Speaker to Animals wrote:GrumpyCatFace wrote:Speaker to Animals wrote:
The hole in the ozone layer thingy was actually real. But all we needed to do to reverse it was voluntarily reduce to near minimum use of fluorocarbons (like what used to propel hairspray back in the 1970s before the spritzer bottles came along as the environmental replacement).
There were two holes near both poles. UV radiation was pretty high under the antarctic one.
As long as we don't start using massive quantities of those fluorocarbons again,
it's projected to completely close in about three decades.
And unlike this climate change farce, the mechanism for how CFCs fuck with the ozone layer are straight forward chemistry. At high altitude, UV radiation breaks up CFCs, releasing chlorine into the atmosphere. Chlorine reacts with ozone, creating O2 and ClO from the O3 molecule.
I am not an expert (obviously), but I chose the environmental science track for my natural science electives in college, and this is one of the few things I remembered.
Why, exactly, would you accept the scientific consensus on the ozone hole, but not climate change?
Did you take your own radiation measurements, or air sampling at the poles?
I don't accept or reject the so-called "consensus" on climate change. The big difference is that research behind the ozone hole issue was solid science. The chemical reactions that cause it were easily explained, and created testable hypothesis (predictions) we could experimentally verify. Indeed, by eliminating heavy use of CFCs, the hole began to close and will be be completely closed in about three decades.
The science behind human-caused climate change is a fucking disaster. I was a doctoral student in the physical sciences, and I am telling you flat out, most of these natural science fields are a train wreck. It's not that I think they are necessarily wrong, but that I doubt they can prove it (and they have
not proven it).
Is it possible that the entire 'confusion' over the issue could be related to special interests defending their corporate masters in media and government?
CFCs weren't a problem, because it barely cost the corps anything to change. This is not the same problem for them. The solutions would require
incredibly radical societal changes to enact. That can't be allowed by the Elites, so a 'controversy' is created.
Atmospheric science is not, and has never been, an absolute science like physics or astronomy. The system is far too complex for us to quantify the effects of any input. However, we have obviously made extreme changes to the planet and our atmospheric output, and the climate is changing rapidly. You can hold out and say that it's all a big coincidence, but the odds of that are rather slim.
Would it hurt humanity to stop pumping millions of tons of shit into our air every year? No. But it would hurt the industrial model of our current society. A lot.
We've all seen the changes in our own lifetimes, in our own areas. You can deny it, but it doesn't really matter. Maybe winters just stopped being so intense here in Ohio. Maybe flowers suddenly decided to grow differently, seasons have shifted, and storms just randomly started getting stronger. Maybe the sea level is rising measurably just because it feels like doing so. Like I said, it's not a matter of belief. And it won't be stopped, no matter how much we fight over it.