More "scientific" commentery on GLOBAL WARMING

I've got a couple uninformed questions about this NASA arcticle about 'Arctic Soot'.

Ok, haven't we been cleaning up the air with cleaner burning fuels since J.P. Getty got a cheap source of fuel to industry back in the 1800's? You remember changing to inexpensive, readily available, cleaner (realitvly) fuel oil, from sooty coal fired plants.

Here's what Dorothy Koch of Columbia University, New York, and NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), New York, and James Hansen of NASA GISS ( co-authors of the study that appeared in a recent issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research). have to say:

"This research offers additional evidence black carbon, generated through the process of incomplete combustion, may have a significant warming impact on the Arctic," Koch said. "Further, it means there may be immediate consequences for Arctic ecosystems, and potentially long-term implications on climate patterns for much of the globe," she added.

The Arctic is especially susceptible to the impact of human-generated particles and other pollution. In recent years the Arctic has significantly warmed, and sea-ice cover and glacial snow have diminished. Likely causes for these trends include changing weather patterns and the effects of pollution. Black carbon has been implicated as playing a role in melting ice and snow. When soot falls on ice, it darkens the surface and accelerates melting by increasing absorbed sunlight. Airborne soot also warms the air and affects weather patterns and clouds.

Ok, so it's only starting now? All the sooty coal fired plants polluting from all over the devloped 19th century world is only now making it up there?
Or are our modern day scrubbers not working right?

OH!
Koch and Hansen used GISS' General Circulation Model (GCM) to investigate the origins of Arctic soot by isolating various source regions and types. The GCM employs a lot of different data gathered by NASA and other U.S. satellites to study many environmental factors such as ice cover and temperature.

The research found in the atmosphere over the Arctic, about one-third of the soot comes from South Asia, one-third from burning biomass or vegetation around the world, and the remainder from Russia, Europe and North America.

South Asia is estimated to have the largest industrial soot emissions in the world, and the meteorology in that region readily lofts pollution into the upper atmosphere where it is transported to the North Pole. Meanwhile, the pollution from Europe and Russia travels closer to the surface.

But aren't China, and the other Third World countries EXEMPT from the Kyoto scam?