Donald C. Lewis’ March 13 guest column, “Ozone hysterics have holes in their heads,” contains three serious and dangerous falsehoods:
(1) “Late research demonstrated that it (the Antarctic ozone hole) has always existed.”
Not true! The British Antarctic Expedition began keeping data on columnar ozone in 1957. Weakening was noted in the late 1970s. Then, an unbelievable hole opened up in 1983 with ozone loss of 50 percent. The hole, the size of the continental United States, has appeared annually ever since and has grown in size and extent of depletion. American satellite observations (Nimbus 7) have confirmed the birth and growth of this hole.
Lewis has placed himself squarely in the camp of the flat-earthers.
(2) “A paper published in the Nov. 1, 1991, issue of Science makes it quite clear that the cause of recent fluctuations in the ozone layer (is) more likely the result of volcanic ash and sunspot activity than CFCs.”
To the contrary, this paper states clearly that the cause of the recent alarming depletion events in our latitude is manmade chlorine-based chemicals using naturally occurring volcanic ash “to fill the same niche in temperate latitudes as ice particles at the poles.” That is, volcanic ash, through a process called surficial catalysis, is speeding up the CFC-based depeletion over our latitude.
(3) “Meanwhile, article after article in scientific journals build the case that the CFC problem has been greatly exaggerated.”
Name one! There is wide consensus on the danger. Let me quote from the same recent issue of Science that Lewis himself cites (misinterprets) above. On page 645, under the heading, “Ozone loss hits us where we live,” we read these ominous words:
“The news about Earth’s ozone layer just keeps getting worse. Three weeks ago, NASA researchers reported that the ozone hole over the Antarctic hit a record depth this year (Science, Oct. 18, page 373). Now come the United Nations Program, together with the World Meterological Organization, with an even more distressing assessment of the state of the ozone layer. For the first time, the 80-member UN panel said, measurements show the ozone shield is eroding over temperate latitudes in summer, exposing crops and people to a larger dose of ultraviolet light just when they are most vulnerable.”
Add to this the more recent NASA report (Jan. 20) of “world record concentrations” of chlorine monoxide over our latitude (taken by planes from Bangor), and the reports of 6 to 12 percent phytoplankton decrease in the Antarctic Ocean (Science, Feb. 21), and we have a real consensus of peril.
What has happened? How could a respected local businessman be so far off base? I believe that in his justified bitterness at the chemical giants, his CFC suppliers, Lewis is taking over the flat-earth position they have only recently abandoned (leaving him in the lurch). He would have liked du Pont’s slick lobbyists to continue their campaign of delay and disinformation, to go on slandering the scientists and citizens and, yes, the “environmental lobbyists” who have fought a futile 18-year battle to phase out ozonedepleting chemicals on a reasonable schedule. Now that it is almost too late, these companies have stopped believing their own propaganda, and are running scared with the rest of us.
I agree, though, with Lewis, that the windfall profits these giant producers will reap (when prices shoot up as the ban approaches) should be taxed, and some of that money should be used to help the “little guys,” like Lewis and his company, change their equipment. He should forcefully pursue remedies in the courts and the Congress.
But the real “little guys” are the children on the soccer fields for the next 100 years. And the real debate is not whether there is a hole, but where the next ones will appear, and in what ways the climate system will be affected by changes in stratospheric temperature structures.
My group, the Piscataquis Committee to Preserve the Ozone Layer, has contacted the Maine congressional delegation, just as Lewis has. They told him, he reports with dismay, that “there is overwhelming agreement there is a serious problem.” He adds them therefore to his long list of plotters: NASA, the president, Congress, the United Nations, the environmentalists, du Pont, and others.
On the other hand, my group is telling our delegates that President Bush’s December 1995 phaseout is not soon enough. We are playing on the edge of disaster. There are substitutes for all these chemicals. We should not gamble with our future, with the future of our children, or of our earth. Can we justify the death and damage (skin cancer, cataracts, immune system damage, climate alteration) by the convenience and profits of any company, big or small? No. Our “hysterical” demand, backed by objective science and not personal profits, is that these chemicals be banned by the end of this year.
Unfortunately, du Pont is laughing at both of us.
Tom Staley is president of the Piscataquis Committee to Preserve the Ozone Layer.
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