Doom and Gloom - Literally - as Global Dimming Increases

James Kunstler has referred to the coming age as The Dim Ages, when the world turns from Oil to...the last remaining fossil fuel resource, the highly polluting and poisonous Coal. We will face a rather tragic and difficult dilemma: do we want the lights on or clear blue skies? No Noddy Badges for guessing which option we'll choose. The future may well be Man VS The Climate, and of course a worsening Climate will make it difficult to maintain good harvests, and harvests free from pollutants.

clipped from news.yahoo.com WASHINGTON – The skies are dimming, for most of the world. Increases in airborne pollution have dimmed the skies by blocking sunlight over the past 30 years, researchers report in Friday's edition of the journal Science. While decreases in atmospheric visibility — known as global dimming — have been reported in the past, the new study compiles satellite and land-based data for a longer period than had been available. "Creation of this database is a big step forward for researching long-term changes in air pollution and correlating these with climate change," Kaicun Wang, assistant research scientist in the University of Maryland, said in a statement. "And it is the first time we have gotten global long-term aerosol information over land to go with information already available on aerosol measurements over the world's oceans." They reported that dimming is occurring everywhere except Europe, where declines in pollution have resulted in brighter skies.