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1. clacke: inhibited exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛 (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Friday, 02-Aug-2024 00:38:36 EDT clacke: inhibited exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛

   There's a natural variation in ozone in the atmosphere, but CFCs and other substances were reducing ozone levels and expanding the seasonal ozone holes over the poles. The problem was real and it was getting worse, because CFCs were produced for a reason: It was really useful and cost-effective stuff.

   Banning ozone-depleting substances for use as coolants, fire supressants, aerosol agents and other applications was very successful, and after four decades we are now more than halfway to recovering to natural ozone levels.

   A few years ago there was briefly some illegal production of CFCs, which halted the recovery, but it was tracked down and halted, and we are back on track.

   nasa.gov/missions/aura/nasa-st…

   bbc.com/news/science-environme…

   en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_de…

   #OzoneLayer #OzoneDepletion
   #OzoneDepletingSubstances #ODSes
   #chlorofluorocarbons #CFCs

   1. clacke: inhibited exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛 (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Friday, 02-Aug-2024 00:53:53 EDT clacke: inhibited exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛

      in reply to

      There are people out there who believe this was all a hoax, that variation is all natural, etc. But we can see the ozone holes shrinking. We have seen that recovery slows when we emit new CFCs.

      We stopped doing some genuinely useful and cost-effective things because it wasn't worth the cost of harming our health. We stopped doing it in every country on the planet, because it was causing a global problem.

      Everybody signed on, there was a transition period, we initially made exceptions, but we gradually found replacements and banned more substances. In some cases the replacements still aren't as good as what we had, but our atmosphere is healing. Companies were making good money making CFCs, but now they're making good money making what replaced them.

      And even for this seemingly uncontroversial success story, there are people out there who make up stories that contradict scientific consensus and direct observation.

      1. clacke: inhibited exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛 (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Friday, 02-Aug-2024 01:08:50 EDT clacke: inhibited exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛

         in reply to

         Published last month: "The last ozone-layer damaging chemicals to be phased out are finally falling in the atmosphere"

         theconversation.com/the-last-o…

         Another set of gases, hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), was used as a temporary replacement.

         Unfortunately, HCFCs still destroy ozone. The good news is that levels of HCFCs in the atmosphere are now falling and indeed have been since 2021 according to research I led with colleagues.

         HCFCs deplete ozone to a much smaller extent than the CFCs they have replaced – you would have to release around ten times as much HCFC to have a comparable impact on the ozone layer.

         CFCs and HCFCs are also greenhouse gases, so that's at least one category of greenhouse gases that is falling.

         1. clacke: inhibited exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛 (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Friday, 02-Aug-2024 04:16:13 EDT clacke: inhibited exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛

            in reply to

            The United States, West Germany, East Germany, Yugoslavia, Venezuela, the Soviet Union, China, Uganda, Indonesia, countries from every alignment and continent, had signed it by 1989. By 1991 Chile, Brazil, South Africa, Iran and India had signed, and most of the world.

            You couldn't get all these countries to agree on anything ideological, but this was just a no-brainer. We're breaking this part of the environment? Let's stop then.