That is quite interesting indeed, if you add the burning of rain forest you are probably beyond 100%, and it is probably responsible of a local warming effect much more than CO2, soot lifetime being much shorter than CO2. That could be a solid argument to convince developped country to stop burning biomass in poorly designed burner and stove but also to convince them to stop burning the rain forest, then would leave them more room to emit CO2.

In addition to soot in the air, it would not surprise me if we found out that carbon black settling on Arctic ice and glaciers is one, if not the, major cause of accelerated ice melting. We've all seen diesel soot spewing out of truck exhausts or seen plumes of black smoke from the many coal plants in China. It has to land somewhere. Snow and ice melt faster with even a light dusting of soot. Dramatically reducing slash burning, along with minimizing diesel and coal fired soot, could prove to be the best short term solution to preserving ice on our planet.

If we truly want to slow the major melting taking place on our planet, we may need to make soot reduction a much higher priority than we do now.

At least in the case of soot, reduction efforts will pay off in immediately improved human health. This is not so much the case for CO2.

Here is a link to an article written last year on the impact that dust has on accelerating glacier and snow melt.

http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/42794/story.htm

Here is another link to a NASA study of the impact of soot on glacier melting.

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2003/1223blacksoot.html

The Technology to eliminate soot from dung cooking fires is quite cheap and simple. An enclosed bucket to hold the dung lets methane gas be produced for fuel, then the dung is still available for fertilizer, and also sequesters much of the carbon.

Mass producing the system, and subsidizing it will make life better for all on the planet, but especially better for those with such limited cooking fuel options.

So does this cancel out global cooling? Does it do more? Less? Or is global cooling just a crock? Or is this a crock?

If much of the observed global warming is due to black soot, this is actually good news, since it means the warming from greenhouse gases is necessarily smaller.

John Taylor:

Along with solar energy, Grameen Shakti is promoting just what you suggest:
"GS has been successful in promoting and constructing both domestic and larger sizes biogas plants to rural villagers. Impact on biogas plant owners has been positive and demand is increasing day by day. All its clients are enjoying hassle free and pollution free energy for cooking and business activities. Bangladesh has the potential for developing 4 million biogas plants. GS intends to further scale up its successful pilot project and develop a 5 year action plan for expanding biogas program in Bangladesh."
http://www.grameen-info.org/grameen/gshakti/programs.html

Biogas production from food waste is increasingly popular among the poor in India's cities:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=316560321556323545&q=biogas+india&total=17&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

In the countryside, dung is generally used instead of food waste. The effluent can be separated into a liquid and a solid phase, though farmers in the Third World could only afford the required machine if they're organized in a biogas co-op. Video is in German, it primarily highlights that the press adapts pressure automatically to the consistency of the input, which is what's left over after anaerobic digestion. Both phases are valuable fertilizer, but they differ in handling.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2197205014897681910&q=biogas+quetschprofi&total=1&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

Burning raw biogas does generate sulfur emissions, but not soot. Fortunately, hydrogen sulfide scrubbing is cost-effective even at small scales, whereas refining to biomethane only makes sense for large installations and if a local gas consumer is available or feeding into the grid is permitted (e.g. in the EU).

Would it be possible to convince the households to use solar cookers?

TB2:

It may not be a matter of convincing, it may be more a matter of distribution and financing. See the following:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8E3WEZLKEUI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YTNWRgHYqw&feature=related

Wonder how much black carbon comes from the many million badly designed wood stoves and fireplaces.

Interesting. Except... Where is the Warming? There has been virtually none for a decade, despite rising CO2 levels.

Now there is another method proposed to warm the tropics. If true, it is yet more indirect evidence that CO2 is way over-rated in its power to warm the Earth.

Aerosols are usually cited by climatologists, as a cooling phenomenon that shields the Earth from the full effect of CO2 induced warming. Here it is proposed to augment the warming. Still acting in concert with CO2, with both acting, there has been virtually no warming for a decade.

Letting the Third World remain in poverty and undeveloped, as would be the consequences of much of their proposals , would keep this carbon soot warming the Earth.

There is also one statement in this article that the UN's IPCC said in AR4, that is out right wrong. In AR4 the IPCC said the AGW thesis is partially dependent on an extended duration in the atmosphere of CO2. The reason for that as advanced by AGW proponents, is that CO2 DOES NOT behave consistently, as the universal laws for gas-liquid mixture do, for all other gas-liquid mixtures in solubility.

The IPCC has now said it will cease supporting this unique CO2 hypothesis in the IPCC's next report, AR5, as new scientific evidence continues to build that CO2 does behave just like like all other liquid-gas solubility mixtures.

The IPCC said in AR4, it will give proponents of extended CO2 residency, a final four or five years to find the evidence that they have been unable to find for the past thirty years. Meanwhile new scientific evidence continually piles up that the hypothesis is outright wrong, and the IPCC can no longer ignore that scientific evidence.

In short the IPCC is prepared to return to atmospheric CO2-ocean following Henry's Law for Solubility.

In that case, CO2 is resident in the atmosphere for 5.7 years and NOT centuries. This conforms to Henry's Law calculation, and other new evidence is supporting. CO2's power to alter the climate is emasculated in direct proportion to its residency time. Or the time CO2 can act to warm the Earth. If the current estimate was a century, (some AGW proponents assert 3 centuries) and the new, (i.e. original, old) is 5.7 years, then the power to warm the Earth, shrinks to 5.7% of what was originally feared by AGW proponents.

Global warming or no, reduction of airbourne soot would be a good thing. It will just take some time for technology and traditions to change.

Like James White I have believed the soot falling upon northern regions and artic ice is an underweighted factor in climate studies. A few recent studies seem to be leading that way.

Soot on ice and snow is somewhat self limiting. It must be constantly renewed or it disappears with melting or is covered by new snow within a relatively short time. Airborne soot is also naturally depleted but perhaps not at a rate suitable to humans trying to maintain a good environment.

What this proves is global warming and ice melting is regional. That China and Russia are the main culprits.

America cleaned up long ago in comparison to these two communist nations.

We can always improve, but the soot problem is largely responsible for the heavy ice-melt.

Solve China's coal soot problem, solve artic melt and mountain glacier melt problems.

We've been in a cooling trend the last few years. We've had record snow falls in Canada and most of the north this year in America. We've had stasis for the last decade in temperature.

Truth is, "we simply don't know" yet all the variables. Eliminating pollutions of any kind is good. But we need to be very careful on spending binges due to false data and fictional movies told by politicians who benefit from the cap and trade investment. This needs to be well thought out and our scientist need time to reflect more on all the issues, not just CO2.

Besides, the doomsday scenario is far from accurate and may be completely off the mark. In fact, warming trends in the past show the world was abundant and teeming with life during warm seasons north and south of traditional climate zones today.

I'm all for clean air, water and energy independence. But I'm glad to see other studies finally coming to the foreground which can dissipate some of the hysteria unleashed by false prophets. None of these findings should change the urgent need to move forward in all areas of research.

No one is saying spend $100B per year on GW like we are spending on Iraq. People see how several things are interconnected here. The main items are air pollution and energy. We can do better. To deflect attention and action from air quality and energy security by talking about the supposed uncertainty of global warming and GDP reduction is just delaying what we need to do. People know what we need to do. Now they are looking for the leadership to help do it.

I hope things will change in the world!