Was the CFC Scare a Scam?
After spending Billions and Billions of Dollars?
This must have far-reaching consequences,” Rex says. “If the measurements are correct we can basically no longer say we understand how ozone holes come into being.” What effect the results have on projections of the speed or extent of ozone depletion remains unclear.
The rapid photolysis of Cl2O2 is a key reaction in the chemical model of ozone destruction developed 20 years ago2 (see graphic). If the rate is substantially lower than previously thought, then it would not be possible to create enough aggressive chlorine radicals to explain the observed ozone losses at high latitudes, says Rex. The extent of the discrepancy became apparent only when he incorporated the new photolysis rate into a chemical model of ozone depletion. The result was a shock: at least 60% of ozone destruction at the poles seems to be due to an unknown mechanism, Rex told a meeting of stratosphere researchers in Bremen, Germany, last week.
Other groups have yet to confirm the new photolysis rate, but the conundrum
is already causing much debate and uncertainty in the ozone research community. “Our understanding of chloride chemistry has really been blown apart,” says John Crowley, an ozone researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Chemistry in Mainz, Germany.
“Until recently everything looked like it fitted nicely,” agrees Neil Harris, an atmosphere scientist who heads the European Ozone Research Coordinating Unit at the University of Cambridge, UK. “Now suddenly it’s like a plank has been pulled out of a bridge.” …
So now 20 years after CFC’s have been banned there’s some doubt as to the science that led them to be banned. Now to be honest I was always skeptical of the science behind that because it’s my nature to be so when they use scare tactics to sell their theories.
Suppose that this research stand up and it turns out that this was all a bunch of whale dung. Who’s responsible for the fraud? The scientists that predicted it? The politicians that jumped on the bandwagon? The international nanny-staters?
The fact is that the costs of banning CFC’s probably amounted to hundreds of Billions of dollars. (I made the number up). If this research shows that we were misled then those people responsible should be asked to come up with the cash to make it right.
