The ozone layer had been thinning since the late 22060s.
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NOAA's balloons carry "sondes," which can measure the ozone layer.
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Initially, the consequences for the ozone layer caused most concern.
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The ozone layer protects the earth from ultraviolet solar radiation.
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The ozone layer, after decades of recovery, began to thin again.
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The ozone layer is expected to recover in the coming decades.
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HFCs are much less harmful than CFCs for the ozone layer.
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President Ronald Reagan signed a treaty to protect the ozone layer.
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And let's not forget the dangerous hole in the ozone layer.
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Bob's work was key in helping save the planet's ozone layer.
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Global warming, air and water pollution, icecap melting, ozone layer holes.
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Maybe bouncing it off the ozone layer, for all I know.
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That environmental treaties are healing the hole in the ozone layer?
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A full recovery of the ozone layer was expected by midcentury.
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Another risk is atmospheric chemical reactions that deplete the ozone layer.
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The gas harms the ozone layer and contributes to global warming.
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The ozone layer has protected life on Earth for billions of years.
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HFC's a replacement for other gases that depleted the Earth's ozone layer.
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Every time you drive a car, you help deplete the ozone layer.
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IN 1985 a gaping hole was found in the ozone layer above Antarctica.
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Mine were PAWN, SWIG, UNCLOGS, EPEE, OZONE LAYER, PERU, TWO, FAVA and ERRS.
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Next year's Western Conference Finals would burn a hole in the ozone layer.
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The ozone layer recovers later in the year, and then the cycle repeats.
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Life also needs protection from space radiation, such as an atmospheric ozone layer.
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It does not have an ozone layer to absorb the sun's ultraviolet rays.
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It was a huge environmental success story, and the ozone layer is now recovering.
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The ozone layer shields the planet from ultraviolet rays that can cause skin cancer.
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Most air conditioners installed before 2010 use refrigerants that deplete the Earth's ozone layer.
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Replacing CFCs under the Montreal Protocol is already helping to heal the ozone layer.
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He was one of the first scientists talking about the ozone layer and fluorocarbons.
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It's worth reflecting on what a close call we had with the ozone layer.
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The hole in the ozone layer (shown in blue) as of September 19803, 21980.
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High-energy light from the supernova will bathe the Earth's ozone layer and it is possible that scientists will be able to see this effect, because a reduced ozone layer will result in increased ultraviolet radiation making it to the Earth's surface.
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They also include such things as fire hazard and potential to harm the ozone layer.
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The hole in the Earth's ozone layer is on the mend thanks to that treaty.
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Scientists expect the ozone layer will recover to natural levels over the next few decades.
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I think the height of the ozone layer freakout was during the 80s and 90s.
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It's a treaty meant to solve a different problem: the hole in the ozone layer.
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The responsibility to protect the ozone layer and climate doesn't lie with governments alone, however.
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This policy is connected to the Montreal Protocol, a treaty protecting the Earth's ozone layer.
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A huge eruption could also temporarily damage the ozone layer, which scientists would also study.
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When I was a kid, it was recycling and the ozone layer, things like that.
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The ozone layer up in the atmosphere protects life on Earth from harmful UV rays.
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The Montreal Protocol was written in 85033 with the goal of restoring the ozone layer.
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The Southern Hemisphere lags a bit and its ozone layer should be healed by mid-century.
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When we walked to the South Pole, we walked under a hole in the ozone layer.
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The ozone layer would also be depleted, allowing more ultraviolet radiation to reach the earth's surface.
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The Montreal protocol successfully addressed the threat to the ozone layer posed by chlorofluorocarbon aerosols (CFCs).
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Then, in the 1970s, scientists discovered that CFCs were chewing a hole through our ozone layer.
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This warming ultimately causes chemical reactions that could lead to the depletion of the ozone layer.
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The hole in the ozone layer is healing and is on track to close by 20173.
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Last month, researchers reported that the ozone layer was on track to fully heal by 22016.
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Radiation poisoningThe Earth's magnetosphere and ozone layer protect us from radiation thrown out by the sun.
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They are nonhazardous and do not destroy the ozone layer like the chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) they replace.
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Cons: Ozone damage: Sulfate aerosols in the stratosphere produce sulfuric acid, which damages the ozone layer.
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But scientists later found that HFCs, while better for the ozone layer, were stoking global warming.
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Yes, we have taken some steps to restore our planet, including its once-thinning ozone layer.
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The ozone layer absorbs most of the sun's UV rays and keeps them from reaching Earth.
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The pact was an amendment to the 1987 Montreal Protocol meant to protect the ozone layer.
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Why has a banned industrial gas that destroys the ozone layer made a mysterious resurgence lately?
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Then, in the 20133s, scientists discovered that CFCs were chewing a hole through our ozone layer.
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The Montreal Protocol succeeded in slashing the use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which damage the ozone layer.
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Those chemicals were phased out beginning in the 1980s because they thinned the Earth's ozone layer.
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During the 1980s, scientists realized that the ozone layer was becoming rapidly depleted around the South Pole.
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And is the "hole in the satellite picture" a reference to the hole in the ozone layer?
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CFCs were rapidly depleting the planet's ozone layer, which shields Earth from the sun's dangerous ultraviolet radiation.
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Without that landmark treaty, the entire ozone layer would have collapsed by 2340, according to some studies.
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Specifically, studying Venus' atmosphere helped scientists identify the hole in the Earth's ozone layer back in the 1970s.
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But the HFCs that have often replaced them, while better for the ozone layer, are powerful greenhouse gases.
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If you have lots of oxygen, then the planet probably has an ozone layer, which helps absorb radiation.
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Two cryptic verses in the otherwise posi hit-song are seemingly about global warming and the ozone layer.
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Ozone fact:Thanks to #MontrealProtocol, over 99% of chemicals that deplete the ozone layer have been phased out globally.
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But scientists warned that CFCs deplete the ozone layer, which protects the earth from the sun's ultraviolet rays.
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Had DuPont used bromine, the ozone layer might have been damaged beyond repair long before anyone even noticed.
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The radiation would destroy the ozone layer, fry all life on land, and destroying our oxygen-rich atmosphere.
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It was one of the all-time great environmental success stories, and the ozone layer is now recovering.
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The book contains useful summaries of the debates in the 1980s around the ozone layer and acid rain.
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Fortunately, those actions decreased harmful materials in the ozone layer and are enabling it to slowly bounce back.
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One positive trend is the healing of the ozone layer, which protects all living things from harmful ultraviolet radiation.
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At its worst in the late 1990s, about 10 percent of the upper ozone layer was depleted, said Newman.
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The ozone layer absorbs these UV rays as they enter the atmosphere, and prevents them from reaching the ground.
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Astronomers have long suspected that nearby supernovae can affect Earth's climate, most notably by burning up the ozone layer.
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Supernova explosions could obliterate Earth's ozone layer, for instance, which would wreak havoc on marine plankton and coral reefs.
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These chemicals were a major part of aerosol sprays, until we figured out they were depleting the ozone layer.
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The ozone layer, a fragile shield of gas, protects animal and plant life on Earth from powerful UV rays.
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In the 2900s, scientists realized that chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were destroying the stratospheric ozone layer, at great peril to humanity.
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And some of these chemicals, like methyl bromide, a fumigant, are also greenhouse gases and deplete the ozone layer.
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These HFCs were originally developed to replace the CFCs that were famously chewing a hole through the ozone layer.
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Government-funded environmental scientists began noticing something curious: nuclear explosions deplete the ozone layer, which protects the Earth's atmosphere.
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There's going to be a catastrophe with the ozone layer if humankind as a whole doesn't stop using CFCs.
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The ozone layer over the Antarctic is expected to recover by 2070 as compounds used as coolants, called chlorofluorocarbons, decline.
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The ozone layer is what it is today from me having to spray that hairdo to keep it in place!
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However, chemical reactions occur on the surface of these white particles, which, in turn, destroy the ozone layer, Ross says.
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At the top of this Earth, Donald Trump can be seen playing golf on the holes of the ozone layer.
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Then in the 1970s, scientists discovered that the chlorine in those CFCs was chewing a hole through our ozone layer.
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The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer was adopted in 1987 and has more than 197 signatories.
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The ozone layer acts as an atmospheric shield, protecting life on Earth against harmful ultraviolet-B solar radiation (UV-B).
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But the only way to open a window on planet Earth is to make a hole in the ozone layer.
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In the 1980s, the Montreal Protocol led to the ban on chlorofluorocarbons, CFCs, because of hazards to the ozone layer.
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Last month there was some bad news about the ozone layer, which protects people from the sun's harmful ultraviolet rays.
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More significantly, new coolants are available that are both harmless to the ozone layer and don't warm the planet significantly.
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Earth's protective ozone layer is finally healing from damage caused by aerosol sprays and coolants, a new United Nations report said.
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After five years, the temperature on Earth would be 1 degree Celsius lower and the ozone layer would be messed up.
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Some simulations predict that the 1859 solar storm (the Carrington event) was associated with a 5% reduction of the ozone layer.
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The ozone layer would likely take more than 5 years to rebuild, and after that things should be back to normal.
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Too close, and the radiation from a supernova could eat through our ozone layer, frying any squishy life forms beneath it.
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These hydrocarbons are cheap and non-toxic, and can be used as coolants without the same harm to the ozone layer.
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As a result of this global effort to get rid of CFCs, scientists now say the ozone layer is slowly healing.
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Some of the ultraviolet light is absorbed by the ozone layer, and clouds reflect some of the light back into space.
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The parts of the world that experienced the most thinning of the ozone layer experienced a surge in melanoma and cataracts.
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While they don't directly harm the ozone layer, HFCs are hundreds of times more potent as greenhouse gases than carbon dioxide.
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The accord is an amendment to the 1987 Montreal Protocol, which was aimed at stopping the depletion of the ozone layer.
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First created 30 years ago to fix the hole in the Earth's ozone layer, that treaty is now achieving its goal.
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I don't want my kids growing up in a white-marble mansion and a pet tiger and no ozone layer, man.
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But the broad picture is encouraging: The ozone layer is on track to bounce back to 1980 levels by around midcentury.
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The Montreal Protocol was reached in the 1980s with the goal of reducing emissions of substances harmful to the ozone layer.
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The most harmful factor, the reviewed studies concluded, was the high level of solar ultraviolet radiation found beyond the ozone layer.
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The ozone layer is expected reach pre-1980s levels in about 40 years, according to a UN report from last year.
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Under the 1987 Montreal Protocol, world leaders agreed to phase out CFCs, and eventually the hole in the ozone layer stopped expanding.
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"The ozone layer is expected to recover in response, albeit very slowly," wrote the researchers in the study which was released Thursday.
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The ozone layer would get screwed by this too which would screw over our farms (and ourselves) and could lead to famine.
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The Kigali talks are part of the 1987 Montreal Protocol, which helped protect the ozone layer by cutting the use of chlorofluorocarbons.
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Although HFCs aren't degrading the ozone layer like CFC's did, they do have 1,000 times the heat-trapping powers of carbon dioxide.
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We worry so much about the ozone layer, but I've advocated for things like a bionic lung to deal with the atmosphere.
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They have invested hundreds of millions of dollars to develop next-generation replacements that protect the ozone layer without warming our climate.
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The chemicals released in a volcanic explosion, called sulfate-aerosols, would probably work the best, but they can damage the ozone layer.
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In 29, an international ban on chlorine-containing man-made chemicals that had been eroding the earth's ozone layer went into effect.
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This chemical, CFC-21.3, is illegal everywhere in every country, because it depletes Earth's ozone layer — which protects life from solar radiation.
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The Kigali amendment would add to the Montreal Protocol, which was reached in 1987 to cut emissions that harm the ozone layer.
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"Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) do not harm the ozone layer but many of them are potent greenhouse gases," the UN panel noted in 2014.
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The HFCs that have often replaced them, while better for the ozone layer, are greenhouse gases far more potent than carbon dioxide.
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Today on this International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer, we present to you some good news about Earth's atmosphere.
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This light is usually the ultraviolet kind, much of which can't be detected on Earth since our ozone layer blocks most of it.
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The next big environmental challenge is global warming, which will likely prove much harder to stop than the hole in the ozone layer.
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HFCs don't deplete the ozone layer but they still contribute hugely to global warming, as scientists discovered in the decades after their introduction.
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Why it matters: The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer is viewed as the most successful environmental treaty ever enacted.
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The fear was that ozone-depleting emissions were eating away at the stratospheric ozone layer, which filters ultraviolet radiation that causes skin cancer.
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I've been terrified about what humans do to our planet since I learned about the hole in the ozone layer in elementary school.
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Most newer air conditioners use refrigerants that don't hurt the ozone layer but do contribute to climate change because they emit greenhouse gases.
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Most air conditioners function by means of hydoflourocarbons (or HFCs), which contribute to greenhouse gas emissions that slowly destroy the Earth's ozone layer.
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Agreed 2000 years earlier, the mechanism sought to limit damage to the stratospheric ozone layer that protects the planet from harmful ultraviolet radiation.
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Well, the Kigali Amendment is, in essence, an extension of a promise the world did keep: the one to protect our ozone layer.
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Humans had not only depleted the ozone layer, they appear to have caused the major increase in global warming from 6900 to 2628.
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Countries have been working toward an HFC amendment to the Montreal Protocol, an international agreement to protect the ozone layer, since last year.
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When the ozone layer is weakened, more UV rays can get through, making humans more prone to skin cancer, cataracts and other diseases.
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These chemicals had already chewed a massive "hole" in the ozone layer above Antarctica, and the damage was poised to spread further north.
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The process is sluggish: The ozone layer kept thinning in the 20.5s and 73s, even after the big agreement to phase out CFCs.
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Scientists have found that a man-made gas banned long ago in a global agreement to save the ozone layer is mysteriously reappearing.
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The United Nations Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer became effective in January 22019, mandating cutbacks in production of CFCs.
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The source of the emissions remained unknown, however, sparking concerns that it could hamper years of international effort to repair the protective ozone layer.
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That is, it's left in the open air, producing methane emissions and nitrous oxide that contribute to climate change and damage the ozone layer.
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If nothing had been done to stop the thinning, the world would have destroyed two-thirds of its ozone layer by 2065, Newman said.
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As a result, CFCs and other pollutants were banned as part of the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer in 1987.
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When volcanoes release vast amounts of aerosols and sulphates into the air, they damage the ozone layer—might the same be true for geoengineering?
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Referencing past efforts to minimize damage to the ozone layer, the Dalai Lama said that raised the chances of similar cooperation on climate change.
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Without the magnetic field the solar wind would strip away the ozone layer that protects us from harmful ultraviolet radiation and we'd be dead.
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"That's what we need to understand — the ozone depletion aspect of this because protection of the ozone layer is an international imperative," says Ross.
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There was a giant hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica, and the agreement brought U.N. members into lockstep to hammer out a solution.
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Or, more significantly, we could switch over to newer refrigerants that are both harmless to the ozone layer and don't warm the planet significantly.
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And via the 1989 Montreal Protocol, people around the world gave up aerosol deodorant and hair spray, slowing the depletion of the ozone layer.
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It turned out that certain chemicals that saw wide use in refrigerants and aerosol propellants, namely chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), ate away at the ozone layer.
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The Montreal Protocol exists, U.S. businesses have thrived, and the ozone layer is healing, all thanks to Reagan's stewardship ethic and genuinely conservative leadership.
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The chemical industry replaced that chemical with HFCs, which don't harm the ozone layer but, as it turned out, added greatly to global warming.
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The Kigali amendment was signed in October 2016 in Kigali, Rwanda, as part of the Montreal Protocol, a treaty protecting the Earth's ozone layer.
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HFCs were introduced as substitutes for chlorofluorocarbons, which were damaging the ozone layer that protects the planet from ultraviolet rays that cause skin cancer.
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Chemical companies responded to the 22047 agreement by developing HFCs, which do not harm the ozone layer but do trap heat in the atmosphere.
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The new refrigeration technology uses transcritical CO2, which is a refrigerant that has a much smaller effect on the ozone layer and global warming.
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A 2013 University of Colorado study found that over half of the ozone layer pollution in Colorado was directly affected by oil and gas drilling.
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It could help explain why certain oxygen isotopes found inside lunar rocks are identical to isotopes found in the Earth's ozone layer, according to Terada.
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The agreement takes the form of an amendment to the Montreal Protocol that was originally negotiated in 1988 to protect the planet's stratospheric ozone layer.
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"In the mid-80s, we found a lot of scientists saying the ozone layer is depleting, and there were some who doubted it," he said.
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But the HFCs that have often replaced them, while better for the ozone layer, are greenhouse gases thousands of times more potent than carbon dioxide.
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When the ozone layer is weakened, more UV rays can get through and affect humans, making them prone to skin cancer, cataracts and other diseases.
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Mellott and other astronomers suspect that nearby supernovae can affect Earth's climate in a number of ways, most importantly by burning up our ozone layer.
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When ozone is depleted, less UV-B is absorbed by the ozone layer and more UV-B is observed to reach Earth, causing global warming.
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In addition to driving global climate change, these chemicals could have decimated the ozone layer, exposing life on Earth to dangerous cosmic and solar rays.
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A fragile shield of gas around the planet, the ozone layer protects animal and plant life from the powerful ultraviolet (UV) rays of the sun.
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Back in the 1970s, scientists first realized that we were rapidly depleting Earth's stratospheric ozone layer, which protects us from the sun's harmful ultraviolet rays.
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The latest study, conducted by scientists at MIT and elsewhere, identifies several "fingerprints" suggesting that the ozone layer is on its way toward actually healing.
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"There are positive indications that the ozone layer is on track to recovery towards the middle of the century," said UN Undersecretary General Achim Steiner.
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The gas, trichlorofluoromethane, or CFC-11, is supposed to be phased out worldwide under the Montreal Protocol, the global agreement to protect the ozone layer.
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A new report from the United Nations says the ozone layer is on the mend, and large parts could be completely healed by the 2030s.
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Chlorine and bromine gases erupted by volcanoes are observed to deplete the ozone layer, allowing more ultraviolet-B radiation from the sun to reach Earth.
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Her father is an explorer, and not long after she was born, he traveled to the Arctic to study the erosion of the ozone layer.
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Why not call foul on VCRs, home computers or the hole in the ozone layer, which were also newly present during the same time period?
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The world's attention was directed to the ozone layer in the mid-1980s, when scientists detected a frightening gap, resulting in the 1987 Montreal Protocol.
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The technicians pointed out the Dobson spectrophotometer: a small silver dome standing alone, like a miniature planetarium, and tracking changes in the earth's ozone layer.
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Op-Ed Contributor STOCKHOLM — Global warming is a scientific fact as much as the hole in the ozone layer or Earth's orbit around the sun.
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For nitrous oxide, which helps to erode the atmosphere's ozone layer and expose humans to harmful ultraviolet rays, it was the biggest increase ever recorded.
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The team will also study the Arctic's ecosystem, the air chemistry of the central Arctic and dynamical coupling via atmospheric waves with the ozone layer.
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The 1987 Montreal Protocol, which was convened by countries to halt the destruction of the ozone layer, had a major side effect of averting warming.
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As Tollefson notes, the Mount Pinatubo eruption also sped up depletion of the ozone layer; the team hopes that calcium carbonate will have less ozone impact.
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It was the early 2000s, and the fight over population growth and the ozone layer had been replaced by an even more dire, if nebulous, threat.
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There, the theory goes, the soot will shade the Earth from the sun — dropping temperatures, destroying crops, drying up the rain, and damaging the ozone layer.
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Scientists found that the hole in the ozone layer had shrunk by 1.5 million square miles, based on their measurements every September since 2000 to 2015.
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Now we know exactly what to buy before the season officially burns out — like that ever-growing hole in the ozone layer just south in Antarctica...
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The superflare would likely also be associated with a lot UV and X-ray emission, but our ozone layer would shield us for most of this.
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According to Scientific American, U.S. aerosol products no longer contain chemicals that are harmful to the ozone layer so Trump's complaint is largely a moot point.
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The Montreal Protocol has a scientific body that can study the ozone layer, but it doesn't have a police force meant to stop illegal chemical emitters.
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The hole in the earth's ozone layer is on the mend with the help of the 1987 Montreal Protocol, which helped phase out ozone-destroying chemicals.
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We worked with President Reagan to confront threats to the ozone layer, and President George H.W. Bush to address acid rain and cross-state air pollution.
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Fast facts: The Montreal Protocol is a treaty about the ozone layer, but this latest amendment from Kigali represents an evolution to concerns about climate change.
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The EPA banned Fully Halogenated Chlorofluoroalkanes in 1978 to help protect the ozone layer, which shields us from harmful UV rays that can cause skin cancer.
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The Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer, the UN agreement accompanying the Montreal protocol, was a personal and public victory for Dr Tolba.
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If the emissions increase continued, they said, that would slow progress in restoring the ozone layer, which protects living organisms, including humans, from harmful solar radiation.
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Flashback: The Obama administration helped broker the policy in October 2016 as an amendment to the Montreal Protocol, the 1987 treaty to repair the ozone layer.
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We stabilized the stratospheric ozone layer; we connected people in instantaneous and previously unimaginable ways; we landed a golf cart on Mars and drove it around.
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Government scientists have detected an increase in emissions of an outlawed industrial gas that destroys ozone, potentially slowing progress in restoring the atmosphere's protective ozone layer.
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Since many of the substances that eat away at the ozone layer are potent heat-trappers, limiting emissions of gases like chlorofluorocarbons has an outsize effect.
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It's part of the reason there's life at all on this planet—it protects us from harmful solar radiation that might otherwise blow our ozone layer away.
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The good news is that there are other coolants available — like HFO-1234YF — that are both harmless to the ozone layer and don't warm the planet significantly.
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When the first algae floated in the oceans more than three billion years ago, no ozone layer existed to protect the creatures from DNA-frying ultraviolet rays.
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The two leaders said they would collaborate to achieve an "ambitious and comprehensive HFC amendment" to the Montreal Protocol, an international treaty to protect the ozone layer.
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Protecting the ozone layer has thus come to look increasingly like an endless search for new and unsuspected threats, as well as for old threats unexpectedly revived.
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CFCs on the other hand are not water soluble, so are extremely efficient at carrying chlorine high into the stratosphere at the level of the ozone layer.
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Government officials worried that it would lead to increases in skin cancer and cataracts, and the discovery of a growing hole in the ozone layer added urgency.
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A prominent participant was Paul J. Crutzen, who'd won a Nobel Prize for helping identify the threat certain synthetic chemicals posed to the planet's protective ozone layer.
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The details: The policy at hand is an amendment to the Montreal Protocol, a global treaty first created 30 years ago to protect the Earth's ozone layer.
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The declines in chlorofluorocarbon emissions under the Montreal Protocol were expected to lead to a full recovery of the ozone layer by the middle of the century.
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XINGFU, China — Last month, scientists disclosed a global pollution mystery: a surprise rise in emissions of an outlawed industrial gas that destroys the atmosphere's protective ozone layer.
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They were among the first to warn that the atmosphere's ozone layer, which protects the planet from potentially lethal ultraviolet radiation, was being dissipated by chlorine gases.
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The news outlet reported that in a 1992 Heritage Foundation lecture, Pendley denied that there was a hole in the ozone layer and compared environmentalism to communism.
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Image: Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service, ECMWF'Tis the season for the hole in the ozone layer to undergo its annual growth spurt in the skies high above Antarctica.
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The ozone layer lies roughly six to 30 miles above Earth's surface, and protects life on our planet from the harmful effects of the Sun's ultraviolet radiation.
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In 2014, a UN assessment found that the ozone layer is just now starting to heal — and should be back to its 1980 levels by 2050 or so.
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The Montreal Protocol is often held up as a major international environmental success story because it has led to a slow recovery of the ozone layer in Antarctica.
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In 1987 the Montreal protocol curbed CFC depletion of the ozone layer, and in 1991 the Antarctic protocol, which people thought unachievable, barred drilling there for 50 years.
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Though these simulations have been criticised, it is still safe to assume that a superflare would cause a much larger reduction of the ozone layer… 5-10-50%.
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The study, published in the journal Science, combines data gathered from balloons and satellites to measure the area of the ozone layer over Antarctica from 2000 to 2015.
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They spend each day studying the effects of ultra-violet radiation on the atmosphere and the hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica that was discovered in 1985.
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A fire that destroyed the collective's studio in 1978 swallowed in its flames "Aerosol Arsenal," created soon after scientists discovered that the canned products harm our ozone layer.
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It wasn't until 1974 that chemists Mario Molina and Sherwood Rowland published a paper proposing that rising concentrations of CFCs in the atmosphere could deplete the ozone layer.
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Rogue emissions of a gas that harms the ozone layer are coming from eastern China, primarily from two heavily industrialized provinces, an international team of researchers said Wednesday.
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"The scale of this environmental crime is devastating, with massive potential impact on the climate and the ozone layer," said Alexander von Bismarck, executive director of the group.
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The ozone layer starts at about 6 miles (10 kilometers) above Earth and stretches for nearly 25 miles (40 kilometers); ozone is a colorless combination of three oxygen atoms.
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Other newly arrived research: highly infectious MRSA bacteria, triple-contained so it doesn't get loose up there; stem cells; and instruments for studying lightning and the Earth's ozone layer.
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He chalks those variations up to environmental changes that weren't of as much concern in 1970: pollution, lower-quality food supply, and the growing hole in the ozone layer.
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CFCs, for example, made refrigeration cheaper, which was great news for consumers — until we realized CFCs were destroying the ozone layer, and the global community united to ban them.
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The air-conditioning industry is researching refrigerants that are friendly to both the ozone layer and climate change, which could be on the market in the next few years.
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They came into use in refrigeration and air conditioning as a result of the 1987 Montreal Protocol, which sought to cut down on substances that destroyed the ozone layer.
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Stimulating the growth of phytoplankton may throw the marine food web out of whack; filling the stratosphere with solar-reflective sulfate particles could mess with Earth's fragile ozone layer.
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Trump lies about big things (there is no drought in California) and small things (his hair spray could not affect the ozone layer because it's sealed within Trump Tower).
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There are other metrics that indicate the ozone layer is on the mend -- such as observations that the ozone hole is opening about 10 days later than in 2000.
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Nearly three decades after the world banned chemicals that were destroying the atmosphere's protective ozone layer, scientists said Thursday that there were signs the atmosphere was on the mend.
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Scientists who pushed for the Montreal Protocol always acknowledged that recovery of the ozone layer would be very slow, because CFCs linger in the stratosphere for a long time.
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Winds have gotten stronger over Antarctica due to a hole in the ozone layer above the southern continent and higher levels of greenhouse gases that have contributed to warming.
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As a result of the Montreal Protocol, companies and countries stopped using CFCs and started using HFCs (hydrofluorocarbons), which have a much more benign effect on the ozone layer.
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At the same time, the government has tightened supplies of the main legal foam-making agent used in China, HCFC-141b, which is less harmful to the ozone layer.
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Scientists at NASA said Monday that the hole in the Earth's ozone layer has shrunk to the smallest size on record since it was first detected in the 1980s.
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But sulphur is also known to deplete ozone, a gas which helps protect the planet by filtering sunlight as part of the ozone layer, which makes the technology risky.
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The hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica has shrunk to the smallest size since it was discovered by scientists in the 1980s, NASA said in a statement this week.
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Thanks to the treaty, the equivalent of some 135 billion tonnes of carbon-dioxide emissions were avoided, saving the ozone layer from complete collapse by the middle of this century.
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These coolants are harmless to the ozone layer, but they turn out to be extremely potent greenhouse gases — up to 10,000 times as effective at trapping heat as carbon dioxide.
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The stratospheric ozone layer protects Earth from the sun's harmful ultraviolet (UV-B) rays, which can cause skin cancer and cataracts in humans, and physiological damage in animals and plants.
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Now, scientists predict that the ozone layer will return to 1980 levels by mid-century, bringing millions fewer cases of skin cancer and less damage to agriculture, forests and fisheries.
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In the early 1970s, Cicerone, trained initially as an electrical engineer, played an important role in building the evidence that certain chlorinated compounds could threaten the planet's protective ozone layer.
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Said event, which took place in 1859, wrecked havoc on the worldwide telegraph system, and, according to ice core records from Greenland, caused significant damage to the planet's ozone layer.
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But recently, the hole has started shrinking and ozone concentrations have started rebounding: Back in 24, a United Nations assessment projected that the ozone layer would fully recover by 22016.
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An environmental group has found new evidence that rogue factories in China are behind the resurgence of a banned gas that destroys the ozone layer and contributes to global warming.
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Her advisers cast around for a suitable subject, but it was Thatcher herself who came up with the threat from greenhouse gases and the "large hole" in the ozone layer.
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The original aim of the Montreal Protocol was to stop the depletion of the ozone layer, which shields the planet from ultraviolet rays linked to skin cancer and other conditions.
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Swap Out Aerosol SpraysAfter researchers found that chlorofluorocarbons were hacking away at the ozone layer, legislators required that product manufacturers remove the dangerous chemicals from hairsprays, deodorants, room fresheners, and more.
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The aim was to stop the depletion of the ozone layer, which shields the planet from ultraviolet rays linked to skin cancer and other conditions Follow CNBC International on and Facebook.
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SpaceX's Dragon craft was supposed to dock with the International Space Station this morning and deliver supplies, including a new instrument specifically designed to monitor and study the Earth's ozone layer.
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That's not at all how the hole in the ozone layer actually works, but as an impressionable eight-year-old with a big imagination, that's what it sounded like to me.
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The backstory here is that HFCs were developed in the 210s to replace the CFCs in our fridges and air conditioners that were famously chewing a hole in the ozone layer.
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Three transitions Responding to the Montreal Protocol, a 1987 global treaty protecting the ozone layer, air-conditioning companies have been working to transition away from equipment with the ozone-depleting refrigerants.
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With the Earth in darkness for that long, photosynthesis would stop; temperatures would plummet by more than 30 degrees Fahrenheit for several years; and the protective ozone layer would be depleted.
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The Montreal treaty formed after scientists detected a growing hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica in the early 220s and thinning levels of ozone over the rest of the planet.
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The substances came into wide use in recent years, following the 1990 Clean Air Act, which sought in part to phase out the use of gases that depleted the ozone layer.
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Even that "limited" nuclear-war scenario, he found, would cripple the ozone layer, expose people to harmful amounts of ultraviolet radiation, and lower Earth's surface temperatures for more than 25 years.
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And if that didn't do it, the depleted ozone layer — a side effect of a major nuclear war — would allow large amounts of ultraviolet light to make it to the surface.
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As the NASA images above show, between 1979 and 2013 these chemicals had chewed a massive "hole" in the ozone layer above Antarctica, and the damage was poised to spread further north.
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This international treaty is widely viewed as one of the most successful international agreements ever, as the use of the chemicals has incrementally dropped, and the ozone layer has begun to mend.
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Political leaders came together last October to begin transitioning away from refrigerants that emit greenhouse gases and toward the third kind that are safe for both the ozone layer and climate change.
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They make the case that scientists with political and industry connections have obscured the facts surrounding a series of public-health issues, including tobacco, pesticide use, and holes in the ozone layer.
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There had been a steady decline in the Earth's ozone layer, caused in part by gasses released by aerosol spray cans and refrigerants, reducing the ozone layer's ability to absorb ultraviolet radiation.
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Doesn't seem like much until you factor in the effect on crops, the ozone layer and the estimated five megatons of black carbon that enter the air immediately after a nuclear exchange.
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Human activity has deforested, replanted and irrigated large areas of land, added pollution to the skies, depleted the ozone layer and, yes, changed the concentrations of key greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
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The ozone layer has been healing, but the return of a banned substance is an alarming breach in one of the world's most effective environmental pacts and could slow the layer's recovery.
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In what may be good news, ozone levels in the upper stratosphere have been increasing 2-4 percent every decade, since the late 1990s, which means the ozone layer may be recovering.
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But they were banned under the Montreal Protocol of 1987, after it was discovered they contributed to the creation of a giant hole in the ozone layer that forms over Antarctica each September.
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Image: NASA/Goddard Space Flight CenterIn 22, amidst mounting scientific evidence, dozens of nations joined forces to sign a treaty aimed at halting the expansion of a massive hole in Earth's ozone layer.
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When the Sun's springtime rays start to warm the clouds, chlorine molecules from human-made pollutants break up ozone molecules at high rates, causing the annual hole to form in the ozone layer.
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Indeed, there are instances of U.S. environmental leadership on the world stage — notably in the 27s when global nations banded together to preserve the depleting ozone layer, an agreement called the Montreal Protocol.
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The treaty has led to "a significant reduction" in harmful gases such as CFC-11, which then allowed the damaged ozone layer to heal, according to a report by Canadian newspaper National Post.
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The Montreal Protocol, which was championed by President Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, is an international treaty to phase out the production of substances that can damage the Earth's ozone layer.
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Gene-editing technology like CRISPR/Cas9 could in the future make us cancer-proof, so even if we did have a depleted ozone layer from rainforest destruction and pollution, we'd never get cancer.
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But they were banned under the Montreal Protocol of 1987, after it was discovered they contributed to the creation of a giant hole in the ozone layer which forms over Antarctica each September.
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Saturday, September 16, is World Ozone Day, celebrating the success of the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, agreed at the United Nations on September 16, 1987, thirty years ago.
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The deal would be an amendment to the Montreal Protocol, the landmark 1989 environmental treaty designed to close the hole in the ozone layer by banning ozone-depleting coolants called chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs.
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It plans to submit the work this week in Quito, Ecuador, where delegates from nearly 200 countries are attending a Montreal Protocol meeting on the status of efforts to repair the ozone layer.
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"We're raising the flag to say, look, this is not what we hope happens for the ozone layer," said Dr. Montzka, a research chemist at the Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo.
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Aerosol sales dropped dramatically, and, despite pushback from the chemical companies that made CFCs, Congress in 1977 added protecting the ozone layer to the Environmental Protection Agency's duties under the Clean Air Act.
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That's the upshot of the 2018 Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion, which found that Earth's ozone layer has started to recover since humans got serious about preserving it more than 20113 years ago.
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He ended his tenure by signing the Montreal Protocol to phase out CFCs and save the ozone layer (albeit after much foot dragging and pressure), a treaty that proved a major success story.
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That agreement -- the 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer -- called for the phase-out of substances including chlorofluorocarbons and halons, once present in refrigerators, aerosol cans and dry cleaning chemicals.
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The big picture: New production and emissions of CFC-11 could delay the healing of the stratospheric ozone layer, which protects us from harmful ultraviolet radiation from the sun, by at least a decade.
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I think it's something to do with all the chemicals, the gases that we're producing, that are piercing a hole in the ozone layer, and now we're not getting enough protection from the sun.
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Now ratified by 197 countries, it has prevented the equivalent of more than 135 billion tonnes of carbon-dioxide emissions, and averted complete collapse of the ozone layer by the middle of the century.
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This is an important element of his wide appeal, as is his eagerness to offer an opinion on absolutely anything—from psychoanalysis to finance, Islam to Soviet modernism, the ozone layer to Neanderthal sexuality.
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The deal on HFCs was made under the separate Montreal Protocol because these compounds were originally developed to substitute for other synthetic compounds (CFCs) that contributed to depletion of the planet's beneficial ozone layer.
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Like the ozone layer, or the continued existence of Paul McCartney, it was one of those things that has no obvious impact on your day-to-day life, but was comforting to know existed.
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The hydrochlorofluorocarbon gases (HFCs) used in refrigerants that replaced chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which were destroying the ozone layer, are anywhere from 146 to 12,500 times more powerful than carbon dioxide in their global warming potential.
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"These particles, or aerosols, scatter sunlight as it passes through the air, which in combination with the absorption of light by the ozone layer, gives sunrises and sunsets that purple tint," the release says.
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There has been a rise in the emission of an illegal greenhouse gas that destroys the earth's ozone layer — and China is responsible for "a substantial fraction" of that increase, according to a new study.
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" — Charles, in a speech at the Saving the Ozone Layer World Conference, in March 1989 "The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.
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Greg Camp, guitarist and songwriter for Smash Mouth: It's not completely about climate change but it has elements, or a few lines in the lyrics, addressing a "hole" in the ozone layer and global warming.
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But there are limits to being "frisky" when you aren't catching an opponent off guard, and some of their success is because Napier's three-point percentage is actively burning a hole in the ozone layer.
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Since global nations agreed to ban CFC chemicals in the late 1980s — a landmark climate and environmental treaty called the Montreal Protocol — the ozone layer began to repair itself, after a substantial and worrisome thinning.
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Books News Elizabeth Rusch's picture book about Mario Molina, the Mexico-born chemist who won the Nobel Prize for his work studying the destruction of the Earth's ozone layer, was a decade in the making.
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Case in point: A new study in Science finds evidence that the Earth's protective ozone layer is finally healing — all thanks to global efforts in the 1980s to phase out CFCs and other destructive chemicals.
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Human activities, however, such as the release of halocarbons, disrupts this happy equilibrium, contributing to the depletion of the ozone layer, which resides between 20 to 30 kilometers (12 to 18 miles) above the surface.
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"If the star is active (as indicated by the X-ray flux) then [a planet in orbit] needs an ozone layer to shield its surface from the harsh UV that would sterilize the surface," Kaltenegger said.
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CFC-11, once used in refrigerators and air conditioners, is one of the chemicals banned under the Montreal Protocol, a treaty to protect the earth's ozone layer by phasing out all global CFC production by 2010.
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We faced down a similar global environmental challenge before, when we realised that chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were causing a hole in the ozone layer and coordinated positive action by governments and businesses under the 1987 Montreal Protocol.
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The HFC talks are part of the 1987 Montreal Protocol, which succeeded in cutting the use of chlorofluorocarbons to help protect the ozone layer, which shields the planet from ultraviolet rays that can cause skin cancer.
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That same year, audiences gobbled up Day Of Animals, an admirably batshit genre entry where manmade aerosols burn a hole in the ozone layer, inducing psychosis in mountain lions, grizzly bears, hawks, mice, and even dogs.
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The Montreal Protocol, which is generally considered the most successful environmental pact in history, was drawn up in response to research showing how chlorofluorocarbons, once widely used as refrigerants and propellants, were harming the ozone layer.
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CNN's KFile dug up several of Pendley's previous statements, including a 1990s speech in which he denied there was a hole in the ozone layer, though scientists had been documenting the thinning ozone since the 1980s.
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The court said that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cannot ban hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) under a Clean Air Act provision meant to protect the ozone layer, since that section is meant only to stop ozone-depleting substances.
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They were developed in response to the 1987 Montreal Protocol, a global agreement requiring nations and manufacturers to find a substitute for chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, then the dominant refrigerant, which was destroying the planet's ozone layer.
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"If we are able to find the source of this emission and mitigate it, then I think that it's pretty clear that the damage in the ozone layer will be minor, if not insignificant," Montzka said.
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BEIJING — An environmental group says it has new evidence showing that China is behind the resurgence of a banned industrial gas that not only destroys the planet's protective ozone layer but also contributes to global warming.
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"If it was just those small, illegal roaming producers, the volume could not be that much," Chen Liang, an official with the ministry who oversees international cooperation, including in ozone layer policy, said in an interview.
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The protocol, to this day the most successful global environmental agreement, was aimed at rebuilding the thinning ozone layer by requiring all nations to phase out their use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and other ozone-depleting chemicals.
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Researchers said in a study published last month that a rise in emissions of CFC-11 was jeopardizing the effort to repair the ozone layer, which protects people and crops from the sun's damaging ultraviolet rays.
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That effort began in the 1980s with the adoption of the Montreal Protocol, which ultimately outlawed CFC-11 and similar chemicals that destroy the ozone layer (and, because they are greenhouse gases, contribute to global warming).
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And then scientists figured out these substances ripped a hole in the ozone layer, leading to a 1987 plan to phase them out that over time would be agreed to by every country in the world.
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After concerted global action, the hole in the ozone layer was gradually beginning to mend, but last year, scientists at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration discovered a sharp rise in CFCs from an unknown source.
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Kerry recalled how the world's nations had worked together on climate change since first meeting in the 1980s in Montreal in a bid to protect the world's fragile ozone layer from ozone-depleting chemicals such as chlorofluorocarbons.
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The HFC talks are part of the 1987 Montreal Protocol, which succeeded in cutting the use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) to help protect the ozone layer, which shields the planet from ultraviolet rays that can cause skin cancer.
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Nearly 30 years after the landmark Montreal Protocol went into effect to protect our planet's stratospheric ozone layer, there is finally evidence that the protective blanket that shields us from the sun's harmful ultraviolet radiation is healing.
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The HFC talks are part of the 1987 Montreal Protocol, which succeeded in slashing the use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) to help protect the ozone layer, which shields the planet from ultraviolet rays that can cause skin cancer.
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Previous winners include Marie Curie, known for her pioneering work on radioactivity, and Mario J. Molina, the first person to discover the damaging effect of CFC gases (found in refrigerators and spray cans) on the ozone layer.
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After concerted global action, the hole in the ozone layer was gradually beginning to mend, but scientists at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have discovered a sharp rise in CFCs from an unknown source.
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The delegates meeting in Ecuador will receive a new United Nations assessment of the health of the ozone layer that confirms the resurgence of CFC-11 emissions, and some are likely to press China for more answers.
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Other conservative groups, including the Heritage Foundation, have opposed the amendment, calling it a climate policy inappropriately tacked onto a treaty to fix the ozone layer, and arguing that phasing out HFCs could increase costs for consumers.
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Murdoch: I think that the environmental community has been really terrible about telling our success stories, and so, for example, really similar situations that we've actually won, [like] the hole in the ozone layer and acid rain.
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In 6900, with discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole, scientists realized the need to limit CFCs that transport chlorine atoms to the ozone layer where one atom of chlorine can destroy more than 2628,28503 molecules of ozone.
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But the polarization over some scientific issues in America became supercharged in the late 1980s and early 1990s as global environmental problems like the depleting ozone layer and climate change were increasingly being addressed by national policies.
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The upper part of the Earth's stratosphere — just above the ozone layer — is very much like the surface of Mars: it's about minus 35 degrees Fahrenheit, with very rarified air, and it's hammered by the Sun's ultraviolet radiation.
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"If these planets do not have an ozone layer, life would need to shelter underground or in an ocean to survive—and/or develop strategies to shield from the UV." Artist's rendering of the TRAPPIST-1 planetary system.
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But, but, but: The lack of observing stations to sift through the air for evidence of banned CFCs in China, parts of Africa and elsewhere blinds scientists to possible emissions sources that could also harm the ozone layer.
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By banding together to address a planetary emergency, the 197 signatory nations had officially ended production and use of chemicals responsible for depleting the ozone layer in the upper atmosphere, an essential shield against the sun's ultraviolet radiation.
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Any deal reached in these talks would be an amendment to the Montreal Protocol, which phased out CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) only a few years after scientists published results showing the harm those chemicals were doing to the ozone layer.
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"We could certainly say the same for moss growth on the Antarctic Peninsula, in response to temperature changes, themselves driven by human-induced changes in atmospheric CO2 concentration as well as changes in the ozone layer," Amesbury says.
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These coolants are fairly harmless to the ozone layer, but they turn out to be extremely potent greenhouse gases — up to 10,000 times as effective at trapping heat as carbon dioxide — when they seep out into the atmosphere.
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He thinks that small-scale projects like the Scopex experiment could be useful, but that we don't know the impacts of large-scale geoengineering on agriculture or whether it might deplete the ozone layer (as volcanic eruptions do).
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The case for global action became ever more urgent in 1985 when a British team discovered a hole in the ozone layer above Antarctica, followed by confirmation by NASA scientists of a connection between the hole and CFCs.
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Because the planet has no ozone layer and a weak magnetic field, any humans on the surface would be pelted with both cosmic rays and UV rays from the sun — at far higher doses than they'd get on Earth.
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Though HFCs do not deplete Earth's ozone layer in the way the chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) they replaced back in the mid-1990s did, they contribute disproportionately to global warming, being far more potent at trapping heat than carbon dioxide is.
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While the use of HFCs instead of CFCs has allowed the giant hole in our ozone layer to heal, HFCs have also made an outsized contribution to global warming, by packing 1,400 times the heat-trapping punch of CO2.
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"Evidence presented by the authors shows that the ozone layer in parts of the stratosphere has recovered at a rate of 73-3 percent per decade since 2000," U.N. Environment and the World Meteorological Organization said in a statement.
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These refrigerants are fairly harmless to the ozone layer, but they still turn out to be extremely potent greenhouse gases — up to 20133,000 times as effective at trapping heat as carbon dioxide — when they seep out into the atmosphere.
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What is surprising here is that Calbuco was a relatively modest eruption -- this underscores the need to monitor and describe such volcanic events carefully in order to account for natural variability in documenting the recovery of the ozone layer.
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In fact, several U.S. companies have endorsed a proposed extension of the Montreal Protocol to regulate hydrofluorocarbons and protect the ozone layer of the atmosphere precisely because it will create new business opportunities for their products around the world.
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China is responsible for a dangerous spike in atmospheric levels of CFC-11, a chemical outlawed for its destructive impact on Earth's ozone layer, according to an exhaustive report released Monday by the UK-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA).
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"Nobody came to check what we were using, so we thought it was OK." The ozone layer, a film of trioxygen gas that envelops our planet, shields life on Earth from the devastating effects of the Sun's ultraviolet radiation.
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SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China has phased out 280,000 tonnes of ozone-depleting substance (ODS) production as part of its obligations to the 1988 Montreal Protocol aimed at protecting the ozone layer, the official Xinhua news agency reported late on Tuesday.
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His initial research trip there was in 1986; in September 1987, convinced of a human cause of ozone-layer depletion, world leaders finalized the Montreal Protocol, a global agreement that set a timetable for elimination of the harmful chemicals.
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"When it comes to definitive answers, I think we have to first emphasize that this mystery has yet to be solved," said Keith Weller, a spokesman for the United Nations Environment Program, which helps organize the ozone layer talks.
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The problem is that while the benefits of solar geoengineering are potentially large (slowing global warming), so are the potential consequences, such as the possible disruption of the monsoon season in Asia and the depletion of the ozone layer.
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And as a result, we bent the curve, and the ozone layer is no longer the pressing problem that it looked like it was going to be if we stayed on the trajectory we were on in the 1980s.
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It's also one of the least-observed and understood parts of the global ocean, due largely to its remoteness and competing influences there, from Antarctic sea ice to changing weather patterns and the slow healing of the stratospheric ozone layer.
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The play also references climate change (Harper's concern over the hole in the ozone layer is treated as a symptom of her mental illness by Joe) and immigration (America, a country built by immigrants — among other groups — refuses to embrace them).
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The researchers attribute this to the 1987 Montreal Protocol, which banned the use of chlorinated compounds in refrigerator coolants and aerosols, after scientists learned that these chemicals were making their way into the stratosphere and wreaking havoc on Earth's ozone layer.
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The big picture: The meetings this week in Montreal are about a recent amendment to the Montreal Protocol, a global treaty created 30 years ago to fix the hole in the Earth's ozone layer (and now it's achieving its goal).
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"We're raising a flag to the global community to say, 'This is what's going on, and it is taking us away from timely recovery of the ozone layer,'" NOAA scientist Stephen Montzka, the study's lead author, said in a statement.
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For example, he has repeatedly denounced restrictions intended to protect the ozone layer — one of the great success stories of global environmental policy — because, he claims, they're the reason his hair spray doesn't work as well as it used to.
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Its essential role in human health and environmental safety was internationally validated by the 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, a treaty that phased out the use of substances—particularly chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)—that damage this protective screen.
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Scientists discovered decades ago that CFC-2000 and other manufactured chemicals used as refrigerants and aerosols and in the production of insulating foams were destroying the ozone layer, which shields humans, crops and animals from the most damaging solar rays.
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But agreements have nevertheless succeeded in eliminating rinderpest and smallpox, delineating near-shore economic zones in the oceans, reducing chlorofluorocarbon damage to the ozone layer, setting standards for oil tanker pollution and establishing a framework for seabed mining with shared royalties.
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As a result, the upper ozone layer above the Northern Hemisphere should be completely repaired in the 2030s and the gaping Antarctic ozone hole should disappear in the 2060s, according to a scientific assessment released Monday at a conference in Quito, Ecuador.
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Ted Cruz's idol, overruled his Cabinet advisers to help secure passage of the Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer, which enforced the phase-out of chlorofluorocarbons such as that used in refrigeration, air conditioning, foam plastic, aerosol production and more.
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"We replaced the ozone depleting substances, but we came to understand the hard way that HFCs may be safe for the ozone layer, but they are disastrous for our climate, in many cases thousands of times more damaging than carbon dioxide," he said.
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Our ozone layer protect us from 99% of the UV radiation from the Sun, so skin cancer could wipe out a significant fraction of the population and it is not clear what the increased UV radiation would do to animals and plants.
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GENEVA (Reuters) - The ozone layer that shields life from cancer-causing solar rays is recovering at a rate of one to three percent per decade, reversing years of dangerous depletion caused by the release of harmful chemicals, a U.N. study said on Monday.
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The four-yearly review of the Montreal Protocol, a 1987 ban on man-made gases that damage the fragile high-altitude ozone layer, found long-term decreases in the atmospheric abundance of controlled ozone-depleting substances and the ongoing recovery of stratospheric ozone.
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The big picture: The conference, held this week in Montreal, is about a recent amendment to the Montreal Protocol, a global treaty created 30 years ago to fix the hole in the Earth's ozone layer, which is now it's achieving its goal.
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The study relies on observations of the ozone layer through balloons launched from Antarctica, satellites designed to measure stratospheric ozone concentrations as well as computer models that simulate the evolution of the chemistry in the upper atmosphere and the response to volcanic eruptions.
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"We are beginning to see clear signs that actions that society took to phase out chlorofluorocarbons are actually having the intended effect of beginning to heal the Antarctic ozone layer," Solomon says, stressing that the recovery is still in its early phases.
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The Trump administration official who manages some 250 million acres of US federal lands has a long history of publicly doubting climate change — even going as far as to deny in the 1990s that there was a hole in the ozone layer.
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"We're raising a flag to the global community to say, 'This is what's going on, and it is taking us away from timely recovery of the ozone layer,'" NOAA scientist Stephen Montzka, the study's lead author, said in a statement at the time.
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In the 20093s, a century before "ozone layer" became a buzz-phrase of the environmental movement, it more commonly referred to "fresh air," which the Manhattan-based developers of this area near Jamaica Bay, Benjamin Hitchcock and Charles Denton, promised in droves.
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The scientists didn't know precisely where the chemical was being made — somewhere in East Asia, they suspected — but they said that regardless of the origin, all that new CFC-11 could delay a full recovery of the ozone layer by a decade.
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Meanwhile, some environmental scientists pursued—and published—research on how chlorofluorocarbons, the exhaust from jet engines, and fossil-fuel consumption affected the ozone layer; this research demonstrated, crucially, that even tiny amounts of certain chemicals could catalyze dramatic changes, with planetary consequences.
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This legacy stretches from Teddy Roosevelt's conservation of hundreds of millions of acres of land, to Richard Nixon's establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency, to Ronald Reagan's actions to save the ozone layer, to George H.W. Bush's policies to curb acid rain.
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AFTER seven years of frustrated effort, climate negotiators from the 197 countries that signed the 1987 Montreal Protocol—an international treaty designed to end the use of chemicals that deplete the ozone layer—have agreed to phase out the global-warming chemicals known as hydrofluorocarbons.
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Animation depicting predicted changes to Earth's ozone layer with and without the Montreal protocol, via NASA Scientific Visualization StudioSure enough, the team was able to show that a string of eruptions at the Calbuco volcano in the southern hemisphere widened the spring ozone hole.
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The ozone layer around Earth generally protects us from the gamma rays given off by our own sun, but a full-blown gamma ray burst is so much more powerful that it would cook the side of our planet that came in contact with it.
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And we're better equipped to do that now than ever before, thanks to an army of Earth-orbiting satellites collecting real-time data on everything from the ozone layer to sea level changes to the abundance of tiny green life forms in the ocean.
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When science showed us that chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and other substances used in industry were tearing a hole in the ozone layer, which protects life on Earth from harmful UV-B radiation, the world responded in the late 85033s by banning them under the Montreal Protocol.
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The decline in CFCs in our atmosphere as a result of those measures now mean the ozone layer is expected to have fully recovered sometime in the 2060s, according to the report by the UN Environment Programme, World Meteorological Organization, European Commission and other bodies.
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The ozone hole, a seasonal thinning of the ozone layer in the atmosphere over Antarctica that allows harmful ultraviolet rays to reach the Earth's surface, had recently been detected, but whether it was a natural phenomenon or caused by human activity remained under debate.
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Known as the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, it required 20 countries to ratify it in order to go into effect — just in time for a global meeting on a broader treaty designed to protect the ozone layer, which starts next week in Montreal.
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The unexpected spike is undermining what has been hailed as the most successful international environmental agreement ever enacted: the Montreal Protocol, which includes a ban on chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, and which was expected to bring a full recovery of the ozone layer by midcentury.
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CNN's KFile previously reported that William Perry Pendley, who leads the Department of Interior's Bureau of Land Management, has repeatedly denied the existence of climate change and falsely claimed in a speech there was no credible evidence of a hole in the ozone layer.
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Scientists are hoping that the dangerous hole in the Earth's ozone layer, which contributes to increased negative effects from ultraviolet rays across the world, will dissipate following the decision to ban ozone-harming chemicals, some of which remain in the atmosphere, during the 85033s.
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The stratosphere itself is where Earth's ozone layer is found, as well, and very recent studies are reporting how close we are to the point of losing a vital component of our atmosphere, and a buffer from the sun's radiation, flares and winds, for good.
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A study published in Nature in May stressed the issues that this unexpected jump in CFC-11 emissions could pose, namely pushing back the full recovery of the ozone layer by at least 10 years (the target date was originally for the middle of this century).
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Researchers from MIT, the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom, measured the impact on the ozone layer using weather balloons based in Syowa station (in Antartica) and South Pole stations, as well as ground-based instruments and satellites.
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Judith Garber, a career diplomat in an acting position at the State Department, is set to lead the Trump administration's delegation to a meeting this week in Montreal discussing an amendment to the 30-year-old treaty protecting the Earth's ozone layer, according to an administration official.
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Chlorofluorocarbons, which were once the preferred propellants for putting the 'spray' in 'hairspray,' chipped away at the ozone layer for decades before someone noticed and put an end to it; huffing remains a common (not to mention deadly) concern; and unemptied cans are still considered hazardous waste.
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Atmospheric chlorine levels are still decreasing but more slowly than expected," added Martyn Chipperfield, Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry at the University of Leeds in the UK. "This will cause some delay in the recovery of the ozone layer from past depletion, but that recovery will still happen.
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EPA, the case centered on whether, on an ongoing basis, the agency could prohibit companies from complying with a requirement to replace chemicals in products that deplete the ozone layer with chemicals that do even greater harm by emitting the greenhouse gases that cause climate change.
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Ozone layer on the mend Our study, led by Professor Susan Solomon of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology alongside colleagues from the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, shows that the rapid worldwide agreement to sign and implement the Montreal Protocol has paid off.
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The back story: This Obama-era rule was meant to be the regulatory foundation for how the last administration would implement a new amendment to the Montreal Protocol, a global environmental treaty originally agreed to more than 30 years ago to protect the Earth's ozone layer.
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Nearly 50 years ago, three chemists named Mario Molina, Sherwood Rowland and Paul Crutzen found evidence that chlorofluorocarbons, chemicals known as CFCs and released from aerosol sprays, were weakening the ozone layer that functions as the earth's natural sunscreen protecting humans, animals and plants from harmful radiation.
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Stern said the two countries also are looking at ways to cut carbon emissions from the aviation sector, and an accelerated timetable to phase out HFCs, industrial gases that hurt the atmosphere's ozone layer and have far more potential to trap the earth's heat than carbon dioxide.
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"This is something that's been talked about for a while, this dual benefit of the Montreal Protocol limiting damage to the ozone layer, also curtailing climate change," Rachel Cleetus, climate policy manager and lead economist with the Climate and Energy program at the Union of Concerned scientists, told Gizmodo.
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"Trader Joe's looks forward to working with the EPA in its mission to reduce air pollution and protect the ozone layer, and, with this agreement, has committed to reducing its emissions to a rate that matches the best of the industry," Trader Joe's spokeswoman Alison Mochizuki told Reuters.
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SpaceX's CRS-10 will send a Dragon capsule with multiple tons of supplies and equipment to the International Space Station, including a new instrument specifically designed to monitor and study the ozone layer from the ISS' vantage point once it's mounted to the outside of the orbital facility.
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In 1982, Johnson was a rocket scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, attempting to create a cooling system that used water instead of Freon, a substance which is both toxic if inhaled, and, by then, was under suspicion of tearing a hole in the ozone layer.
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Australia is a country where environmental damage is obvious, in the form of the hole in the ozone layer over the Antarctic caused by use of CFCs decades ago, the steady bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef from warming, carbon-dioxide-acidified seas, and the ever more prevalent bushfires.
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The next generation of Israeli Blochs took the next generation of American Blochs to the Wailing Wall, into whose cracks Jacob inserted prayers for things he didn't actually care about but knew that he ought to care about, like a cure for AIDS and an unbroken ozone layer.
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It was in that decade that scientists confirmed that chemicals called CFCs (found in aerosol cans like hairspray and deodorant) were eating away at the ozone layer, and would produce some scary consequences, from skyrocketing skin cancer rates to damaging effects on plant life and marine ecosystems, if left unchecked.
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The reported emissions, if continued, will slow the rate at which these chemicals decrease and could delay recovery of the ozone layer by a decade or more, until the end of the century, according to Stephen Montzka, of the US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, an author on both Nature studies.
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"Montenegro continues to lead the way ... in the establishment of a complete system required to reduce GHG, protect the ozone layer and adapt to climate change," the Energy Community, established by the EU and nine aspiring member states to extend EU energy policy to would-be members, said in a statement.
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"Trader Joe's looks forward to working with the EPA in its mission to reduce air pollution and protect the ozone layer, and, with this agreement, has committed to reducing its emissions to a rate that matches the best of the industry," Alison Mochizuki, director of public relations for Trader Joe's, told CNBC.
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According to the new study, published Wednesday in Nature, many factories in northeastern China have flouted the ban when it comes to a compound known as trichlorofluoromethane (CFC-211), which is an efficient destroyer of Earth's protective ozone layer and a far more powerful — albeit less abundant — global warming pollutant than carbon dioxide.
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"The amendment to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer endorsed in Kigali today is the single largest contribution the world has made towards keeping the global temperature rise 'well below' 2 degrees Celsius, a target agreed at the Paris climate conference last year," the UN agency said in a statement Saturday.
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Dr. de Zafra, who taught at Stony Brook University for 38 years and lived in Setauket, on the North Shore of Long Island, contributed research at a crucial time in the growing understanding of ozone-layer depletion, traveling to Antarctica to take measurements with a spectrometer that he and his Stony Brook colleagues developed.
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Once presciently interested in climate change—the scientist Thatcher had organized an early conference, in 1989, devoted to "Saving the Ozone Layer," and a subsequent seminar at which she sat with the environmentalist James Lovelock—she appeared to recant it all in the book "Statecraft" (2002), a dull collection of right-wing speeches and anecdotes.
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"Thanks to the cooperation and the courage that we summoned at that critical time almost 30 years ago, the hole in the ozone layer -- which had been growing at an alarming rate, and which was the reason that we came together -- that hole is now shrinking, and it's on its way to full repair," he said.
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Because HFCs are now used as a substitute for ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, in refrigeration, air conditioners and foams, the cuts would happen via the Montreal Protocol, which is a U.N. Treaty that addresses harm to the stratospheric ozone layer, rather than under the separate U.N. treaty system set up for addressing global warming specifically.
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Scorched by a depleted ozone layer and plagued by drought, this not-so-distant future feels disturbingly easy to picture—like a glimpse at a post-climate disasterland in which humanity relies on the cooling powers of garments imbued with pond bacteria or sets out to rebuild desiccated landscapes in shoes cobbled from recycled agricultural waste.
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Their research was credited in the citation for the 1995 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, which F. Sherwood Rowland and Mario J. Molina shared with Paul J. Crutzen for their discovery, also in 1974, that supposedly inert fluorocarbons like Freon, a propellant in products like aerosol spray cans and refrigerants, could deplete the ozone layer to dangerous levels.
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The Montreal Protocol is an environmental treaty agreed to 30 years ago to help mend the hole in the Earth's ozone layer (it's working.) This new amendment is named after the Rwandan city where world leaders agreed in October 2016 to phase down refrigerants found in appliances like air conditioners and refrigerators that contain greenhouse gases called hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs.
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The discovery that the process of making vitamin B3 resulted in the release of the byproduct nitrous oxide — laughing gas — led the company to invest about $12 million in a catalytic converter, since the greenhouse gas that can induce a calm, euphoric feeling in dentist's chair has also been pegged as a culprit behind climate change and ozone-layer destruction.
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The discovery that the process of making vitamin B3 resulted in the release of the byproduct nitrous oxide -- laughing gas -- led the company to invest about $12 million in a catalytic converter, since the greenhouse gas that can induce a calm, euphoric feeling in dentist's chair has also been pegged as a culprit behind climate change and ozone-layer destruction.
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"Even with its description of the increasing impacts that lie ahead, the IPCC understates a key risk: that self-reinforcing feedback loops could push the climate system into chaos before we have time to tame our energy system, and the other sources of climate pollution," Mario Molina, who shared the Nobel prize in chemistry in 1995 for his work on depletion of the ozone layer, told The Guardian.
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Finally, despite predictable industry warnings of economic ruin, the efforts to protect the ozone layer and clean up the nation's waters and air faced nowhere near the campaign of denial and disinformation mounted by Exxon Mobil and other big fossil fuel companies — companies that knew perfectly well what their products were doing to the atmosphere — to confuse the public about climate change and to derail serious attempts to address them.
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It's the holiday EVERY fucking person celebrates to some degree or another, be it as a religious sacrament and celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, an exploration of the bottom of capitalist impulse and an opportunity to teach children how to consume so the economy can stay big and healthy, an excuse to gather the family and eat ham or some other pig product, or, if you're a real traditionalist, a Pagan Celebration of the birth of the sun, the source of all life and matter in the universe, the only TRUE observable God, a fiery ball of indifference hovering off in the distance, waiting for the ozone layer to collapse so it can burn us all to a crisp.
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