traffic A new study coming out of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that when it comes to the net contribution to climate change on-road transportation, burning biomass for cooking, and raising animals for food are the biggest culprits. Since most of us don’t regularly use biomass stoves to cook, as do millions of people in developing nations, that leaves us with your car and your diet to tackle.

Rather than looking at the sources of different chemicals linked with global warming, the GISS study looked at net climate impact from different economic sectors. By net impact, we’re talking about emissions than contribute to warming (the usual suspects CO2, methane, black carbon, etc) minus those emissions that actually slow warming (some aerosols, sulfates, etc) by reflecting light and altering clouds.

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