Every time it rains, the particulate matter that’s been collecting on the side of our building gathers where water can sit. This means that our balcony gets covered in soot.
Solid exhaust products from cars and trucks receive less attention than gaseous expulsions, for a number of climate-change-related reasons (atmospheric longevity, the rhetorical benefits of singling out CO2, geography, &c.). Unlike climate change, people have been conscious of black carbon air pollution for centuries. As a young westerner, my experience of soot is mostly aesthetic. More concretely, it shortens lives globally on a mammoth scale. Even if engineers can ‘fix’ the climate, pollution will still be an issue to confront.