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Ozone Layer Recovery

Scientists studying the hole in the Earth’s ozone layer recently announced that they have good news and bad news.

Good news: The hole is shrinking.

Bad news: It’s not shrinking as fast as they hoped it would.

On the upside, the fact that the hole is shrinking tells us that the 1997 Montreal Protocol, under which 180 countries agreed to reduce their use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), is having an impact. CFCs were widely used in aerosol cans, refrigerator coolants and air conditioners, and, when leaked into the atmosphere, damaged the ozone layer over the Earth’s southern hemisphere.

That, in turn, allowed in too much ultraviolet radiation, which causes skin cancer and destroys tiny plants that are needed as part of the food chain. The hole reached a record 11.2 million square miles in 2003, but last year had shrunk to just 10 million square miles. Scientists initially thought it would close up by 2050 but now say that it will be more like 2065 before its gone.

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To read more about this and other environmental health issues, go to: www.environmentalhealthnews.org, www.ourstolenfuture.org, or www.healthandenvironment.org