawn, a brown cloud stretches over the landscape like a diaphanous dirty blanket.
In Kohlua, in central India, with no cars and little electricity, emissions of carbon dioxide, the main heat-trapping gas linked to global warming, are near zero. But soot – also known as black carbon – from tens of thousands of villages like this one in developing countries is emerging as a major and previously unappreciated source of global climate change.
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