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Scientists Baffled By Unknown Source of Ozone-Depleting Chemical
schwit1 writes: Scientists have found that, despite a complete ban since 2007, ozone-depleting chemicals are still being pumped into the atmosphere from some unknown source. "Carbon tetrachloride (CCl4), which was once used in applications such as dry cleaning and as a fire-extinguishing agent, was regulated in 1987 under the Montreal Protocol along with other chlorofluorocarbons that destroy ozone and contribute to the ozone hole over Antarctica. Parties to the Montreal Protocol reported zero new CCl4 emissions between 2007-2012. However, the new research shows worldwide emissions of CCl4 average 39 kilotons (about 43,000 U.S. tons) per year, approximately 30 percent of peak emissions prior to the international treaty going into effect. "We are not supposed to be seeing this at all," said Qing Liang, an atmospheric scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and lead author of the study published online in the Aug. 18 issue of Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union. "It is now apparent there are either unidentified industrial leakages, large emissions from contaminated sites, or unknown CCl4 sources."
I would not be surprised at all if it is a component used in the fracking fluids associated with the process.
Since nobody will tell us what is used under "trade secret" lala, all naysayers to my possibility assertion are preemptively kaput.
I can think of some more skeptical reasons.
Or the Ozone layer is perfectly fine now, and repairing itself, albeit slowly, and said scientists currently have their hand out and need to come up with an excuse to fill it.
Or, the "Ozone Hole" was a natural occurrence all along, and had nothing to do with CFCs, because CFCs are so flipping heavy whoever construed all of it isn't on the ocean floor is a dunce...etc
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So why has every environmental initiative in the past 40 years been pushed by the Democrats and resisted by the Republicans?
You mean like this one?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
Odd. I didn't know Bush was a Democrat.
What about this one?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
Where are the Democrats pushing this bill and Republicans opposing it?
And although I'm stepping outside your 40-year limit, who created the Environmental Protection Agency in the first place? I'll give you a hint:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U...
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Perhaps because Republicans believe that it will be more effective to protect the environment in other ways. Government is not always the correct answer.
That's okay, I don't respect Carl Sagan.
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