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While I agree with you regarding all the points you made, let's try not to get too cynical with age if we can. I was a kid when Earth Summit happened and we hum

by caio1982 10y ago

While I agree with you regarding all the points you made, let's try not to get too cynical with age if we can. I was a kid when Earth Summit happened and we humans managed to stop and slightly reduce the Ozone Hole within a generation time. And it all started pretty much the same, with politics and all: something had to be done, if it was an ultimate silver bullet or not it does not matter because it is all about political momentum, IMHO.

flatline 10y ago
> we humans managed to stop and slightly reduce the Ozone Hole By "we humans" I assume you mean Dow Chemical or whoever the primary inventor of CFC replacements was at the time. Yes, it was a good thing, but there was a relatively easy and uncontroversial fix. What we are talking about here involves people with huge vested interests in fossil fuels - people dependent on them for living and commerce, entire nations solely dependent on them just to function - there are much larger systematic problems at play that must be overcome to reverse the current trend. I'm still mildly optimistic that we can improve the situation, but if the ozone was like steering a rowboat, this is like trying to do a 180 in an aircraft carrier.
vkou 10y ago
CFCs had relatively cheap, equivalent replacements, and did not make up the cornerstone of many national economies. The damage they caused was disproportionate, compared to the economic benefit of using them over alternatives. The nature of the ozone hole also didn't let people hide behind nonsense like "The climate changes naturally" and "Well, there are natural sources of carbon" and "The climate was different in the past."
- emodendroket 10y ago
  > The nature of the ozone hole also didn't let people hide behind nonsense like "The climate changes naturally" and "Well, there are natural sources of carbon" and "The climate was different in the past." I'm sure they would have found a way if the incentives were as strong.
  - mikeash 10y ago
    You don't even need strong incentives. The ozone hole was a target for the same types of people who now fight against the idea of climate change. For example, in one of his books, Rush Limbaugh dismissed the idea that humans could ever be responsible for any significant amount of ozone damage, because volcanos produce thousands of times more ozone-depleting chemicals.
- roc 10y ago
  It didn't? I distinctly remember the same sort of FUD progression with regards to the ozone hole. 1. It wasn't actually happening/a problem. (It's hippy nonsense. [insert sarcastic comment about saving butterflies]) 2. It was happening, but it was natural, not caused by human activity (The ozone hole grows and shrinks naturally throughout the year! And its been bigger and smaller in the past!) 3. It was happening, caused by human activity, but there wasn't anything we could do about it (We can't force the other countries to change, and if they won't change it'll keep growing anyway!) There's really no difference in the playbook between it and global warming. It's just the financial incentives to delay are much stronger with carbon. Even the "equivalent replacements" for CFCs were widely regarded as overpriced and far worse at the time. (I still hear people bemoan the loss of freon AC to this day.) It's not so different from solar/wind vs fossil fuels.
  - vkou 10y ago
    Fair enough - I suppose the magnitude of financial incentives is the major distinction.
  - abawany 10y ago
    Much more recently, the Republican candidate running for the US Presidency still expressed skepticism that him using hair spray on his hair in his home had anything to with the ozone hole: http://www.factcheck.org/2016/05/trump-on-hairspray-and-ozone/ http://www.factcheck.org/2016/05/trump-on-hairspray-and-ozon... .

flatline 10y ago

> we humans managed to stop and slightly reduce the Ozone Hole By "we humans" I assume you mean Dow Chemical or whoever the primary inventor of CFC replacements was at the time. Yes, it was a good thing, but there was a relatively easy and uncontroversial fix. What we are talking about here involves people with huge vested interests in fossil fuels - people dependent on them for living and commerce, entire nations solely dependent on them just to function - there are much larger systematic problems at play that must be overcome to reverse the current trend. I'm still mildly optimistic that we can improve the situation, but if the ozone was like steering a rowboat, this is like trying to do a 180 in an aircraft carrier.

vkou 10y ago

CFCs had relatively cheap, equivalent replacements, and did not make up the cornerstone of many national economies. The damage they caused was disproportionate, compared to the economic benefit of using them over alternatives. The nature of the ozone hole also didn't let people hide behind nonsense like "The climate changes naturally" and "Well, there are natural sources of carbon" and "The climate was different in the past."

emodendroket 10y ago
> The nature of the ozone hole also didn't let people hide behind nonsense like "The climate changes naturally" and "Well, there are natural sources of carbon" and "The climate was different in the past." I'm sure they would have found a way if the incentives were as strong.
- mikeash 10y ago
  You don't even need strong incentives. The ozone hole was a target for the same types of people who now fight against the idea of climate change. For example, in one of his books, Rush Limbaugh dismissed the idea that humans could ever be responsible for any significant amount of ozone damage, because volcanos produce thousands of times more ozone-depleting chemicals.
roc 10y ago
It didn't? I distinctly remember the same sort of FUD progression with regards to the ozone hole. 1. It wasn't actually happening/a problem. (It's hippy nonsense. [insert sarcastic comment about saving butterflies]) 2. It was happening, but it was natural, not caused by human activity (The ozone hole grows and shrinks naturally throughout the year! And its been bigger and smaller in the past!) 3. It was happening, caused by human activity, but there wasn't anything we could do about it (We can't force the other countries to change, and if they won't change it'll keep growing anyway!) There's really no difference in the playbook between it and global warming. It's just the financial incentives to delay are much stronger with carbon. Even the "equivalent replacements" for CFCs were widely regarded as overpriced and far worse at the time. (I still hear people bemoan the loss of freon AC to this day.) It's not so different from solar/wind vs fossil fuels.
- vkou 10y ago
  Fair enough - I suppose the magnitude of financial incentives is the major distinction.
- abawany 10y ago
  Much more recently, the Republican candidate running for the US Presidency still expressed skepticism that him using hair spray on his hair in his home had anything to with the ozone hole: http://www.factcheck.org/2016/05/trump-on-hairspray-and-ozone/ http://www.factcheck.org/2016/05/trump-on-hairspray-and-ozon... .