republicanchick
New member
“The sky has a hole in it! The sky has a hole in it!”
re: the ozone layer
From the book Whatever Happened to the American Dream by Larry Burkett (not a new book but relevant just the same)
[my comments in brackets]
In the world of the environmental extremists, virtually all technology is evil—even that which helps the poor and needy…
As a result, one of the greatest boons to humanity—refrigeration—has come under assault… in danger of being regulated out of existence…
[F]reon [was] a gas used in refrigeration. [I say Was b/c I don’t believe it is used anymore].
It is comprised primarily of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) that are widely condemned as the primary culprit in the destruction of [what is] commonly called the ozone layer.
The ozone layer is beneficial in filtering UV radiation from reaching the Earth’s surface.[Most of us are aware of the “battle to save the ozone” but] what you probably don’t know… is that our government agreed to one of the most expensive and restrictive regulations ever imposed on any economy to rid our country of any commercial CFCs by the year 1996… (The Montreal Protocol)… which… limits… the use of CFCs worldwide.
[In 1987 a group of industrialized nations] met in Montreal to discuss… discontinuation of all CFCs….. [A]ctivists beseeched these nations to save the planet from… “sure and certain destruction”… the annihilation of the human race… Under the terms of [this] protocol… all use of CFCs including… freon, would be phased out totally by the year 2000… no small matter considering the number of refrigeration units already in existence…
[In] 1992… a new conference was held in Copenhagen [at which] the target date for eliminating CFCs… was accelerated… based on “new” data presented by… EPA director William Reilly that ozone depletion would lead to 5 million cases of skin cancer… in the US alone… unless every nation accelerated the phase-out.
It is critical… to understand the scope of what has been proposed concerning CFCs… especially freon… If, as EPA director proclaimed, the ozone is being depleted and massive increases in cancer will result, the phase-out still would be difficult to justify—considering the number of deaths that [would] result from a lack of adequate refrigeration, particularly in underdeveloped countries.
[However] if the ozone problem is just a figment of some environmental group’s imagination, then we are embarking on the greatest economic blunder in history.
[Regardless of whether there is validity to the extremists’ accusations]… when the extremists hear about a potential environmental problem, they go into a frenzy, ignoring any and all data contrary to their conclusion that industry is destroying the earth… [which is what] appears to be the case [in] the great ozone myth.
[going back in time] As word of [the goal to] produce 500 supersonic transport planes… reached the environmentalists, they marshaled their forces… Based on little more than hunches, these activists launched a campaign to have the SST program killed…
Initially the… culprit from the SSTs was thought to be vapor released into the stratosphere. This H2O then would break down… allowing the oxygen to combine with the ozone, thus destroying it.
Unfortunately for the alarmists, further studies showed that the SST … vapor would have only a negligible effect on the ozone, if any…
Not deterred… the activists… scoured every test report looking for another reason to stop the project.
They found it in a NASA document noting that sufficient quantities of nitrogen oxide… might destroy the ozone layer…
“Cancer!”…
This time the activist lobby was successful in getting all government backing for the SST project canceled…
Later… scientific study showed that vast amounts of nitrogen oxides occurr naturally, and the total effect of a fleet of SSTs would be negligible. Nary a word was carried by any major newspaper or network. Actually… [one] study… showed that the net effect of the SSTs on the ozone would have been POSITIVE! [emphasis in original].
+