Green snow in Russia is a harm caused by environmental pollution

Have you ever seen green snow? Normally, the snow we see is white, but recently the Russian city of Pervouralsk has repeatedly seen green snowflakes, and this is caused by environmental pollution, which has deepened residents' concerns about pollution, poor waste management, and the possible effects of nearby factory activity.

A series of incidents in Russia has drawn the internet's attention. Residents of a Siberian town watched in dismay as the snow around them turned green and black, and toxic emissions forced some people to wear masks. These appear to be linked to local factories, especially a chrome-plating plant behind the green snow, and as protests accelerate, the Putin government is facing pressure.

Snow pollution is not new. Activists have warned for years about the dangers of darkness, with black, brown and gray streaks clearly visible from the air in the Arctic region - because of its impact on climate change. Dark snow is stained by black carbon, AKA soot - unburned particles released by the burning of fossil fuels in power plants, factories and other sources, and carried by the wind onto ice sheets. When soot falls on white snow, it is not just an aesthetic disaster: reflective ice and snow enhance the Earth's albedo (the ability of a surface to reflect sunlight), reflecting light and heat back into space, but dark snow absorbs heat, accelerating global warming. Eliminating soot can slow climate change and help lower temperatures by 0.5°C.

The beauty in snow always haunts our imagination, symbolizing purity and transcendence, a return to a mythical state of innocence. The incidents of snow turning green and black are causing more and more alarm. So how worried should we be about the world's increasingly colorful snow?