United Nations Says Earth's Ozone Layer Is Repairing (bbc.com) 142
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.
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So what? Everything isn't about the end zone layer.
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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!
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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.
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Ozone layer depletion is a regional phenomenon, with regional (even hemispheric) effects?
Who knew... I thought (was told, actually) it was a global thing.
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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.
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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.
Re: but ...... (Score:2)
Re: but Jews are scum. (Score:1)
Lol. Your life is a stereotype.
Obligatory Naked Gun 2½ (Score:4, Funny)
I guess love is like the ozone layer.
You never miss it until it's gone.
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If Trump did his thing (Score:2, Interesting)
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 co
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Not true.
It's not the country that still uses CFC that profited from this agreement. Ignoring this agreement doesn't result in a net profit, because none of the CFC tainted products can be sold abroad. It's the country that came up with the replacement for CFCs that profited.
You set a goal, e.g. cut CO2 using solar and wind. The country that has the most money available to research that, solves the problem of Solar and wind and so on, and takes the prize by being ahead of the curve.
You cannot rescue coal, b
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Do you have a citation?
All I can find about those words is that Marc Morano founder of ClimateDepot claimed that the UN admitted that.
I can't find anything directly attributed to the UN committee to verify that claim.
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Interview. [www.nzz.ch]
Google isn't so great at finding German news. Specifically Edenhofer [wikipedia.org] said it. Easier to find this information on bing. Google doesn't bring it up at all.
Elsewhere he has claimed Marxist redistribution in the face of climate change as a mandatory ethical principle has influenced his work as co-chair and recommendations as a climate scientist. He's rather open about the whole process and justifications, but his views never made it to the anglophone news.
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The aim of the agreement is described in its Article 2, "enhancing the implementation" of the UNFCCC through:
(a) Holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 C above pre-industrial levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks an
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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
Re:If Trump did his thing (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
What an extraordinary claim. Let's see if it's true, starting with your own link because I've found that skeptics who posts links often debunk themselves. They quote her as saying:
"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."
And then go on to claim that because they think capitalism is the only successful development model she must mean to destroy it. In their world "transform" means "destroy" apparently. If you read a bit more of what she actually said it's actually very clear that she is talking about something else entirely:
"This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the industrial revolution. That will not happen overnight and it will not happen at a single conference on climate change, be it COP 15, 21, 40 - you choose the number. It just does not occur like that. It is a process, because of the depth of the transformation."
The economic model of "industrialize as fast as possible, literally burn up all your resources and emit massive amounts of CO2". The world is already making this transition towards cleaner technologies. Capitalism is actually driving it, as flaws in the market that allowed costs to be externalized are fixed.
Quick round-up of your other quotes:
"Clinton-Gore administration"
"green-progressive-liberal writer for Salon"
"National Audubon Society"
"a founder of the Sierra Club"
"Mikhail Gorbachev, communist and former leader of U.S.S.R."
"a climate justice campaigner coordinator"
"atmospheric scientist"
"Researcher"
Ah, all powerful and influential people that definitely have the power to destroy capitalism. Citing Gorbachev as evidence of environmentalism being a "Leftist" conspiracy looks particularly desperate.
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I'm more inclined to do it when they post a link to back up their argument. I've noticed that a lot of bad-faith or conspiracy based arguments rely on links that don't support their claims. The theory seems to be that the mere presence of links makes people already inclined to believe them assume that there are real sources, but that they rarely actually check.
It's an evolution of the old link spam technique.
It also makes debunking easier because they have already provided the material you need and by using
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https://postimg.cc/8JmnR7Ys [postimg.cc]
Source: NASA Ozone Watch [nasa.gov].
In fact, the data shown in the graph I linked to shows no apparent trend at all.
Just more propaganda BS.
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In fact, the data shown in the graph I linked to shows ...
In fact the graph on the NASA site you linked to, and the data it's drawn from, disagree with your assertion that the "largest (hole) was in 2017". The largest was in 2006.
Just more propaganda BS.
Pot, I'd like you to meet kettle!
What is clear from the graphs & data is that we, humanity, managed to rapidly alter the composition of the atmosphere (basically over the period of a decade), to the detriment of ourselves, and even now, over 30 years after we did something about it (the Montreal Protocol), the atmosphere has barely b
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the consumer backlash in the US would stop the product selling
This assumes (against all recent evidence) that consumers are correctly informed. What's far more likely is that corporate FUD would politicise it and paralyze any action.
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I could be wrong, but it sure seems like you know absolutely shit about climate change and the Paris accord. From where I sit it looks like a do-nothing agreement (less than 0.05C impact over 100 years) that would have cost trillions of dollars for what, exactly? How does paying money to the developing world help the climate? Do you think all those 3rd world kings and rulers are going to use that money responsibly to combat climate change? I can think of any number of projects that would be a far more usefu
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The alarmists don't want to allow "third world" countries to develop their own energy systems, fossil-fuel or not.
Instead they want to take from the rich and give to the poor, Robinhood style.
But that doesn't solve anything. In the long run it just makes everyone poorer.
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the U.S. is still the only major country that has actually been reducing emissions.
Rofl.
In the last 5 or 6 years.
Considering that the other countries work on this since 30 years or more, that is a lame joke.
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Credit for what?
Being the main reason of climate change?
Being the main reason to prevent stopping it since 20 years?
You have that credit ... no worries!
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No hatred at all :D ...
Just stating facts, but you wanted credits
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Do you think all those 3rd world kings and rulers are going to use that money responsibly to combat climate change?
How many third world kings (third world does not exist anymore since 30 - 40 years) do we have on the planet? 4? 5? 6?
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https://www.theguardian.com/en... [theguardian.com]
And The Pharaohs Made The Nile Flood (Score:2)
I suppose a Lab Coat ha replaced the goofy beard and head dress these days.
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Contradictory Reports (Score:1)
See here [independent.co.uk].
Now, barely 5 months later, we have this very different perspective. Not being a climate scientist, I'm not sure how we can discern which of these two articles carries the most accurate reporting. (In that it seems unlikely that new damage observed in May could be healed this quickly).
I am a little concerned that the more recent o
Re:Contradictory Reports (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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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 t
Wrong universe? (Score:2)
Is this UN report an old report?
Because:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/1... [nytimes.com]
What is unclear from the article is how much new CFCs are being released relative to pre-ban amounts.
If only we could get a decent CO2 agreement (Score:2)
And yet... (Score:1)
Not the air conditioners (Score:2)
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
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Refrigeration equipment, on the other hand.... is designed to contain CFCs, not release them.
And as we all know all refrigeration equipment is leak-free and lasts forever. Why, every refrigerator, and AC system for factories or houses or cars ever made are still in existence and maintaining their original coolant inventory unchanged even 60 years later! Why, when cars are scrapped they carefully remove their air conditioning systems for permanent storage!
Refrigeration equipment only temporarily stores refrigerant, until it leaks, or becomes contaminated or otherwise is emptied for servicing, or rea
Even better... (Score:2)
International 'collaboration' (Score:2)
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Re:UN also says that the ozone layer ... (Score:5, Insightful)
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 [wikipedia.org]. 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.
Re: UN also says that the ozone layer ... (Score:4, Informative)
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:UN also says that the ozone layer ... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re: UN also says that the ozone layer ... (Score:2)
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
Re: UN also says that the ozone layer ... (Score:2)
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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.
Re: UN also says that the ozone layer ... (Score:2)
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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.
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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.
CFCs easier to eliminate (Score:3)
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...
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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.
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Are you for some reason mixing up UV with IR?
Because your post makes no sense at all
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That's true but so what? More UV at the surface would be extremely bad news for life on the surface.
Re: UN also says that the ozone layer ... (Score:2)
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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.
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A lot of good points there. Thanks for filling in the details.
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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.
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Re: UN also says that the ozone layer ... (Score:2)
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.
Re: UN also says that the ozone layer ... (Score:2)
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...
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Re: UN also says that the ozone layer ... (Score:2)
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?
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What's the bee under your bonnet about, that I haven't fallen down and worshipped you?
Fuck off.
Re: UN also says that the ozone layer ... (Score:2)
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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.
Re: Global agreements can only go so far (Score:2)
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