United Nations Says Earth's Ozone Layer Is Repairing (bbc.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: The ozone layer, which protects us from ultraviolet light, looks to be successfully healing after gaping holes were discovered in the 1980s. The Northern Hemisphere could be fully fixed by the 2030s and Antarctica by the 2060s. A new United Nations report says it's an example of what global agreements can achieve. The ozone layer had been damaged by man-made chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). The chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) effectively began eating away at the ozone. CFCs were found in things like spray cans, fridges, foam insulation and air conditioners. As a result, in 1985 a gaping hole in the ozone over the South Pole was discovered. An international agreement called the Montreal Protocol made sure that businesses came up with replacements for these damaging products. 180 countries signed up to it. In signing the protocol, those countries agreed to phase out chemicals like CFCs.

Comments

Re: UN also says that the ozone layer ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me break it down for you:
1. The ozone layer is vital - without it, everyone gets skin cancer.
2. CFCs destroy ozone, and also trap heat strongly. We really don't want them.
3. The ozone hole has *not* held off global warming - it has merely helped reduce its impact on Antarctica specifically, by causing localised wind patterns that slowed the encroachment of warmer air & water surrounding the pole. While this was temporarily good for Antarctica, it wouldn't solve anything in the long term, and is certainly not worth the other costs of CFCs.

Reality is rarely black & white, but is never contradictory. If it looks that way, you've probably misunderstood something.

Re:If Trump did his thing

[DNS-and-BIND]

At a news conference last week in Brussels, Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of U.N.'s Framework Convention on Climate Change, admitted that the goal of environmental activists is not to save the world from ecological calamity but to destroy capitalism.

Capitalism is irreconcilable with a livable climate and as humans can't change the laws of nature "What changed for me was hearing the argument for the existence of a climate debt, which is the idea that in order to address the crisis . . . which was created by the wealthiest countries in the world and is being felt most acutely by some of the poorest countries in the world, there needs to be a process of redress.

http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/climate-change-scare-tool-to-destroy-capitalism/

Core inequalities need to be tackled through redistribution of wealth and technology. And this was explained to me as a chance to heal the world; to heal some of the deepest and most lasting wounds left by colonialism. And I suddenly saw that though this crisis continues to be existentially terrifying, it could also be a catalyst for really inspiring change and social justice."

https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2014/09/13/facing_climate_change_headon_means_changing_capitalism_naomi_klein.html

(OTTMAR EDENHOFER, UN IPCC OFFICIAL): Basically it's a big mistake to discuss climate policy separately from the major themes of globalization. The climate summit in Cancun at the end of the month is not a climate conference, but one of the largest economic conferences since the Second World War... First of all, developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community. But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole.

Christiana Figueres, leader of the U.N.'s Framework Convention on Climate Change: "This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model, for the first time in human history."

Former U.S. Senator Timothy Wirth (D-CO), then representing the Clinton-Gore administration as U.S undersecretary of state for global issues, addressing the same Rio Climate Summit audience, agreed: "We have got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic policy and environmental policy."

Christine Stewart, former Canadian Environment Minister: "No matter if the science is all phoney, there are collateral environmental benefits.... climate change [provides] the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world."

Daphne Muller, green-progressive-liberal writer for Salon: "This moment requires we the people to rethink democracy as a global mechanism for enacting policy for and by the planet."

Peter Berle, President of the National Audubon Society: "We reject the idea of private property."

David Brower, a founder of the Sierra Club: "The goal now is a socialist, redistributionist society, which is nature's proper steward and society's only hope."

Mikhail Gorbachev, communist and former leader of U.S.S.R.: "The emerging 'environmentalization' of our civilization and emerging 'environmentalization' of our civilization and the need for vigorous action in the interest of the entire global community will inevitably have multiple political consequences. Perhaps the most important of them will be a gradual change in the s