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Laughing Gas Is Major Threat To Ozone Layer
Hugh Pickens writes "The Christian Science Monitor reports that according to new research, nitrous oxide, the colorless, sweet-smelling gas with a long history as a medical and dental anesthetic is the next big threat to Earth's protective ozone layer. Its role in destroying ozone has long been recognized, as well as its role as a heat-trapping greenhouse gas but the new study puts nitrous oxide's ability to deplete ozone into numbers comparable to those used for other ozone-depleting gases covered by the 1987 Montreal Protocol. The researchers note that the health of the ozone layer has been improving since the adoption of the protocol and that nitrous oxide looms large today as an artificial destroyer of the ozone layer, in part because the emissions of other harmful chemicals have been so sharply reduced." (Continues.)
"Globally, Earth's ozone layer has thinned by 5 to 6 percent since 1980, before CFCs and their ilk came into wide use, according to Akkihebbal Ravishankara, who led the study. He and his colleagues note that 6 percent may appear to be a small number, but it still can lead to significant effects on organisms at Earth's surface. The researchers did not make any policy recommendations in light of their finding. 'It is not for us to gauge how much risk there is,' says Ravishankara. In any event, Ravishankara says, at the moment researchers could not say with confidence 'how much nitrous oxide comes from where.'"
Of course, the political response will be to pass a bill that places it on a restricted-chemicals list. Industry has a blanket exemption, but no personal/recreational use allowed...
(There is supposed to be a Sarcmark® here, but my $1.99 check hasn't cleared, yet...)
Any global agenda behind which there is a "political will" is innately corrupt, bullshit, or something that they stand to benefit or gain personally from. Our politicians aren't trying to fix world hunger are they? No? But we care SO MUCH about a prediction that at our current use something which will kill off life on this planet in hundreds of thousands of years?
You can't honestly stand here and believe that the most corrupt people in the world give a shit about the ozone layer or global warming -- before anything "bad" happens as a result of any man-made climate problems (even if they are true -- though largely unproven), they, their children, and children's great great grandchildren will be all dead and gone. All they care about right now is having power and getting wealthy. "Cap and Trade" is not a constructive tax -- it is destructive. We have technologies other than coal and oil to produce energy, but it is far too expensive to implement privately, we NEED a $1 TRILLION bill to kick-start it, but congress isn't willing to toss that one down, but they'll gladly punish us for using the only cheap and available technology that will keep this country running. Why do you think that is? Because they can sit here and tax the US citizens for using oil, and quite dramatically at that, to get lots and lots of money -- but do you honestly think any of that money will come back to us? $2 Trillion in deficit spending already has gone *poof*... the trillions to come trickling out of our GDP from this tax will disappear just as well, and with absolutely no liability to anyone in congress while they kick back and enjoy the gold linings in their pockets.
It's just the next buzz-word in politics: "omgs, it might destroy human life on the earth in a few hundred years in a worst case scenario!!"... As far as self-preservation goes, these politicians ought to be worried more about disrespecting and angering the citizens that give them power, after all, if they continue down this path, it'll be the French Revolution all over again, and I'll bring my guillotine with me.
TFA says that the ozone layer is improving anyway. So it appears that NO, while bad for the ozone layer, is not present in sufficient quantities to actually be causing a problem. No action should be required.
Or in different terms, it may be the most significant cause of damage to the ozone layer, but it is not a cause of significant damage to the ozone layer.
So if I've read the summary correctly (RTFA? What?), laughing gas isn't becoming an increasing problem, it's just becoming an increasing proportion of the problem because we're reducing the use of other harmful gases. In fact, the situation is actually improving. We've drastically reduced our use of CFCs in recent years, so the 5-6% thinning of the ozone layer is actually being reversed.
Therefore the suggestion that this is actually a problem is laughable.
No mind-altering drugs? Ever? Really?
You've never drunk coffee? You've never taken a prescription or OTC sleep aid? Never taken an antihistamine allergy medication?
What are you, amish?
I got tired of repeating myself on Slashdot, so I wrote an article showing that abrupt climate change is a matter of serious concern. Climate change is already have negative effects, and they'll get worse over the next century. Hundreds of thousands of years is wishful thinking according to the best scientific evidence available today.
I've directly addressed cap and trade, which seems like a very constructive, capitalistic approach that will jumpstart a new industrial revolution. My hope is that the United States invests heavily in nuclear fission technology, preferably using waste reprocessing and newer designs like pebble bed reactors.
As I've stressed, the existence of abrupt climate change is a scientific topic. It's a good idea to ignore politicians and their ridiculous claims, and focus on the science.
Bush and Obama? Same shit, different names.
You sir, are a very, very bad troll.
Is this the "change" you wanted?
Ok genious, explain why the present Swedish government has implemented a cap and trade system for CO2 and SIMULTANEOUSLY lowered the overall tax burden, precisely as they promised during the election.
Yup, you got that right, a party that went to election with the promise to lower taxes has implemented sharp taxation on CO2 without breaking their election promise of lowering the overall taxation level. Of course never mind us over here across the pond. The fact that we cut our CO2 emissions at the same time as we reduce our taxation pressure is obviously consistent with your deluded idea that this fuss about global warming is just about taxing Americans. Yea that's right, we are dramatically transforming our European economies just so your politicians can tax you. Makes perfect sense doesn't it ?
Actually no, I have never dunk coffee. Medications, yes. But those are hardly what most people would think of as "mind altering drugs".
No, not Amish, I just have no interest in distorting reality.
Effectively your argument boils down to "Sweden has a lower population thus it is not as expensive to power it". Problem is that we also have correspondingly less GDP to spend on power egneration.
I think you hit the nail on the head with this bit though:
"We all want to pursue fission, it's less waste producing that burning coal but you've got fanatic green fucktards who lobby against it..."
Sweden gets 50% of electricity, and a quarter of our energy, from fission which largely explains our much lower CO2 emitted per capita. There's no partiuclar reason the US could not scale its nuclear generation capacity. Where I don't agree with you however is that this is caused largely by opposition by green groups. In reality nuclear is not favoured by American utilities because coal is cheaper. Cap and Trade "fixes" that by making coal more expensive. This does indeed raise energy costs, but guess what. Moving the entire US electricity production from fossils to low carbons oruces will cost money no matter how you look at it. If you ban or cap fossils the money will come from increased energy prices. If you continue business as usual then the cost will be even harsher when you are eventually forced to make the switch.
Btw, my argument was never that implementing cap and trade will not cost Americans money. My argument was that to conclude from this that there are nefarious motives behind politicians decision to implement the scheme does not follow. The US government may be doing a lot of things wrong, but the decision to start taxing fossils is not one of them and they are far from the only country doing it.
You sure about that? I'm a practicing American anesthesiologist, and I routinely use small amounts of nitrous at the end of a case to speed the wakeup. Go back to older anesthetics, and nitrous use was very common - the older gases were more fat-soluble, so they tended to hang around longer, but you could use less of them if you used nitrous.
The average is 1 million pounds (thats 453,592.27 kilograms) PER YEAR since the bans began.
You say that like it's somehow significant, yet give no indication whatsoever that it is in any way significant. Your entire post consists of "OMG LOOK REALLY BIG NUMBERS!!!!"
Is there any reason to believe that a mere 0.5 Mg of this stuff is in any way bad for the atmosphere, which is after all 5e15 Mg?
Big numbers aren't scary. Stupid people are. You kinda scare me.
Please come back when you have an actual argument. In the meantime, please note the fact that the ozone layer is thickening just now, so the eventually damage this stuff might do is less than whatever damage was done by the original problem with CFC's, which is no surprise given North American emissions are down to a few percent of their peak values.
Oh, and I'd also recommend putting things in grams rather than kg, as that will make the numbers BIGGER, and apparently you think that is important for some reason.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
He didn't directly say the CFC issue was bogus. He did highlighted a major problem with science in the US. The only way to get grant funding is scare tactics, or to blindly support a political agenda that's willing to pay to have their pet theories proven.
Besides, there is still some lingering doubt about the effect of CFCs. There's actually a stronger correlation between the ozone densities in the lower stratosphere and things such as solar outputs. Some contradictions that have not been explained are the ozone "hole" (not really a hole) getting smaller before the atmospheric CFC levels declined. The upper stratosphere is generally unaffected even though most current CFC theories say it should be. The initial baseline we keep comparing too was probably the high point of a cyclic process. We see the size of the hole cycling up and down through the year, its reasonable to assume it also has a long cycle.
The next scare tactic out there is carbon emissions. That's certainly a politically charged arena. Just ask Al Gore who's getting rich off it. The global temperature change tracks quite nicely with solar output levels, which happen to be cyclic. The politicians and scientists are making the tragic assuming that the earths temperature is supposed to be constant, and ignoring that it probably cycles up and down over a hundred year cycle. Are we affecting it? Possibly, but we are certainly not the dominant or controlling factor.
Dextromethorphan...cough suppressant...very much in the "mind-altering drugs" category, and probably one you have consumed.
Perhaps you should reevaluate your prejudice. By "distorting" reality, you just might find yourself more grounded in it.
Many medications ARE mind altering, especially allergy drugs. Benadryl puts me out like a light, and leaves me groggy when I wake up. Beats the hell out of a bad sinus headache!
Free Martian Whores!
It's actually legal to own despite its recreational properties.
Going off on a bit of a tangent here, but this statement just sums up everything I hate about the 'war on drugs'. Despite its recreational properties? Despite?!
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