Comment Sulfur dioxide? (Score 4, Interesting) 205
Did they factor in the sudden drop in global cloud coverage over the oceans?
Banning high-sulfur fuels in cargo ships was a good move when it comes to reducing acid rain - but it became obvious very quickly that the ocean-spanning clouds seeded by the resulting sulfur dioxide had been causing a powerful global cooling effect, and removing them is nearly doubling the rate at which the planet is warming.
Personally, it seems to me like maybe we should roll back the new ban until we've got the warming under a bit more control. Is reducing acid rain for a few decades really worth cutting the time we have to avert catastrophic global warming in half?
Instead, the only proposals I've seen have been adding new, expensive additives to the fuel to get a similar effect. Which realistically seems VERY unlikely to happen, especially compared to the ease with which everyone would be happy to go back to the old cheap bunker fuel.