by frog
Good news this morning in this Dom Post story, which reports that the Ozone layer is regenerating again after years of deterioration.
While it hasn’t been concusively linked, the scientist leading the investigation, who is currently visiting New Zealand from Denmark, says that the improvement is most likely due to a drop in dangerous emissions.
Isn’t it great to be able to point to something concrete that demonstrates that changing human behaviour can make a tangible difference to these environmental problems which seem so out of our hands?
However, it’s not all good news; rates of melanoma are still predicted to rise, and holes in the ozone layer will be with us for several decades more. But at least when we can show that things are getting better, it’s easier to convince people that even the small changes do have an effect.
Published in Environment & Resource Management by frog on Thu, February 2nd, 2006
Tags: environment
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
Its great to see that we (as the human race) were able to work together to stop the ozone hole getting bigger and aide it to recover
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Actually the human race has a long evolutionary past of working together, it’s what made us strong, happy and happy. Did i mention it made us happy? But we have to obey mother natures law’s for it to be again. And Mother Nature is not much of a capitalist fitting the currently propogandised definiton.
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It is encouraging news, but the story is wrong about carbon dioxide emissions. Carbon dioxide emissions are doing anything *but* decreasing — they’re heading up, up, up. However, a reduction in other man-made greenhouse gases, such as freons, is likely to have helped the probable ozone recovery.
The Montreal Protocol targeted such gases. This shows that such Protocols can have significant success. Yay for that.
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Frog, it may be a little to premature to celebrate …
Ozone hole may stay longer than expected
“Scientists are of the view that ozone hole over Antarctica may persist two decades longer than predicted, until 2065, because ozone-destroying chemicals are still being released by developed nations a decade after their production and importation was banned.
…
But measurements taken in 2003 showed that emissions of the chemicals from the United States and Canada made up about 15% of the world total even though the nations are no longer allowed to produce the compounds, said Dale Hurst, an atmospheric chemist from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who made the measurements.
He estimated that developed countries accounted for about half of the world’s total. Hurst said he believed the compounds were not new ones, but left over from old fire extinguishers, refrigerators and air-conditioning systems that were created before the ban went into effect but are being legally recycled and slowly leaking chemicals into the atmosphere.”
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