[ROCKLOBSTER]

How much more carbon today than, say, thirty years ago?

We actually used to do that (black soot) but we stopped...unlike China and India, whose clouds of pollution can be seen from space.

The black residue lands on ice packs and actually causes melting.

[skeeter]

I remember back when the foothills in the SC valley were not visible from May through September because of the smog.

Today its rare when the air is not crystal clear. We may not be measuring it anymore, but I would be willing to bet the bank our air is ten times cleaner now than thirty or forty years ago.