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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.
Or do we go back to CFCs, knowing that those actually cool the earth (which is what we want)
...are you insane? CFCs are among some of the most potent greenhouse gases. If anything, the Montreal Protocol is credited with contributing to slowing the warming trend in the 1990s and throwing off some of the predictions of late 1980s.
Ezekiel 23:20
I guess love is like the ozone layer.
You never miss it until it's gone.
#DeleteFacebook
So what? Everything isn't about the end zone layer.
#DeleteFacebook
As K. S. Kyosuke says CFCs are among the most potent greenhouse gases. Meanwhile the ozone layer is one of the most vital protective layers of the Earth. Without it land life would be practically impossible as UVA & UVB rained down on the surface. Life would be largely limited to the oceans.
If Trump did his thing and pulled out of the UN agreement on CFCs...... it would make zero difference.
Because no manufacturer would use CFC, the consumer backlash in the US would stop the product selling and they wouldn't be able to sell that product in the rest of the world. So they wouldn't make it and even try. Trump's word would not have any effect.
When he pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord, it had no effect on the US's efforts to cut its greenhouse gas emission. The efforts on solar and electric continued anyway. He failed to get his coal subsidy, and even if he attempts to drop mercury emission standards. Any coal fired power station would simply be sued for emitting mercury into the atmosphere.
These agreements, they are aspirational. They set a goal which is followed because it has mass agreement to be followed.
If the holes were discovered today, you all know exactly what would happen, corporate propaganda bullshit, it would impact corporate profits and action would be banned. Corporate for profit hospitals, sun screen manufacturers and the pharmaceuticals would cheer rises in skin cancer and demand no action be taken to protect profits. Making the US blowing up Yemen (blow up more, kill more, there are profits to be had, kill, kill, kill) for profit, sick fuckers, look like nothing compared to the millions that would die from cancer especially in the third world, oh yes indeedy.
Nothing much will be done about climate change until the properties of the psychopathically rich and greedy, those underwaterfront properties start going underwater and then they will demand socialised property insurance where the poor have to pay into an underwater front property fund to pay for the lost underwater front mansions, psychopath is as psychopath does. When the scam gets howled down, then rapid change will occur to protect those properties and fuck everyone else, the poor have to pay for that protection and be thankful their employers do not kick them in the genitals each time they pick up a paypacket to remind them who physically dominates whom. If you are stupid enough to allow yourself to be kicked all of the time, then you fucking deserve it.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
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.
The ozone layer does warm the stratosphere some since it it capturing UV energy up there and that has repercussions all the way down to the surface. But the effect is minor compared to the effects of CO2 and even CFCs which are hundreds or even thousands of times more powerful.
I suppose a Lab Coat ha replaced the goofy beard and head dress these days.
Wow, color me impressed... I'm sure the Eskimos will love to learn how much progress we managed to make in 33 years when they'll get to sunbathe on the arctic beaches in 2060. But hey, at least they won't get skin cancer: the ozone layer will be all fixed up by then.
Yeah humanity!
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
We can stop human-caused global warming (maybe, if we, as a species, get our heads out of our asses and DO something about it -- small chance but better than none!) but would you rather die of solar radiation poisoning? Excessive UV causes skin cancer and ruins your eyes.
Indeed, and CFCs were also a lot easier to eliminate. They were far less fundamental than Carbon.
Indeed, before the fairly recent availability of cost effective solar, it looked impossible. All the rivers have been dammed. Nuclear has been damned. The only one available was wind.
But it looks like we will do it. Eliminate Carbon. If only because much of the world's population will be eliminated by the warming...
Did you even bother to read the article you linked to?
It says this: "It comes after NASA satellites provided the first direct evidence the ozone hole had shrunk in January, a finding welcomed by Dr Jon Shanklin, one of the meteorologists who first discovered the ozone hole, as a 'definite good news story'.
And this: "However, in a new paper published in the journal Nature, an international team of scientists report an unexpected finding of CFC-11, one of the major ozone-depleting chemicals.
"The rate of this substance's decline in the atmosphere has slowed by approximately 50 per cent since 2012."
So in other words, the ozone layer is still recovering, just like the story says, and CFC's continue to decline, though not as fast as projected. There is no "disparity", apparent or real.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Lol. Your life is a stereotype.
Antarctic, not arctic. The Antarctic ozone hole has been brutal to those of us in Africa and Australia all the way up to the tropics. Your Eskimos will be fine in less than 12 years.
You are talking about China. And just like Chinese CO2, Chinese CFC isn't a problem at all, it can be safely pushed off until after 2030 or so.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Is this UN report an old report?
Because:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/1...
What is unclear from the article is how much new CFCs are being released relative to pre-ban amounts.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
The ozone and cfc relationship was as easy to prove as a kids science experiment demonstrating condensation. The replacement gasses were quite good and no additional funding was required.
Even the states that tried to put global warming measures on their ballots failed to get the votes. These are some very blue states, in districts that just took ownership of congressional House seats. So its not a partisan thing. Even among democrats the numbers do not support complete consensus. More work needs to be done to show the science of it and people need to stop making -adjustments- to temperature data to support their hypothesis. That always throws a wrench in any comittee.
The ozone and cfc relationship was as easy to prove as a kids science experiment demonstrating condensation. The replacement gasses were quite good and no additional funding was required.
Even the states that tried to put global warming measures on their ballots failed to get the votes. These are some very blue states, in districts that just took ownership of congressional House seats. So its not a partisan thing. Even among democrats the numbers do not support complete consensus. More work needs to be done to show the science of it and people need to stop making -adjustments- to temperature data to support their hypothesis. That always throws a wrench in any comittee.
The key to global warming is not media scare tactics. An anti-pollution approach would be a more effective campaign. Noone wants to breathe dirty air. Let curbing co2 be a biproduct of cleaning up the other polutants, esp from cars.
The ozone layer does warm the stratosphere some since it it capturing UV energy up there and that has repercussions all the way down to the surface
If the ozone layer didn't capture the UV, the surface would have, and less of it would be radiated back into space.
Ozone layer depletion is a regional phenomenon, with regional (even hemispheric) effects?
Who knew... I thought (was told, actually) it was a global thing.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
I can wear UV-protective clothing, even in Arizona. Sometimes I do, like when I'm outside in the sun for prolonged periods.
I already wear UV-protective glasses.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Almost none of it came from escaped refrigerants like Freon. And Freon is a helluva more efficient refrigerant than the non-CFC crap we're now forced to use.
Which Freon would that be, since it's a brand name for several different refrigerants many of which are still in use.
The replacements aren't less efficient than their predecessors. R134a is more efficient than R12 for example.
The CFC refrigerants were more inert so less flammable and less toxic. And could often be used at lower pressures. That was their advantage, not efficiency.
Global things can have regional variance. Fascinating that you apparently listened enough to hear that it's global but not that the polar regions are more affected, it's not like that have ever been a secret.
Are you for some reason mixing up UV with IR?
Because your post makes no sense at all
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Do you genuinely don't understand how that both reports can be accurate at the same time IF they said what you just wrote?
Not that they DID say what you wrote, in fact what was said even in the layman article isn't what you wrote.
The expected rate of CFC decrease changed, the effects of that are known. The level of CFCs are still decreasing but at a lower rate than expected meaning slower recovery of the ozone layer. That's it, how exactly doesn't it fit this report?
Even stranger is your claim that "seems to make no reference of the concerns raised earlier this year" when the report contains this:
There has been an unexpected increase in global total emissions of CFC-11. Global CFC-11 emissions derived from
measurements by two independent networks increased after 2012, thereby slowing the steady decrease in atmospheric
concentrations reported in previous Assessments. The global concentration decline over 2014 to 2016 was only twothirds
as fast as it was from 2002 to 2012. While the emissions of CFC-11 from eastern Asia have increased since 2012,
the contribution of this region to the global emission rise is not well known. The country or countries in which emissions
have increased have not been identified
Not only CFCs, particulate and aerosol emissions cool the Earth, in fact they drove global cooling from 1940 to 1970 or so. We could reduce global warming by tuning our engines to emit more pollution.
What's going on here isn't scientists being perverse; it's nature being complex, and not obligated to make our jobs easy.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Polar ozone layer opens.
Polar regions most affected.
Ice melt.
Global impact.
Somehow the definitions change constantly. Ozone was a global problem once, now I'm not sure it's being presented as such. But that's the plan, keep us arguing over the details while the strategy proceeds.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Kyoto, and paris, are jokes. The fact that we allow nations to add more fossil fuel power plants is a disaster. Instead, ALL 'additions' should be killed. Replacement would be fine, but that is what is happening.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
No. The damage was far worse at the poles.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The ones to blame is not the corporations, but the governments. For example, china claimed that they cut back on building coal plants, but now, sat photos are confirming what oco2 sat shows, which is lots more coal plants added with loads of CO2 coming.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
And the CFCs were cheap to make and had other uses. That is why Chinese gov allowed millions of tons of CFC to be made, and used for cheap styrofoam for housing and to dump on foreign market.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
That's false. There would be plenty of life on our land. It just would not look anything like it does today. In fact, it would be more likely dinosaurs ( birds ) and reptiles would be dominate.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Funny thing is, that since gov/corps refuse to take real action, and individuals really cannot, real action will occur in about 20 years. At that time, it will likely be obvious that the ONLY way to stop CO2 production is cut the human population in 1/2 or more. I suspect that a nation with a trump or more likely china, will release a bacteria/virus that will do a lot of killing. A slightly different form of Kingsman.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Why should you be forced to? Or do you want to live in a world like some post-apocalyptic 80's movie? Also if and when it comes to it it'll be much worse than you imagine, and oh by the way enjoy having to wear at least a filter mask all the time, if not a full-on rebreather, because UV is what causes ground-level ozone, which literally destroys respiratory tissue (you know, like your lung tissue?). It gets bad enough and all animal life on the planet dies.
...just this year it was reported that, while the ozone holes above the poles are shrinking, the ozone layer is *thinning* above urban areas: https://www.atmos-chem-phys.ne...
I am not a number - I am a free man!
Yah, it's possible there could be land life but it wouldn't look anything like what we have now. It would have to be seriously hardened against the effects of UV radiation.
That's true but so what? More UV at the surface would be extremely bad news for life on the surface.
CFCs were found in things like spray cans, fridges, foam insulation and air conditioners.
Factories and Spray cans, yes... the rest: pretty much no.
The hole in the Ozone layer wasn't caused by us having CFCs in refrigerators.... it was caused by CFC and Halon Emissions, or the Release of CFCs and Halons. Primarily from the emissions of industrial factories and facilities making the things, Halon gas Fire Suppression systems like those that used to be used in computing centers, and from Spray cans, yes.
Refrigeration equipment, on the other hand.... is designed to contain CFCs, not release them. It's counterproductive to emit the CFCs, because the equipment doesn't work after they leak out, so leaks get patched quickly, and refrigeration is not a significant source of CFC emission. R-12 Freon
is the most suitable refrigerant found, and any of the replacements resulted in equipment that won't work as reliably or efficiently ----
some of the latest replacements being used now to avoid CFC-like chemicals (While lining the pocketbooks of new chemical inventors)
are downright scary.... R1234yf ---- just what we need in the engine compartment of all our cars, a pressurized system with highly-Flammable refrigerant
that costs 100X as much by weight as the R134a HFC that some beancounters or lobbyists in the chemical industry who need more profits by forcing replacement with a newly patented magic formula deemed too CFC-like.
The ozone layer hole could be even smaller if we can get China to stop releasing them.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
UV-protective sunglasses have been a thing since global cooling was a thing, the 70s. Wearing clothes out in the sun since before that. It's not new, and that was half my point. The UV scare is about 30 years late.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Oh and I'm only forced to guard against excess UV exposure if i really want to be outside in the sun. And sometimes I do...
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Is this suggesting to me that 'international collaboration' does work when government across the globe recognize a global problem? I'd certainly hope everyone comes to the same page for pollution and GHG...etc. Something to be hopeful on???
Did you completely miss the point about how more UV getting through the atmosphere creates more ozone (O3) at ground level, which is deadly to respiratory tissue? Do you have asthma? If so you'd have more asthma problems and a higher risk of lung disease, heart attack, and other pulmonary-related problems. If you don't have asthma you'd likely develop it, or just skip that step and go straight to getting a serious respiratory disease. Ground-level ozone is not amateur night shit. Go research the subject yourself if you don't believe me. That's why worrying about the ozone layer is important: ozone up there is good, at ground level is very, very bad.
Yes, yes, yes. In fact I do have asthma. In fact I do understand. You can think in 6 numb as a hake, sure, but no, I do understand. But I've had asthma pretty much since I was born, some time ago, and living downwind of Midwest coal fired power plants didn't help it at all either.
I get it all. What's the bee under your bonnet about, that I haven't fallen down and worshipped you?
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
What's the bee under your bonnet about, that I haven't fallen down and worshipped you?
Fuck off.
A lot of good points there. Thanks for filling in the details.