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Apologies for the green movement circa 2007 title, but this time it’s actually apt-not like all those posts about how unplugging your phone charger will save the planet.

A new article in Science brings together and highlights the effectiveness of a number of actions that could comparatively quickly slow global warming, and none of them are high-tech geoengineering schemes.

All make a sort of end run around cutting carbon emissions-though the authors explicitly and rightly acknowledge that we need to do that too-by addressing other sources of warming, namely black carbon soot and methane emissions.

Lead author of the report Drew Shindell, of NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies and Columbia University’s Earth Institute sums it up:

Ultimately we have to deal with CO2, but in the short term, dealing with these pollutants is more doable, and it brings fast results. We have identified practical steps we can take with existing technologies. Protecting public health and food supplies may take precedence over avoiding climate change in most countries, but knowing that these measures also mitigate climate change may help motivate policies to put them into practice.