Cynics welcome here! When was the last time anyone heard about the "hole in the ozone layer"?

Question

You know, the one that scared everyone when scientists finally examined the ozone layer, discovered a "hole" in it, and decided that it must have just suddenly appeared.

Even though there was absolutely no record or observations made previously.

Kinda strange that in the current climate of fear that this isn't being mentioned anymore...

Perhaps the realisation has been made that this was largely a misinterpretation and that by not mentioning it again people who argued the case won't loose their credibility?

Answer 1

Actually it didn't disappear - - in fact it's no smaller than it was in the 1980s.    See, we GAVE them their policy recommendation, we DID ban CFCs 20 years ago - - and the ozone hole is bigger now than it was then.

And that is precisely the sort of thing that kills their credibility - you'll notice none of them will admit they were wrong about CFCs.

Another 20 years could pass with the ozone hole being just as big as it is now and they still will blame chemicals that will have been banned for almost half a century.

Answer 2

Oh yell the old scare the c**p out of the public one with radiation burns from the sun If you live by the south or north poles

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Well they got a new one the global warming one and that mankind is the villain in the movie on this one

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You forgot to mention the one of the save the tree people what happen to them they kind of disappeared

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After they were shown a movie of the earth from a 747 what all the trees looked like in the new development areas

The kind of trees that you have to buy at a  nursery

And put in by professionals

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Answer 3

Look at how the ozone layer is made. Where the solar winds collide with the earths magnetic field causes a large current to flow ,and makes the North pole negative and the South Pole positive. This potential is needed to keep O3 as O3. If we loose the potential the ozone will be gone. This is so high that even very light gas can not get there ... The CFC never had anything to do with the hole,as it is the convergence of the magnetic field. With the holds being over the poles very little ultra violet light will come in. This is very brief for simplicity.

Answer 4

Exactly - All of a sudden there was this panic about the ozone hole opening up.  The news was filled of people getting skin cancer and the fear was that everyone would catch it.  During the presidential election of 1992, the news even said that there was an ozone hole forming over Kennebunkport, ME (Father Bush's home as an indication that Bush didn't do enough for the environment)

The refrigerant CFC's were blamed.  We needed to ban this stuff now!  So the substance was made illegal by international treaty known as "The Montreal Protocol".

The talk of the ozone hole was like this was a new occurrence.  No one had any evidence that this was normal, or if this happened 100 years ago, the consensus said that CFC's were evil and had to go, even though the benefit they provided in keeping food and medication cold far outweighed scientific evidence.

As soon as this was signed there was no more news about the ozone hole, no news about UV Rays from the Sun, no news about skin cancer, all news of the ozone hole was gone.

Then the talk about "global warming" started to show up in the news.

Sadly people don't remember the past.  People have to be reminded at the wild predictions that came just before the Y2K scare.

Once global warming taps out the money from innocent people, these consensus scientist will manufacture new fears like wind turbines cause global calming of the winds.

Answer 5

uh....weren't we already supposed to be dead from that? You mean all the hysteria didn't work...we're alive.....we're alive!!!!!!!

Answer 6

It was just a few months ago when I came across this article in the journal Nature:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v45...

If you haven't been hearing about it, that simply means you don't read the scientific literature.

Edit:

http://www.antarctica.ac.uk//about_antar...

"BAS has been measuring ozone in the Antarctic since 1956 and our measurements led to the discovery of the ozone hole"

Answer 7

WOW! How did the whole scientific community get it wrong,and just you got it right?  Where is your scientific data to back up your claims?  So ,I guess that your 'feelings' about proven science, mean that AGW is a hoax as well. Go right ahead and 'believe' what ever you want. You want to see a 'climate of fear'? Soon there will be "weather refugees", fleeing the severe weather, and destruction ,and death!

Hey!  I think that it's been a long time since anyone mentioned that the Sun doesn't revolve around the Earth,so it probably does!

Answer 8

It has been awhile.....I guess they patched it up huh?

Answer 9

In my earth science classes... :/

Answer 10

you don't read much environmental news do you? Because it gets mentioned...often

Answer 11

Now THIS is a very interesting question.

About 20 years ago (notice the timing) we were told that the hole in the ozone layer was getting bigger, and, as you say, we were all going to fry if we didn't do something about it. We were told that CFC's (chloro-flouro-carbons) were disslving the ozone and that we either had to stop emissions of CFC's or start using a higher rating SPF sunblock.

The answer to this was to stop using CFC's... predominently used as coolant in fridges and air conditioners. So... the industrialised countries stopped using CFC's and the hole in the ozone layer gradually started closing. The thing I never really got about this was.. how did stopping CFC emissions in the Northern Hemisphere fix the Ozone hole over the South Pole? and why didn't all the Antarctic Ice melt while the hole was there?... anyway, I digress.

The real interesting thing here is the timing. Global Warming started about 20 years ago right?... we've just celebrated the 20th anniversary of it's discovery haven't we?. Well... this coincides allmost exactly with the closing of the hole in the ozone layer.

Now Ozone, being higher in the atmosphere than the greenhouse gasses is a crucial point here. Up untill the late eighties the greenhouse gases could escape through the ozone hole, but when we fixed that, then the greenhouse gasses were trapped and started to build up... hence global warming.

The correlation is very strong and it's "almost certain", in fact I'll bet my hockey stick, that the cause of Global Warming is actually ACO... Anthropogenic CFC Ommissions.

I'm sure I can find 2,500 people from somewhere who, without conducting any research of their own, ( the IPCC doesn't actually DO research, check out their mandate http://www.ipcc.ch/about/index.htm ) will offer the same opinion as me.

However, even if I can actually find 2,500 self interested people to back me, I doubt I can ever turn this into a global movement, as re-introduction of CFC's isn't going to buy me the 'green' vote... which is politically what's driving the whole Global Warming machine.

Answer 12

Two weeks ago on a local (Aussie) science program

And on your further comments its pretty clear you have been given some incorrect info on the discovery & origin.

These guys (British Antarctic survey) (link below) discovered it in the 80s and had been monitoring ozone since the 50s. Their data showed the origin in the mid 70s. I find it interesting that before GW came up as big a issue nobody questioned ozone depletion now because it is linked as a climate issue it is suddenly a hoax/con.

The instrument that measures ozone the Dobson spectrophotometer dates back to the 1920s. Apart from some fluctuations the ozone hole seems to be on track to repair itself by the middle of this century.



http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/press/journa...

I know a bit about this because I work for the AAD the Aussie equivalent of BAS In the early 80's the British noted the ozone depletion, when they went back through the data they had they were able to pinpoint the start of the depletion to the mid 70s

Answer 13

It comes up in the news from time to time with environmentalists determined not to let the public become complacent.

I'm pretty complacent about ozone depletion myself.  The idea that because the ozone is thicker in some places and thinner in others is somehow proof that humans are depleting it is a bit of a stretch.

Greg S - you are a not making any sense.  Skin cancer did not suddenly appear in 1980.  UV radiation hasn't measurably increased in the last 30 years.  Pretty compelling evidence against ozone depeltion isn't it?

Answer 14

the hole in the ozone layer stretches from the antartic to southern australia. if you doubt it come to australia where we have the highest rate of melanomas (skin cancer) in the world. come and feel the sun burn your skin without the protection on the ozone layer and all your doubts will be dissipated.

Answer 15

Right before the government decided that global warming was scarier.

*Down with Big Brother*