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THIS POST IS A CRITICAL REVIEW OF THE ARTICLE “LEARNING FROM A HEALING OZONE HOLE” FIRST PUBLISHED IN 2019 BY THE UNITED NATIONS ENVRONMENT PROGRAM (UNEP) TO SUGGEST THAT WE CAN HEAL THE CLIMATE CRISIS BECSUSE WE HEALED THE OZONE HOLE. LINK TO SOURCE: http://www.saicm.org/Resources/SAICMStories/Learningfromahealingozonehole/tabid/8119/Default.aspx

PART-1: WHAT THE UNEP ARTICLE SAYS IS PRESENTED BELOW IN A FORMAT OF CLAIMS MADE AND OUR RESPONSE TO EACH CLAIM.

1. CLAIM: Ever since humans first travelled into space, we have heard stories about the fragility of the pale blue dot that is our planet. This fragility is partially attributed to the Earth’s “paper-thin” atmosphere, the only protection we have from the darkness and emptiness of space and the interstellar objects and radiation that could be harmful to us, such as hurtling asteroids and ultraviolet radiation. The ozone shield, for example, our main protection against the Sun’s hostile rays, is only 20 km wide on average; let’s compare it to wrapping a 1cm-wide marble in a single layer of plastic wrap. If all the protection we have against volatile external forces is a single layer of plastic wrap, and that plastic wrap starts wearing thin and showing holes, it would be wise to take good care of it. This was the message the world received in the 1980s, when the Antarctic ozone hole was identified by researchers, just under a decade after scientists first mentioned ozone depletion. The message was clear; the ozone layer protected us from genetic damage and skin cancer, it was getting weaker, and human-made products were at the root of the issue.. RESPONSE: The ozone depletion issue is not about the thinness of the ozone layer nor about ozone holes. The ozone depletion issue was raised in the context of the Rowland Molina Theory of Ozone Depletion (RMTOD) that was constructed after James Lovelock discovered that halogenated hydrocarbons (HFC) used by humans as refrigerants and spray agents were inert and that therefore they had no natural sink in the troposphere where they tended to accumulate and where they could accumulate indefinitely. RMTOD proposed that given enough time, 40 to 100 years, by the random molecular motion in the atmosphere and their relative light molecular weight, CFC molecules could be transported high up to the stratospheric ozone layer. Once there, ultraviolet radiation could cause these molecules to break up and release chemically active chlorine free radicals that could act as chemical agents of ozone destruction. The testable implication of the RMTOD theory is not a localized and brief ozone depletion events over the South Pole referred to as ozone holes but a long term gradual decline in global mean total column ozone over the whole of the earth at all latitudes. The term ozone hole does not refer to a hole in the ozone layer that lets in harmful UV radiation. There is no such thing. The term ozone hole refers to localized ozone depletion events above the South Pole.
2. CLAIM: People around the world started to become increasingly cautious about a depletion of the ozone layer and ensuing risks it did not take long for governments to mobilize. Individual countries started banning products emitting CFCs, the main chemical guilty of ozone depletion, as early as the 1970s. In 1987 the world agreed to cap CFC production at 1986 levels and commit to long-term reductions. Under a decade later, CFC production was banned in developed countries, and developing countries followed soon after. RESPONSE: This statement is true except that “people around the world started to become increasingly cautious about ozone depletion” because they had been scared to death in a fearmongering campaign with horror stories about ozone depletion. This campaign actually began in the 1960s when the alleged agent of ozone depletion was the proposed development of supersonic airliners. The bizarre history of the ozone depletion scare is provided in a related post: LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/08/07/history-of-the-ozone-depletion-scare/
3. CLAIM: The ozone case was time-sensitive, yet the battle against ozone depletion was a success like the world had never seen. In 2016, just 40 years since researchers first spoke of ozone depletion, a gradual trend toward ozone ‘healing’ was reported, and it is believed that the ozone layer will recover to 1980 levels near the middle of the 21st century. RESPONSE: The success that the world had never seen was also a UN managed solution to an environmental problem that never existed in the first place. It was a case of declare an imaginary problem, push through a proposed action plan that is proposed as a solution, and then simply declare the problem solved. As shown in related posts on this site there is no long declining trend in global mean total column ozone, and there never was a long term declining trend in global mean total column ozone. The only evidence presented was that there were brief low ozone events above the South Pole from time to time several years apart that have continued to recur to this day when the ozone depletion problem has apparently been solved. There are still low ozone events above the South Pole the most recent being the one seen this year in 2020 as described in a related post: LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/11/04/the-ozone-hole-of-2020/ . No explanation has been provided for the anomaly that brief ozone depletion events over the South Pole (ozone holes) that were the only evidence every presented for ozone depletion continue to occur unabated even after the ozone depletion problem has been declared to have been solved by the heroic UNEP and its Montreal Protocol. We also note that he year 2016 is declared as “40 years since researchers first spoke of ozone depletion”. Kindly note, that in the modern era, researches first spoke of ozone depletion 57 years ago in 1963 when ozone depletion fearmongering had shout down the SST airliner program.
4. CLAIM: On this International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer, themed “32 years and healing,” we can rightfully celebrate over three decades of remarkable international cooperation to protect the ozone layer. Ozone layer protection efforts have not just helped drive ozone healing but have also contributed to the fight against climate change by averting an estimated 135 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions. This shows that solutions can be advantageous on multiple fronts without watering down the benefits. This day also reminds us that we must keep up the momentum to establish a future of healthy people and a healthy planet. As we head into an era of ozone healing, let’s push to keep hold of these gains, particularly by remaining vigilant and tackling any illegal sources of ozone-depleting substances as they arise. We must also commit ourselves to the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, which entered into force on 1 January 2019 and aims for the phase-down of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs); this can simultaneously support the protection of the ozone layer and avoid further global temperature rise. Finally, let’s keep learning from ozone successes as we tackle other issues regarding chemicals and waste. Perhaps by looking at what did and didn’t work in reversing the damage done to the ozone layer, we can gain inspiration to halt and reverse the damages done by other hazardous chemicals. Congratulations to our chemicals family for caring for the ozone layer. Let’s keep on working for a chemical-safe future together! RESPONSE: Even as the UN congratulates itself on the “International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer”, we present data in related posts that the ozone layer has in fact been preserved and moreover that it had always been preserved as we see no evidence in the data of long term decline in total column ozone. Periodic and localized ozone depletion events over the South Pole do not serve as evidence of RMTOD as explained in below.

RELATED POSTS AT THIS SITE ON THE OZONE DEPLETION ISSUE

RELATED POST#1: OZONE CHEMISTRY: https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/04/01/ozone-depletion-and-ozone-holes/ :

The Montreal Protocol subsumes that without human intervention the amount of ozone in the stratosphere is invariant and that a decline in ozone over time is a trend and not part of long run cyclical phenomena. All observed depletions, even localized and time constrained events, are therefore assumed to be man-made and the causative agent is identified as CFC. Natural changes thus interpreted as anomalies that require an explanation in terms of human cause.

The ultraviolet spectrum in incident solar radiation comes in three frequency bands. The high energy band (200-240 nanometers in wavelength) and the medium energy band (240-300 nanometers in wavelength) are harmful to living matter and are absorbed in the ozone layer while the low energy band (300-480 nanometers in wavelength) reaches the earth’s surface and causes tanning. In the absorption of harmful UV radiation, ozone is both created and destroyed in the absorption process. The high-energy band UV is absorbed by oxygen molecules causing them to break apart into extremely reactive oxygen atoms. A subsequent chance collision of these atomic particles with other oxygen molecules forms ozone which then absorbs the medium-energy UV band and disintegrates back into oxygen. The UV absorption process is a cyclical one that begins and ends with oxygen. Ozone is a transient intermediate product of this process. The reason that there is any ozone accumulation at all in the stratosphere is that, of the three reactions, the second is the slowest. Sunset finds the stratosphere with an excess of single oxygen atoms still looking for a date with an oxygen molecule. Overnight, with no radiation to destroy their product, these particles build up an inventory of ozone whose destruction will begin anew at sunrise. There is therefore, a diurnal cycle in the ozone content of the stratosphere whose amplitude is of the same order of magnitude as reported ozone depletion over the South Pole that confirmed the RMTOD and caused Montreal Protocol to be invoked.

A longer but irregular cyclical pattern in stratospheric ozone coincides with the sunspot cycle. The period is 8 to 17 years with an average of 11 years. High-energy band UV increases by 6 to 10% during periods of high sunspot activity but the medium-energy UV emission is largely unaffected. High sunspot activity favors ozone accumulation and low sunspot activity is coincident with ozone depletion.

A somewhat similar pattern exists in the case of polar ozone holes. The UV induced reactions described above occur only over the tropics where sunlight is direct. Ozone is formed over the equator and not over the poles. Equatorial ozone is distributed to the higher latitudes by the Brewer-Dobson Circulation (BDC) shown below.

The shape and position of the BDC changes seasonally and also shifts over a longer time cycle. Therefore, the efficiency of the BDC in transporting ozone to the greater latitudes changes seasonally and also over longer time cycles. These changes do not have an ozone depletion interpretation but they can create the polar ozone hole phenomenon. When the distribution of ozone is not efficient, localized “ozone depletion” appears to occur in the extreme latitudes in the form of what has come to be called an ozone hole. These holes come and go in natural cyclical changes and are not the creation of chemical ozone depletion and they do not serve as empirical evidence of the Roland Molina theory of ozone depletion by CFCs.

THE CASE AGAINST CFCs.

The case against CFCs is that when they get to the stratosphere by diffusion, they absorb high-energy band UV and form unstable and reactive chlorine atoms. The chlorine atom particles then participate as catalytic agents to convert ozone back to oxygen. In other words they mediate the reaction between atomic oxygen particles and ozone. It is alleged that the destruction of ozone by this mechanism exposes the surface of the earth to dangerous levels of medium-band UV because there is not enough ozone left in the stratosphere to absorb them.

Although these reactions can be carried out in the chemistry lab (see above), there are certain rate constraints that make them irrelevant in the stratosphere. The air up there in the stratosphere is rather thin, containing less than one percent (1%) of the molecular density of air at sea level. It is not easy for a molecular particle in random thermal motion to find another particle to react with. Photochemical reactions occur instantaneously but those that require a collision of two particles take much much much longer. 

This difference in the reaction rate is the reason that ozone accumulates overnight and why there is an inventory of ozone in the ozone layer. The atomic oxygen particles that react with oxygen molecules to form ozone could in theory react with an ozone molecule instead and cause its destruction or it could react with another atomic oxygen particle and form oxygen instead of ever forming any ozone. Some of the oxygen atoms do behave in this manner but these reactions proceed too slowly to be important to the chemistry of the stratosphere. The reason is that the stratospheric chemicals in question exist in minute quantities. One in a million particles is an ozone molecule or an atomic oxygen particle and one in a billion is CFC or chlorine generated from CFC. The accidental collision between chlorine atoms and ozone molecules or between chlorine atoms and oxygen atoms are rarer than those between two oxygen atoms or that between an oxygen atom and an ozone molecule. Therefore the latter collisions involving oxygen atoms are more important to ozone depletion than those mediated by chlorine. Considering that more than 200,000 out of a million molecular particles in the stratosphere are oxygen, it is far more likely that charged oxygen atoms will collide with oxygen molecules rather than with each other or with ozone. Therefore ozone rather than oxygen is formed. Ozone formation is a rate phenomenon.

Chlorine atoms are a thousand times rarer in the stratosphere than atomic oxygen particles. It is not likely that chlorine’s mediation in short circuiting ozone generation will occur sufficiently fast to be important. Nature already contains an ozone destruction mechanism that is more efficient than the CFC mechanism but ozone forms anyway. However, the argument can be made that overnight after sunset, as charged oxygen atoms are used up, the charged chlorine atoms take on a greater role in ozone destruction and also when these chemicals are distributed to the greater latitudes where sunlight is less direct and too weak to be ionizers of oxygen, the only ozone destruction chemistry left is that of charged chlorine atoms colliding with ozone. 

The  relative importance of these overnight and greater latitude reactions in making changes to latitudinally weighted mean global ozone can be checked by examining its overall long term trends as well as its trend profiles. These data are shown in the data analysis summary of related posts on ozone depletion.

EMPRICIAL TEST OF OZONE DEPLETION #1 SATELLITE DATA

THIS POST IS A STUDY OF TRENDS IN STRATOSPHERIC OZONE CONCENTRATION 1979-2015 FROM SATELLITE DATA AND A TEST OF THE ROWLAND MOLINA THEORY OF ANTHROPOGENIC CHEMICAL OZONE DEPLETION DESCRIBED IN FARMAN ETAL 1985 AND THE MONTREAL PROTOCOL.

SUMMARY: Mean global total ozone is estimated as the latitudinally weighted average of total ozone measured by the TOMS and OMI satellite mounted ozone measurement devices for the periods 1979-1992 and 2005-2015 respectively. The TOMS dataset shows an OLS depletion rate of 0.65 DU per year on average in mean monthly ozone from January 1979 to December 1992. The OMI dataset shows an OLS accretion rate of 0.5 DU per year on average in mean monthly ozone from January 2005 to December 2015. The conflicting and inconsequential OLS trends may be explained in terms of the random variability of nature and violations of OLS assumptions that can create the so called Hurst phenomenon. These findings are inconsistent with the Rowland-Molina theory of ozone depletion by anthropogenic chemical agents because the theory implies continued and dangerous depletion of total ozone on a global scale until the year 2040.

POLICY IMPLICATION: THE APPARENT MONTREAL PROTOCOL SUCCESS THAT VAULTED THE UNITED NATIONS INTO A GLOBAL ROLE IN CLIMATE CHANGE HAS NO SUPPORTING EVIDENCE. IT SHOULD ALSO BE MENTIONED THAT THERE IS NO ROLE FOR THE POLAR OZONE HOLE IN THE ROWLAND MOLINA THEORY OF OZONE DEPLETION. THE OZONE HOLE IS A LOCALIZED EVENT. THE ROWLAND MOLINA THEORY OF OZONE DEPLETION RELATES ONLY TO LONG TERM TRENDS IN GLOBAL MEAN TOTAL COLUMN OZONE. NO SUCH TREND HAS EVER BEEN PRESENTED AS EVIDENCE. HERE WE SHOW THAT NO SUCH TREND IS FOUND IN THE DATA. THE OZONE DEPLETION CRISIS AND ITS MONTREAL PROTOCOL SOLUTION DO NOT APPEAR TO HAVE EMPIRICAL SUPPORT

EMPRICIAL TEST OF OZONE DEPLETION #2

GROUND STATION OZONE DATA

LIST OF GROUND STATIONS

AND TOTAL COLUMN OZONE DATA FROM AMS, HLB, LDR, PTH

TOTAL COLUMN OZONE DATA FROM SMO, MLO, WAI, BDR

TOTAL COLUMN OZONE DATA FROM CAR, BIR, FBK, BRW

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

CONCLUSIONS: The ozone data from ground stations presented above do not show a long term declining trend in global mean total column ozone. Moreover, the patterns in the data suggest that the occasional low levels of ozone seen over the South Pole that have been interpreted as evidence of ozone depletion and evidence of a hole in the ozone layer, is a figment of a pattern in the data that is likely the creation of natural variability in ozone distribution by the Brewer Dobson circulation.

Figure 27 shows that the range of observed ozone levels is a strong function of latitude. It reaches a minimum of about 20DU in the tropics and increases asymmetrically toward the two poles. The hemispheric asymmetry has two dimensions. The northward increase in range is gradual and the southward increase in range is steep. Also, the northward increase in range is achieved mostly with rising maximum values while southward increase in range is achieved mostly with falling minimum values. The midpoint between the HIGH and LOW values is symmetrical within ±45 from the equator but diverges sharply beyond 45 with the northern leg continuing a steady rise while the southern leg changes to a steep decline as seen in Figure 28.

Hemispheric asymmetry in atmospheric circulation patterns is well known (Butchart, 2014) (Smith, 2014) and the corresponding asymmetry in ozone levels is also recognized (Crook, 2008) (Tegtmeier, 2008) (Pan, 1997). These asymmetries are also evident when comparing seasonal cycles among the ground stations (Figure 29). The observed asymmetries are attributed to differences in land-water patterns in the two hemispheres with specific reference to the existence of a large ice covered land mass in the South Pole (Oppenheimer, 1998) (Kang, 2010) (Turner, 2009). The climactic uniqueness of Antarctica is widely recognized (Munshi, Mass Loss in the Greenland and Antarctica Ice Sheets, 2015) (NASA, 2016) (NASA, 2015).

The left panel of Figure 30 represents the Southern Hemisphere from AMS (-90deg) to SMO (-14deg). The right panel represents the Northern Hemisphere from MLO (+19.5deg) to BRW (+71deg). The x-axis in each panel indicates the calendar months of the year from September = 1 to August = 12. The ordinate measures the average rate of change in total column ozone for each calendar month among adjacent Lustra for all Lustra estimated using OLS regression of mean total column ozone against Lustrum number for each month. For example, in the left panel we see that in the month of September, (x=1) ozone levels at HLB (shown in red) fell at an average rate of 15DU per Lustrum for the entire study period; and in the right panel we see that in the month of July (x=11) ozone levels at FBK (shown in orange) rose at an average rate of more than 2DU per Lustrum over the entire study period. The full study period is 50 years divided into 10 Lustra but it is abbreviated for some stations according to data availability.

The concern about anthropogenic ozone depletion is derived from the finding by Farman et al in 1985 that ozone levels at HLB fell more than 100DU from the average value for October in 1957-1973 to the average value for October in 1980-1984. In comparison, changes of ±5DU from Lustrum to Lustrum seem inconsequential. In that light. On this basis, if we describe ±5DU per Lustrum as representative of random natural variability, what we see in Figure 30 is that, except for the two Antarctica stations (AMS and HLB), no average change in monthly mean ozone from Lustrum to Lustrum falls outside this range. It is therefore not likely that the HLB data reported by Farman et al can be generalized globally.

We conclude from this analysis that the Farman etal study, the only empirical evidence thought to validate the Rowland Molina theory of ozone depletion, is flawed and therefore does not serve as evidence of anthropogenic ozone depletion. And yet, Farman etal 1985 served and still serves to this day as the sole empirical support for the ozone crisis that created the role for the UN in global environmentalism.

These relationships imply that there is no empirical evidence to support the Rowland Molina Theory of Ozone Depletion and that therefore there is no evidence of human caused ozone depletion by way of CFC emissions.

The occasional low ozone level over the South Pole described as an “ozone hole” and presented as evidence of ozone depletion is neither a hole in the ozone layer nor evidence of ozone depletion but natural variability understood in terms of the data presented above.

LINK TO RELATED POSTS ON OZONE DEPLETION

POST#1: A critical evaluation of Farman etal 1985, which stands to this day as the only empirical validation of the Rowland Molina Theory of Ozone Depletion (RMTOD). https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/03/12/ozone1966-2015/

POST#2: MARIO MOLINA AND THE ROWLAND MOLINA THEORY OF OZONE DEPLETION : https://tambonthongchai.com/?s=MOLINA

POST#3: THE OZONE HOLE OF NASA: And the distinction between the ozone hole and the Rowland Molina Theory of Ozone Depletion https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/11/04/the-ozone-hole-of-2020/

POST#4: EMPIRICAL TEST OF THE ROWLAND MOLINA THEORY OF OZONE DEPLETION: #1: LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/10/01/ozone-depletion-part-3/

POST#5: EMPIRICAL TEST OF THE ROWLAND MOLINA THEORY OF OZONE DEPLETION: #2: LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/09/30/ozone-depletion-part-2/

POST#6: EMPIRICAL TEST OF THE ROWLAND MOLINA THEORY OF OZONE DEPLETION: #3: LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/09/30/ozone-depletion-part-1/

POST#7: EMPIRICAL TEST OF THE ROWLAND MOLINA THEORY OF OZONE DEPLETION: #4: LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/09/30/ozone-depletion-part-1/

POST#8: EMPIRICAL TEST OF THE ROWLAND MOLINA THEORY OF OZONE DEPLETION: PART-5: LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/08/07/testozonedepletion/

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

CLIMATE 101: OZONE DEPLETION

The ozone layer helps to protect life from harmful ultraviolet radiation. Find out what caused the ozone hole, and how the 1989 Montreal Protocol sought to put an end to ozone depletion.

THIS POST IS A CRITICAL REVIEW OF A NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC ARTICLE ON: CLIMATE 101: OZONE DEPLETION. LINK TO SOURCE: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/ozone-depletion/

PART-1: WHAT THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC ARTICLE SAYS

CLIMATE 101: OZONE DEPLETION: The ozone layer helps to protect life from harmful ultraviolet radiation. Find out what caused the ozone hole, and how the 1989 Montreal Protocol sought to put an end to ozone depletion. BY CHRISTINA NUNEZ

Over the past 30 years humans have made progress in stopping damage to the ozone layer by curbing the use of certain chemicals. But more remains to be done to protect and restore the atmospheric shield that sits in the stratosphere about 9 to 18 miles (15 to 30 kilometers) above the Earth’s surface. Atmospheric ozone absorbs ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun, particularly harmful UVB-type rays. Exposure to UVB radiation is linked with increased risk of skin cancer and cataracts, as well as damage to plants and marine ecosystems. Atmospheric ozone is sometimes labeled as the “good” ozone, because of its protective role, and shouldn’t be confused with tropospheric, or ground-level, “bad” ozone, a key component of air pollution that is linked with respiratory disease.

Ozone (O3) is a highly reactive gas whose molecules are comprised of three oxygen atoms. Its concentration in the atmosphere naturally fluctuates depending on seasons and latitudes, but it generally was stable when global measurements began in 1957. Groundbreaking research in the 1970s and 1980s revealed signs of trouble.

In 1974, Mario Molina and Sherwood Rowland, two chemists at the University of California, Irvine, published an article in Nature detailing threats to the ozone layer from chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) gases. At the time, CFCs were commonly used in aerosol sprays and as coolants in many refrigerators. As they reach the stratosphere, the sun’s UV rays break CFCs down into substances that include chlorine. The groundbreaking research—for which they were awarded the 1995 Nobel Prize in chemistry—concluded that the atmosphere had a “finite capacity for absorbing chlorine” atoms in the stratosphere. One atom of chlorine can destroy more than 100,000 ozone molecules, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, eradicating ozone much more quickly than it can be replaced.

Molina and Rowland’s work received striking validation in 1985, when a team of English scientists found a hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica that was later linked to CFCs. The “hole” is actually an area of the stratosphere with extremely low concentrations of ozone that reoccurs every year at the beginning of the Southern Hemisphere spring (August to October). Spring brings sunlight, which releases chlorine into the stratospheric clouds.????

The ozone layer’s status today: Recognition of the harmful effects of CFCs and other ozone-depleting substances led to the Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer in 1987, a landmark agreement to phase out those substances that has been ratified by all 197 UN member countries. Without the pact, the U.S. would have seen an additional 280 million cases of skin cancer, 1.5 million skin cancer deaths, and 45 million cataracts—and the world would be at least 25 percent hotter.

More than 30 years after the Montreal Protocol, NASA scientists documented the first direct proof that Antarctic ozone is recovering because of the CFC phase-down: Ozone depletion in the region has declined 20 percent since 2005. And at the end of 2018, the United Nations confirmed in a scientific assessment that the ozone layer is recovering, projecting that it would heal completely in the (non-polar) Northern Hemisphere by the 2030s, followed by the Southern Hemisphere in the 2050s and polar regions by 2060. Monitoring of the ozone layer continues, and it’s finding that the recovery may not be as straightforward as hoped. A study in early 2018 found that ozone in the lower stratosphere unexpectedly and inexplicably has dropped since 1998, while another pointed to possible ongoing violations of the Montreal pact.

The world is not yet in the clear when it comes to harmful gases from coolants. Some hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), transitional substitutes that are less damaging but still harmful to ozone, are still in use. Developing countries need funding from the Montreal Protocol’s Multilateral Fund to eliminate the most widely used of these, the refrigerant R-22. The next generation of coolants, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), do not deplete ozone, but they are powerful greenhouse gases that trap heat, contributing to climate change.

Though HFCs represent a small fraction of emissions compared with carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, their planet-warming effect prompted an addition to the Montreal Protocol, the Kigali Amendment, in 2016. The amendment, which came into force in January 2019, aims to slash the use of HFCs by more than 80 percent over the next three decades. In the meantime, companies and scientists are working on climate-friendly alternatives, including new coolants and technologies that reduce or eliminate dependence on chemicals.

PART-2: HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

1. The history of the ozone depletion issue presented here begins with a theory of ozone depletion by CFCs proposed by Rowland and Molina in 1974. Significant earlier events in this issue are missed in the presentation above are provided below. A more complete history is provided below.
2. The ozone story goes back to the 1960s when there was a plan to develop high altitude supersonic airliners. The high cruising altitude of the SST raised alarms that SSTs would cause ozone depletion. The alarm related to chemicals and aerosols in SST exhaust with a forecast of 40,000 additional cases of skin cancer every year in the USA alone.
3. In 1971 a theory was proposed that Nitric oxide (NOx) in the SST jet exhaust will cause ozone depletion because NOx acts as a catalyst to destroy ozone. The forecast said that there will be a 50% ozone depletion and a worldwide epidemic of skin cancer. Animals that venture out during daylight will become blinded by UV radiation. Ozone science deniers pointed out that the ozone had survived the NOx in the fireball of open air nuclear tests, but by 1972, the ozone depletion activism against the SST had won and the SST program died because we were too frightened by the ozone depletion scare.
4. In 1973 Ozone depletion scientists turned their attention to the proposed Space Shuttle program. The shuttle design included two solid fuel rockets that emit hydrogen chloride (HCl) which the scientists said would cause ozone depletion. The space shuttle miraculously survived the 1973 scare but the ozone depletion game was now in full gear, having tasted the power of being able to inflict debilitating fear of ozone depletion.
5. 1973: James Lovelock: In a now famous paper {Lovelock, Maggs, and Wade 1973}, environmentalist James Lovelock presented the discovery that air samples above the Atlantic ocean far from human habitation contained measurable quantities of HFC. This was the first of three key events that led to the Montreal Protocol and its worldwide ban on the production, sale, and atmospheric release of HFC and the rise of the UN as a global environmental regulator. This significant event in the history of the ozone depletion story was missed by National Geographic. It is not possible to understand the context of the Rowland Molina theory of ozone depletion without the role of Lovelock.
6. 1973 Environmentalist James Lovelock studied the unrestricted release of halogenated hydrocarbons into the atmosphere from their use as aerosol dispensers, fumigants, pesticides, and refrigerants. {Halogenated hydrocarbons (HHC) are also described as HFC}. Lovelock was concerned that these chemicals were man-made and they did not otherwise occur in nature and that they were chemically inert and that therefore their atmospheric release could cause irreversible accumulation. Since HHCs were non-toxic and environmental science knew of no harmful effects of HHC, the environmental concern expressed in Lovelock etal 1973 about their accumulation in the atmosphere remained an academic curiosity.
7. 1974: Th e current theory of ozone depletion appeared in 1974 when Rowland and Molina studied the Lovelock finding. They reasoned that the extreme volatility and chemical inertness of the HHCs ensure that there is no natural sink for these chemicals in the troposphere and that therefore once emitted they may remain in the atmosphere for 40 to 150 years and be transported by diffusion and atmospheric motion to the stratospheric ozone layer where they are subjected to solar radiation at frequencies that will cause them to dissociate into chlorine atoms and free radicals. Chlorine atoms can then act as a catalytic agent of ozone destruction in a chemical reaction cycle. The Rowland Molina Theory of Ozone Depletion (RMTOD) proposed that such ozone depletion by HHC poses a danger because the ozone layer protects life on the surface of the earth from the harmful effects of UVB radiation.
8. 1985: Farman etal 1985: The RMTOD remained a theory – a reasonable conjecture based on the Lovelock data – but without empirical evidence it had no connection with the real world. The empirical evidence came more than a decade later in the now famous Farman etal 1985 paper. They found that “the spring values of total ozone in Antarctica have now fallen considerably. The circulation in the lower stratosphere is apparently unchanged, and possible chemical causes must be considered. We suggest that the very low temperatures which prevail from midwinter until several weeks after the spring equinox make the Antarctic stratosphere uniquely sensitive to growth of inorganic chlorine primarily by the effect of this growth on the NO2/NO ratio. This, with the height distribution of UV irradiation peculiar to the polar stratosphere, could account for the O3 losses observed.
9. 1985: This paper was the third and final key event in the sequence Lovelock to RMTOD to Farman, that led to the Montreal Protocol. Farman’s finding of an extreme ozone depletion over a 6-year period above the South Pole (later described as an “Ozone Hole” by NASA) was thought to have established that the atmospheric accumulation of HHC found by Lovelock (1) is not harmless by given the RMTOD theoretical framework (2) that links HHC to ozone depletion and finally (3) with the theory validated by empirical evidence in Farman etal. It is the combination of these three events that led to the Montreal Protocol and not any one of them by itself.
10. 1987–MONTREAL PROTOCOL MEDIA HYPE: The media then stepped in with an intensive exercise in fear based activism to promote compliance with the Montreal Protocol. Here are some examples: March 10 1987: Skin cancer is increasing in the United States at a near epidemic rate, outstripping predictions made as recently as five years ago, a research physician testified Monday before a House panel examining threats to the Earth’s protective ozone layer. Malignant melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, has increased 83 percent in the last seven years alone. Melanoma is increasing faster than any other cancer except lung cancer in women.: March 12, 1987 Consensus among scientists: Harmful UV radiation can cause monumental problems, including rampant skin cancer and eye cataracts, retarded crop growth, impairment of the human immune system and damaging radiation doses to all forms of life. Although many Americans and the people of other nations are still not listening or taking the ozone threat seriously, the Earth’s protective shield is getting thinner and developing mysterious holes. There is a growing consensus among scientists that ozone destruction is caused by the accumulation in the upper atmosphere of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), a class of industrial chemicals used for refrigerants, aerosols, insulation, foam packaging and other uses.:

PART-3: CRITICAL COMMENTARY

1. RELATED POST ON OZONE CHEMISTRY: https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/04/01/ozone-depletion-and-ozone-holes/ . Here we note as follows: (1) The Montreal Protocol contains the assumption that without human intervention the amount of ozone in the stratosphere is invariant and that a decline in ozone over time of any duration is an anomaly that requires an explanation in terms of human cause in the form of CFC. This assumption is false as there are natural variations in stratospheric ozone. (2) The Diurnal Cycle: Ozone absorbs harmful UV radiation. It is both created and destroyed in that process. High-energy band UV is absorbed by oxygen molecules. The energy absorbed causes the oxygen molecule to break apart into extremely reactive oxygen atoms. A subsequent chance collision of these particles with other oxygen molecules causes the formation of ozone. The ozone thus formed then absorbs the medium-energy UV band and disintegrates back into oxygen. The UV absorption process is a cyclical one that begins and ends with oxygen. Ozone is a transient intermediate product of this process. The reason that there is any ozone accumulation at all in the stratosphere is that, of the three reactions, the second is the slowest. Sunset finds the stratosphere with an excess of single oxygen atoms still looking for a date with an oxygen molecule. Overnight, with no radiation to destroy their product, these particles build up an inventory of ozone whose destruction will begin anew at sunrise. There is therefore, a diurnal cycle in the ozone content of the stratosphere whose amplitude is of the same order of magnitude as the ozone depletion observed by Farman that serves as empirical evidence for RMTOD and the Montreal Protocol. (3) The Long Cycle: A longer and irregular cyclical pattern in stratospheric ozone coincides with the sunspot cycle. The period is approximately 11 years but it can vary from 8 years to 17 years. High-energy band UV increases by 6% to 10% during periods of high sunspot activity but the medium-energy UV emission is unaffected. Therefore, high sunspot activity favors ozone accumulation and low sunspot activity is coincident with ozone depletion. (4) A same kind of natural variability exists in the case of polar ozone holes. The UV induced reactions of ozone creation and destruction described above occur only over the tropics where sunlight is direct and not at greater latitudes. The equatorial ozone is then distributed to the greater latitudes by the Brewer-Dobson Circulation (BDC). THE SHAPE AND LOCATION OF THE BREWER DOBSON CIRCULATION CHANGES SEASONALLY AND SHIFTS AT LONGER TIME SCALES. Therefore, the efficiency of the BDC in transporting ozone to the greater latitudes changes seasonally and also over longer time cycles. When the distribution of ozone is not efficient, localized “ozone depletion” appears to occur in the extreme latitudes in the form of what has come to be called an ozone hole. These holes come and go in natural cyclical changes and are not the creation of chemical ozone depletion and they do not serve as empirical evidence of the Roland Molina theory of ozone depletion by CFCs.

RELATED POST#1 ON LONG TERM TRENDS IN GLOBAL MEAN TOTAL COLUMN OZONE https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/09/30/ozone-depletion-part-1/ Mean global total ozone is estimated as the latitudinally weighted average of total ozone measured by the TOMS and OMI satellite mounted ozone measurement devices for the periods 1979-1992 and 2005-2015 respectively. The TOMS dataset shows an OLS depletion rate of 0.65 DU per year on average in mean monthly ozone from January 1979 to December 1992. The OMI dataset shows an OLS accretion rate of 0.5 DU per year on average in mean monthly ozone from January 2005 to December 2015. The conflicting and inconsequential OLS trends may be explained in terms of the random variability of nature. These findings are inconsistent with the Rowland-Molina theory of ozone depletion because the theory implies continued and dangerous depletion of total ozone on a global scale until the year 2040.

RELATED POST#2 ON LONG TERM TRENDS IN GLOBAL MEAN TOTAL COLUMN OZONE : https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/10/01/ozone-depletion-part-3/ Here we use ozone data from ground stations to carry out an empirical test of the RMTOD. Total column ozone (TCO) measurements made with Dobson spectrophotometers at twelve ground stations are used in this study. The stations are selected to represent a large range of latitudes with the latitudes classified into five groups as (1) high southern latitudes (90S to 60S), (2) mid- southern latitudes (60S to 30S), (3) Tropical (30S to 30N), (4) mid- northern latitudes (30N to 60N), and (5) high northern latitudes (60N to 90north). The data are provided by the NOAA and the BAS (British Antarctic Survey).

FINDING: The concern about ozone depletion is derived from the finding by Farman et al in 1985 that ozone levels at HLB fell by 6DU per year from the 1957-1973 average to the 1980-1984 average. The data presented below show that ozone depletion rates of 6DU/year and higher are seen only at the South Pole. Outside of the South Pole the mean ozone depletion rate is close to zero with an uncertainty range of +/- 1DU per year, a range perhaps indicative of random natural variability. It is therefore not likely that the HLB data reported by Farman et al can be generalized globally. Yet, it served as the sole basis of validating the Rowland Molina theory of ozone depletion. This event then gave rise to the ozone depletion alarm that in turn led to a global environmental role of the UN and the Montreal Protocol, and eventually an assumed authority of the UN over global environmentalism and the climate change alarmism of our time.

CONCLUSION: THE ROWLAND MOLINA THEORY OF OZONE DEPLETION B BASED ON THE LONG LIFE OF INERT HFC AND THE SPECULATION THAT BECAUSE THEY ARE LIGHT AND INERT THEY CAN END UP IN THE STRATOSPHERE AND THAT IF THEY DO UV RADIATION WILL CAUSE CHLORINE TO BREAK OFF THE HFC AND CATALIZE OZONE DESTRUCTION. ALTHOUGH THE LAST PART OF THIS SEQUENCE HAS BEEN TESTED IN THE LAB, NO EVIDENCE HAS EVER BEEN PRESENTED THAT HFC HAVE INDEED BEEN FOUND IN THE STRATOSPHERE. THE ONLY EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT RMTOD IS THE DEPLETION OF OZONE OVER THE SOUTH POLE OVER A 6-YEAR PERIOD. THIS EVIDENCE DOES NOT CONTAIN A SUFFICIENTLY LONG TIME SPAN OR A SUFFICIENT GEOGRAPHICAL EXTENT TO SERVE AS EVIDENCE OF A LONG TERM STEADY DECLINE IN GLOBAL MEAN TOTAL COLUMN OZONE. IN THE STUDIES PRESENTED ABOVE, NO LONG TERM DECLINE IS FOUND IN GLOBAL MEAN TOTAL COLUMN OZONE. THUS NO EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE IS FOUND TO SUPPORT THE ROWLAND MOLINA THEORY OF OZONE DEPLETION.

THIS POST IS A CRITICAL REVIEW OF AN ONLINE PUBLICATION BY NRDC ON MARIO MOLINA AND THE OZONE DEPLETION ISSUE: LINK TO THE NRDC ARTICLE: https://www.nrdc.org/experts/david-doniger/mario-molinas-life-understanding-protecting-our-atmosphere

PART-1: WHAT THE SOURCE DOCUMENT SAYS

Mario Molina’s Life Understanding, Protecting Our Atmosphere
October 13, 2020 David Doniger Amanda Maxwell

Dr. José Mario Molina Pasquel y Henríquez, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his 1974 discovery of the mortal threat to the earth’s protective ozone layer from chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), died October 7 at the age of 77. As a post-doc at the University of California, Irvine, Dr. Mario Molina collaborated with Dr. F. Sherwood Rowland on a paper published in Nature in June 1974 proposing that seemingly inert CFCs—released from aerosol sprays, refrigerators and air conditioners, and many other products—were rising high into the atmosphere and destroying the thin layer of stratospheric ozone that shields us from the sun’s dangerous ultraviolet radiation. For these insights Molina and Rowland shared the 1995 Nobel Prize in chemistry with a third atmospheric scientist, Paul Crutzen. It is devilishly, almost poetically clever. Ozone is an unstable variant of oxygen—three oxygen atoms bound together instead of the more common two-atom molecule that we breathe. In the stratosphere, starting roughly six miles overhead, UV radiation is constantly making ozone molecules from oxygen, and constantly breaking those ozone molecules back down to oxygen. We’re safer down below because those ozone reactions absorb most of the UV and keep it from reaching the earth’s surface. Molina and his partner saw that the chlorine atoms in CFCs could upset the stable balance of ozone formation and destruction and erode the ozone shield. Nothing in the lower atmosphere harms CFCs. They break apart only when bathed in strong UV radiation upon reaching the stratosphere. Then their chlorine atoms react catalytically to destroy ozone molecules, turning them back into oxygen faster than nature makes new ones, and throwing the ozone layer out of balance. Rising CFC production would mean steep ozone losses, more UV radiation reaching the earth’s surface, more skin cancer, and a host of dangerous health and environmental impacts. As it happens, NRDC played a key role in bringing their scientific findings to public attention. An NRDC scientist, Karim Ahmed, arranged a press conference for Rowland in September 1974, which brought their findings to broad public attention, and an NRDC attorney, Tom Stoel, filed the first petitions asking federal agencies to ban CFC-containing aerosol sprays. Big news stories led to congressional hearings, consumer shifts away from aerosol sprays, and eventually government action. There are many fine tellings of the story from then on, in books like Between Earth and Sky and documentaries like Ozone Hole: How We Saved the Planet. It took courage for Molina and Rowland to speak out. They were harried by the industries that made and used CFCs and shunned by scientific societies shy of controversy. It took 13 years of advocacy by NRDC and other nongovernmental organizations before the world responded, when some 40 countries agreed in 1987 on the Montreal Protocol, a treaty that as amended has since phased out CFCs and other ozone-destroying chemicals worldwide. The vindication of the Nobel Prize did not come for 21 years. More than 30 years later, every country on earth is a party to the ozone treaty, and we have eliminated 97 percent of all ozone-destroying chemicals world-wide.

There has been damage—most visibly the gaping ozone hole that opens over Antarctica each September and will not disappear until after 2050—but we have largely avoided the worldwide public health catastrophe that Molina warned of. Dr. Molina did not limit his research or public advocacy to protecting the ozone layer. He was deeply engaged in combatting climate change. The connection is obvious, since CFCs and their substitutes, including the hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), are also powerful heat-trapping greenhouse gases. Molina co-authored an important scientific paper on the importance of quick action to curb HFCs—findings that helped lead to the global HFC phase-down agreement adopted in 2016, in the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal treaty. Molina spoke out frequently on the need to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and methane from fossil fuels, as well as these industrial chemicals. He co-wrote What We Know: The Reality, Risks, and Response to Climate Change, for the American Academy for the Advancement of Science. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama in 2013. Dr. Molina also dedicated himself to addressing air pollution and climate issues in his home country of Mexico. In 2004 he established the Mario Molina Center, a non-profit, non-political institute focused on improving the well-being of all Mexicans by connecting scientific research with environmental and energy policies. With programs focusing on energy, air quality, sustainable cities and education in addition to climate change, the center has built a strong reputation as a solid, credible and positive source of research and policy solutions. In 2007, NRDC joined the Mario Molina Center and other groups in calling for stricter efficiency and emissions standards for Mexico’s vehicles. We argued that raising standards for heavy-duty vehicles to U.S. levels would avoid 55,000 premature deaths and deliver more than $120 billion in net benefits for the country. That effort has lasted years, transcending three different presidential administrations, and Molina’s work has remained at the center of the conversation. Molina spoke out against the Trump administration’s climate denial, abandonment of the Paris Accord, and regulatory rollbacks. “The message they are sending to the rest of the world is that they don’t believe climate change is serious. It’s shocking to see such a degree of ignorance from the United States,” Molina said. As recently as August 2020, Dr. Molina addressed the grave need to improve air quality in Mexico and for new technological innovations to do so. This is a stark contrast to the policies of the current Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who is like President Trump in championing the fossil fuel industry and ignoring climate change. It is our job to carry on his legacy and get Dr. Molina’s two countries back on the right side of science and history.

PART-2: CRITICAL COMMENTARY

DEARLY DEPARTED MARIO MOLINA

MAY HE REST IN PEACE

ON THE MATTER OF THE OZONE DEPLETION ISSUE AND THE RESOLUTION OF THE OZONE DEPLETION ISSUE IN THE MONTREAL PROTOCOL

(1) HISTORY OF THE OZONE DEPLETION ISSUE The ozone story goes back to the 1960s when there was a plan to develop high altitude supersonic airliners. The high cruising altitude of the SST raised alarms that SSTs would cause both climate change and ozone depletion. The alarm related to chemicals and aerosols in SST exhaust and the science of their impact on the atmosphere. The climate change theory was quietly shelved and forgotten and the alarm later focused on ozone depletion with a forecast of 40,000 additional cases of skin cancer every year in the USA alone. In 1971 a theory was proposed that Nitric oxide (NOx) in the SST jet exhaust will cause ozone depletion because NOx acts as a catalyst to destroy ozone according to computer models. The model forecast said that there will be a 50% ozone depletion and a worldwide epidemic of skin cancer. Animals that venture out during daylight will become blinded by UV radiation. Ozone science deniers pointed out that the ozone had survived the NOx in the fireball of open air nuclear tests, but by 1972, the ozone depletion activism against the SST had won and the SST program died because we were too frightened by the ozone depletion scare. 1972 was the first “Montreal Protocol”.In 1973 fear mongering ozone depletion scientists turned their attention to the proposed Space Shuttle program. The shuttle design included two solid fuel rockets that emit hydrogen chloride (HCl) which the scientists said would cause ozone depletion. The space shuttle miraculously survived the 1973 scare but the ozone depletion game was now in full gear, having tasted the power of being able to inflict debilitating fear of ozone depletion. 1973: In a now famous paper {Lovelock, Maggs, and Wade 1973}, he presented the discovery that air samples above the Atlantic ocean far from human habitation contained measurable quantities of HHC. This was he first of three key events that led to the Montreal Protocol and its worldwide ban on the production, sale, and atmospheric release of HHC and the rise of the UN as a global environmental regulator. 1974 a new candidate of ozone depletion was identified. Environmentalist James Lovelock studied the unrestricted release of halogenated hydrocarbons (HHC) into the atmosphere from their use as aerosol dispensers, fumigants, pesticides, and refrigerants. {Halogenated hydrocarbons (HHC) are also described as HFC}. Lovelock was concerned that these chemicals were man-made and they did not otherwise occur in nature and that they were chemically inert and that therefore their atmospheric release could cause irreversible accumulation. However, since HHCs were non-toxic and environmental science knew of no harmful effects of HHC, the environmental concern expressed in Lovelock etal 1973 about their accumulation in the atmosphere remained an academic curiosity. This changed in 1974 with the publication of a paper by Mario Molina and Frank Rowland in which is contained a theory of ozone depletion by HHC. According to the Rowland-Molina theory of ozone depletion (RMTOD), the extreme volatility and chemical inertness of the HHCs ensure that there is no natural sink for these chemicals in the troposphere and that therefore once emitted they may remain in the atmosphere for 40 to 150 years and be transported by diffusion and atmospheric motion to the stratospheric ozone layer where they are subjected to solar radiation at frequencies that will cause them to dissociate into chlorine atoms and free radicals. Chlorine atoms can then act as a catalytic agent of ozone destruction in a chemical reaction cycle described in the paper. It proposed that such ozone depletion by HHC poses a danger because the ozone layer protects life on the surface of the earth from the harmful effects of UVB radiation. It is often thought that “Rowland and Molina, discovered that CFCs released from aerosol sprays could rise miles over our heads into the stratosphere and destroy ozone molecules. This statement is false. They did not” discover“ this relationship between CFCs and ozone. They proposed it as a theory. The theory required validation by empirical evidence.

1985: The RMTOD was later considered to have been validated with empirical evidence in a 1985 paper by Farman etal . “Large losses of total ozone in Antarctica reveal seasonal ClOx/NOx interaction J. C. Farman, B. G. Gardiner & J. D. Shanklin, Nature volume 315, pages207–210(1985) Abstract
Recent attempts to consolidate assessments of the effect of human activities on stratospheric ozone using one-dimensional models for 30° N have suggested that perturbations of total ozone will remain small for at least the next decade. Results from such models are often accepted by default as global estimates. The inadequacy of this approach is here made evident by observations that the spring values of total ozone in Antarctica have now fallen considerably. The circulation in the lower stratosphere is apparently unchanged, and possible chemical causes must be considered. We suggest that the very low temperatures which prevail from midwinter until several weeks after the spring equinox make the Antarctic stratosphere uniquely sensitive to growth of inorganic chlorine, ClX, primarily by the effect of this growth on the NO2/NO ratio. This, with the height distribution of UV irradiation peculiar to the polar stratosphere, could account for the O3 losses observed. The Farman etal 1985 paper was the third and final key event in the sequence Lovelock to RMTOD to Farman, that led to the Montreal Protocol. It established that the atmospheric accumulation of HHC found by Lovelock (1) is not harmless by providing the RMTOD theoretical framework (2) that links HHC to ozone depletion and finally with the theory validated by empirical evidence in Farman etal.

(2) THE PROBLEM WITH FARMAN ETAL 1985: In a related post LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/03/12/ozone1966-2015/ we show that the declining levels of total column ozone in Antarctica during the months of October and November over a 6-year period prior to 1985 found by Farman etal 1985 do not serve as empirical evidence that can be taken as validation of the Rowland-Molina theory of chemical ozone depletion (RMTOD).

The RMTOD chemical theory of ozone depletion implies a gradual decline in mean global total column ozone over time periods longer than 40 years. This means that ozone depletion must be measured across the full range of latitudes and across time spans longer than 6 years. This is not what we find in Farman etal 1985. And yet, this paper serves as the sole basis for the validation of the RMTOD ozone depletion hypothesis. Stranger yet, this paper serves as the sole empiric al support for the Montreal Protocol and the ascendance of the UN as a global environmental authority.

In a related post#2 on the ozone hole: LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/11/04/the-ozone-hole-of-2020/ we show that the claim by NASA that the periodic and brief ozone hole event serves as evidence of ozone depletion is fatally flawed because ozone hold events are localized and brief, that is they are both time and geography constrained and that therefore they do not provide evidence of long term declining trends in global mean total column ozone.

In related post#3 LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/10/01/ozone-depletion-part-3/ we present the overall structure of changes in total column ozone levels over a 50-year sample period from 1966 to 2015 and across a range of latitudes from -90 to +71degrees latitude. Our findings show that the data from Antarctica prior to 1990 represent a peculiar outlier condition specific to that time and place and not an enduring global pattern. The finding is inconsistent with the claim that the Farman etal 1985 paper on a South Pole ozone event serves as empirical evidence for the Rowland-Molina theory of chemical ozone depletion.

(3): A post on this site on the passing of Mario Molina: LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/10/10/mario-molina-1943-2020/

There we note as follows:

THE FLAW IN THE FARMAN ETAL PAPER THAT NULLIFIES THE OZONE DEPLETION CRISIS AND ITS ASSUMED RECOVERY BY WAY OF THE MONTREAL PROTOCOL.

EMPIRICAL TEST OF RMTOD

Here we use ozone data from ground stations to carry out an empirical test of the RMTOD. Total column ozone (TCO) measurements made with Dobson spectrophotometers at twelve ground stations are used in this study. The stations are selected to represent a large range of latitudes with the latitudes classified into five groups as (1) high southern latitudes (90S to 60S), (2) mid- southern latitudes (60S to 30S), (3) Tropical (30S to 30N), (4) mid- northern latitudes (30N to 60N), and (5) high northern latitudes (60N to 90north). The data are provided by the NOAA and the BAS (British Antarctic Survey).

As in Farman etal 1985, the ozone data are studied as five year (Lustrum) averages and not as annual data to smooth out data availability differences. These period definitions are not precise for the first and last Lustra. The first Lustrum is longer than five years for some stations and shorter than five years for others. The last Lustrum is imprecise because of the variability in the last month of data availability. The calendar month sequence is arranged from September to August in the tables and charts presented to maintain seasonal integrity. The seasons are roughly defined as follows: September-November (northern autumn and southern spring), December-February (northern winter and southern summer), March-May (northern spring and southern autumn), and June-August (northern summer and southern winter).

Daily and intraday ozone data are averaged into monthly means for each period. These monthly means are then used to study trends across the ten Lustra for each calendar month and also to examine the average seasonal cycle for each Lustrum. Trends in mean monthly ozone and seasonal cycles are compared to examine the differences among latitudes. These patterns are then used to compare and evaluate the chemical and transport theories for changes in atmospheric ozone. The chemical explanation of these changes rests on the destruction of ozone by chlorine atoms derived from HHC (Molina, 1974) while the transport theory describes them in terms of the Brewer-Dobson circulation (BDC) and polar vortices that transport ozone from the tropics where they are formed to the greater latitudes where they are more stable (Kozubek, 2012) (Butchart, 2014) (Tegtmeier, 2008) (Weber, 2011).

Details of these data, station by station, are presented numerically and graphically here LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/09/30/ozone-depletion-part-2/ AND SUMMARIZED IN THE CHARTS BELOW.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

The concern about ozone depletion is derived from the finding by Farman et al in 1985 that ozone levels at HLB fell by 6DU per year from the 1957-1973 average to the 1980-1984 average. The data presented HERE show that ozone depletion rates of 6DU/year and higher are seen only at the South Pole. Outside of the South Pole the mean ozone depletion rate is close to zero with an uncertainty range of +/- 1DU per year, a range perhaps indicative of random natural variability.

It is therefore not likely that the HLB data reported by Farman et al can be generalized globally. Yet, it served as the sole basis of validating the Rowland Molina theory of ozone depletion. This event then gave rise to the ozone depletion alarm that in turn led to a global environmental role of the UN and the Montreal Protocol, and eventually an assumed authority of the UN over global environmentalism and the climate change alarmism of our time.

ALL THIS WITHOUT THE EVIDENCE OF OZONE DEPLETION OR OF ITS CLAIMED RECOVERY. THE STORY OF OZONE DEPLETION CRISIS AND ITS MONTREAL PROTOCOL SUCCESS IS A CASE OF CLAIMING A NON-EXISTENT PROBEM AND THEN SIMPLY DECLARING IT SOLVED.

(4) FEAR BASED ACTIVISM FUNNELLED THROUGH THE MEDIA: The media then stepped in with an intensive exercise in fear based activism to promote compliance with the Montreal Protocol. Here are some examples: March 10 1987: Skin cancer is increasing in the United States at a near epidemic rate, outstripping predictions made as recently as five years ago, a research physician testified Monday before a House panel examining threats to the Earth’s protective ozone layer. Malignant melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, has increased 83 percent in the last seven years alone. Melanoma is increasing faster than any other cancer except lung cancer in women.: March 12, 1987 Consensus among scientists: If harmful UV radiation reached the Earth, it would cause monumental problems, including rampant skin cancer and eye cataracts, retarded crop growth, impairment of the human immune system and damaging radiation doses to all forms of life. Although many Americans and the people of other nations are still not listening or taking the ozone threat seriously, the Earth’s protective shield is getting thinner and developing mysterious holes. There is a growing consensus among scientists that ozone destruction is caused by the accumulation in the upper atmosphere of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), a class of industrial chemicals used for refrigerants, aerosols, insulation, foam packaging and other uses.: August 23, 1987: Ozone Hole: Scientists have begun the largest study ever of the depletion of the ozone layer in the atmosphere by sending a modified spy plane on missions 12 1/2 miles above Antarctica. The flights this past week were part of a $10-million project being carried out by a 120-member team of scientists, engineers and technicians who hope to decipher a mysterious ozone hole that has been detected over Antarctic each winter for the past eight years.

ABSTRACT: THE FEAR OF HUMAN CAUSED THIS AND HUMAN CAUSED THAT AND THE ENORMOUS PLANETARY REACH OF HUMANS THAT MAKES IT POSSIBLE FOR HUMANS TO DESTROY OR SAVE THE PLANET ARE IMAGINATIONS FAR REVOVED FROM REALITY BUT AN INTEGRAL PART OF THE EARLY IRON AGE SCRIPTURES THAT WERE DERIVED FROM A DISTANT MEMORY OF THE LATE BRONZE AGE COLLAPSE. A BRIEF REVIEW OF THE OBSESSION WITH A CLIMATE CHANGE END OF THE WORLD IS PROVIDED IN A RELATED POST: LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/04/16/theend/ {Excerpt at the end of this post}

THIS POST IS A STUDY OF THE ROLE OF BIBLICAL APOCALYPSE IN ENVIRONMENTALISM AS SEEN IN THE THEORY OF HUMAN CAUSED CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE CLAIM BY CLIMATE SCIENTISTS AND THEIR ANTHROPOCENE PROPOSITION THAT HUMANS ARE NOW THE MANAGERS OF THE PLANET AND CARETAKERS OF NATURE SUCH THAT THEY CAN AND MUST ATTENUATE CLIMATE CHANGE BY GIVING UP FOSSIL FUELS BECAUSE THE ALTERNATIVE IS HUMAN CAUSED APOCALYPSE. THE ISSUE IN THIS NARRATIVE IS THAT HUMANS ARE VESTED WITH BIBLICAL GOD-LIKE POWERS OVER NATURE ON A PLANETARY SCALE.

IN RELIGION GOD HAS A SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP WITH ONE AND ONLY ONE OF HIS CREATIONS AND THAT CREATURE IS MAN AS REPRESENTED BY ADAM AND EVE IN SCRIPTURE. THIS SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP GIVES MAN DOMINION OVER THE BEASTS.

AND THIS DOMINION OVER THE BEASTS IS THE FOUNDATION OF PLANETARY ENVIRONMENTALISM IN WHICH MAN IS NOT PART OF NATURE BUT THE MANAGERS AND CARETAKERS OF NATURE.

PART-1: HUMAN CIVILIZATION AND THE LATE BRONZE AGE COLLAPSE TOOK US TO THE EARLY IRON AGE CIVILIZATION WHERE OUR SCRIPTURES AND OUR RELIGIONS COME FROM.

In related posts on this site we describe that since the birth of human civilization early in the Holocene, LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/08/20/the-holocene-optimum-period-a-bibliography/ both climate and human civilization have gone though violent cycles of extreme volatility at millennial time scales. In the case of the climate we find that over the last 8,000 years, the climate has gone through more than eight violent climate cycles alternating between warming and cooling. LINK TO POST ON CLIMATE CYCLES: https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/06/11/chaoticholocene/ .

We also find almost a similar number of civilization cycles where human civilization, population, wealth, innovations, technology, quality of life, and complexity of human civilization have continually changed in terms of governance, economics, technology, the formation and structure of nation states, and the relationships and warfare among nation states. It is thus that, as in the climate cycles, human civilization too has gone through many cycles of growth and prosperity followed by catastrophic demise that created centennial gaps between civilizations. The demise and gap parts of these cycles can be described in terms of the “collapse of civilization” now being claimed as a consequence of climate change. LINK TO POST ON CIVILIZATION CYCLES: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/10/24/collapse-of-civilization-part-2/

The last of the collapse of civilization events in our history is the LBAC or Late Bronze Age Collapse shown in the two images below.

We live in an Iron Age civilization that comes after the Late Bronze Age. The Iron Age got started about 3,000 years ago in the Early Iron Age right after the LBAC (Late Bronze Age Collapse). The Late Bronze Age (LBA) economy was based on agriculture. It was the ultimate expression of the settled agricultural civilization that got started in the Neolithic Revolution of the Holocene Climate Optimum when animal-like cave-man humans that hunted with sticks and stones came out of their caves, cleared forests, built homes, and began farming, trading, and building communities, with language, communication, and innovation. This was the birth of human civilization. LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/08/20/the-holocene-optimum-period-a-bibliography/

In the Late Bronze Age, the world’s agricultural economies had grown into a global macro economy of agricultural wealth creation. Its control had evolved such that the farmers themselves became pawns (peasants) in a power game among groups and individuals that could raise armies to control agricultural lands. These controlled agricultural lands eventually grew into kingdoms that in turn grew into the organization of the world’s humans into nation states that we have inherited.

Human civilization matured with further developments such as language both spoken and written and artisan and engineering innovations such as pottery, copper mining, metal works, and making of tools for agriculture and warfare. The controlled agricultural lands evolved into large and powerful kingdoms ruled by the king with his army in a palatial sub-economy and worked by peasants and artisans in a rural agricultural sub-economy.

In the LBA, this agricultural macro-system had grown into a large, sophisticated, and interconnected global economy with international trade, technology exchange, and warfare similar to what we have today. The major kingdom nation states in this global economy were The Egyptian New Kingdom (where Egypt is today), the Assyrian Empire (where Syria is today), the Hittite Empire (where Turkey is today), and the Mycenaeans (where Greece is today). Trade, travel, shipping, cooperation, migration, global policy making, and warfare among these states were common much like things are today.

The America of the day was Egypt, in economic, diplomatic, and military power as well as in terms of attracting the best and brightest writers, philosophers, and artisans from around the Late Bronze Age world. Many smaller kingdoms existed such as the Biblical states in the Levant but they were vassals of the large and powerful kingdoms. This global economy was extremely successful and the powerful kingdoms and empires enjoyed enormous wealth and advances in technology, transportation, infrastructure, the arts, and in learning and knowledge. The pyramids of Egypt are a product of this civilization (both the old kingdom and the new kingdom).

COLLAPSE OF THE LATE BRONZE AGE CIVILIZATION

Then, around 1200 BC or so give or take 50 years, the archaeological and textual data show that the lights went out on the LBA. A long gap of more than 200 years of a Dark Age followed with no evidence of the great LBA global economy in the archaeological or textual record until the Early Iron Age-1 when an entirely new kind of global economy and civilization grew from the ashes of the LBAC.

The big question is “what happened?” The honest answer is that we don’t know and we will likely never know. But it is possible to construct theories that are consistent with the available archaeological, textual, and paleo-climate data. The two most popular theories are the Sea Peoples Theory (Drews 1993) and the Climate Change Theory (Finkelstein, 2013). Here we assume the climate change theory.

The paleo data show that one of the many warming events of the Holocene, known as the Minoan Warm Period had occurred in the Late Bronze Age. Global Warming at a centennial time scales had created extreme and widespread drought that had lasted for 100 to 200 years effectively destroying the agricultural economy that had created the Late Bronze Age civilization.

Yet another possibility is class warfare of some kind described as “the sea peoples” where it is thought that large numbers of peasants or perhaps fishermen with weapons came in boats from mysterious places to ruthlessly attack and destroy the palace cultures of the Late Bronze Age (Drews 1993). The truth is that we don’t really know what happened. It’s a mystery, but the climate change and drought theory is consistent with the available data. The current alarm about catastrophic climate change that is expected to bring about the collapse of civilization bears a close resemblance to what had happened in the Late Bronze Age Collapse (LBAC) – that is the climate change script of our time has close parallels with the LBAC.

In this context, it is interesting to note that religions prior to the LBAC do not contain a Judgement Day “end of the world” of any kind even though some of them have different versions of heaven and hell mostly in afterlives or in places deep under the ground. However, religions that got started in the Early Iron Age right after the Dark Ages of the LBAC do contain a catastrophic end of the world of some kind as seen in Revelation.

For example, in Matthew 24 we find this: Do you see all these things? {the city consisting of large buildings}. Truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places and then the end will come. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let no one on the housetop go down to take anything out of the house. Let no one in the field go back to get their cloak. How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath. For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now and never to be equaled gain. Immediately after the distress of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light the stars will fall from the sky and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.

We propose here that the existence of doomology in our time in the form of an obsession with collapse of civilization similar to the LBAC, but framed in terms of current events, derive from a memory of the horrors of the LBAC that has been passed down to us in the religious scriptures of the Early Iron Age.

Religions that got started before the LBAC (Hinduism is an example) and those that got started later in the Iron Age (Buddhism is an example) do not contain an end of the world scenario like Revelation and Matthew 24. That scripture and that vision is a peculiarity of the Early Iron Age. The religious scriptures of that era has left us with the vivid reality of the horrors of the LBAC.

These memories of the LBAC instilled in our consciousness by the religious scriptures of the Early Iron Age create a sense of dread in an eerie anticipation of the collapse of civilization. Some evidence of this behavior in Late Iron Age humans is a pattern in environmentalism that relates to realities in Revelation. The greater oddity in this pattern of environmentalism is that it is seen only in the West where these scriptures have shaped human thought.

No doomology of this genre as in Catastrophic human caused climate change or the Population Bomb or the theory that the collapse of complex societies caused by complexity, has ever been found to originate in societies that had no exposure to these Early Iron Age scriptures. There has been no environmentalism alarm from India or China or Indonesia or anywhere else that mirrors the Early Iron Age scriptures.

WE CONCLUDE THAT THE FEAR OF HUMAN CAUSED THIS AND HUMAN CAUSED THAT AND THE ENORMOUS PLANETARY REACH OF HUMANS THAT MAKES IT POSSIBLE FOR HUMANS TO DESTROY OR SAVE THE PLANET ARE IMAGINATIONS FAR REVOVED FROM REALITY BUT AN INTEGRAL PART OF THE EARLY IRON AGE SCRIPTURES THAT WERE DERIVED FROM A DISTANT MEMORY OF THE LBAC.

A BRIEF REVIEW OF THE OBSESSION WITH A CLIMATE CHANGE END OF THE WORLD IS PROVIDED IN A RELATED POST: LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/04/16/theend/ {Excerpt at the end of this post}

RELEVANT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cassegård, Carl, and Håkan Thörn. “Toward a postapocalyptic environmentalism? Responses to loss and visions of the future in climate activism.” Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space 1.4 (2018): 561-578. The environmental movement has stood out compared to other movements through its future-oriented pessimism: dreams of a better or utopian future have been less important as a mobilizing tool than fear of future catastrophes. Apocalyptic images of future catastrophes still dominate much of environmentalist discourse. Melting polar caps, draughts, hurricanes, floods, and growing chaos are regularly invoked by activists as well as establishment figures. This apocalyptic discourse has, however, also been challenged—not only by a future-oriented optimism gaining ground among established environmental organizations, but also by the rise of what we call a postapocalyptic environmentalism based on the experience of irreversible or unavoidable loss. This discourse, often referring to the Global South, where communities are destroyed and populations displaced because of environmental destruction, is neither nourished by a strong sense of hope, nor of a future disaster, but a sense that the catastrophe is already ongoing. Taking our point of departure in the “environmentalist classics” by Rachel Carson and Barry Commoner, we delineate the contours of apocalyptic discourses in environmentalism and discuss how disillusionment with the institutions of climate governance has fed into increasing criticism of the apocalyptic imagery. We then turn to exploring the notion of postapocalyptic politics by focusing on how postapocalyptic narratives—including the utopias they bring into play, their relation to time–space, and how they construct collective identity—are deployed in political mobilizations. We focus on two cases of climate activism—the Dark Mountain project and the International Tribunal for the Rights of Nature—and argue that mobilizations based on accepting loss are possible through what we call the paradox of hope and the paradox of justice.

Killingsworth, M. Jimmie, and Jacqueline S. Palmer. “The discourse of “environmentalist hysteria”.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 81.1 (1995): 1-19. Environmentalism challenges not only social and political but also psychological orthodoxies by offering new opportunities for interpreting the relation of self to society and to the earth. The ego originates in discourse as an object of contemplation, only later to become a “subject position,” a category within which the self can discover a new “I am” in a broader social world. Taking as a starting point the accusation that environmentalists like Rachel Carson, Paul Ehrlich, and Lois Gibbs are trying to “stir up environmentalist hysteria” and are themselves “hysterical,” this paper explores some of the shared features of the discourses of hysteria and critical ecology, with the aim of mapping current and future directions for environmentalist thought and action.

Maier, Harry O. “Green millennialism: American evangelicals, environmentalism and the Book of Revelation.” Ecological hermeneutics: Biblical, historical and theological perspectives (2010): 246-65. LINK TO LYNN WHITE: https://www.cmu.ca/faculty/gmatties/lynnwhiterootsofcrisis.pdf

Huggan, Graham. “From Arctic Dreams to Nightmares (and back again): Apocalyptic Thought and Planetary Consciousness in Three Contemporary American Environmentalist Texts.” ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment 23.1 (2016): 71-91.

The subtitle of Fieldnotes from a Catastrophe (henceforth Fieldnotes ) is A Frontline Report on Climate Change , thereby situating the text within the tradition of “hands-on” investigative journalism for which Kolbert, currently a staff writer for The New Yorker , has become well known. Despite this opening gesture to the “field,” the text turns out to be an eclectic mix of first- and second-hand reportage taken from a wide variety of locations and featuring an equally generous selection of expert voices, most of these with some connection to the climate science field. These scientists––biologists, geophysicists, climate modelers, glaciologists, geochemists––appear at times to have been selected for their doom-laden views; these are then filtered through Kolbert’s melancholic narration, which puts popular-scientific explanation into the service of a miserabilist rather than sensationalist interpretation of current climate events. Not that the text is without its own fair share of apocalyptic alarmism, from the opening scene, in which Kolbert charts the dramatic effects of an ice-stream in Greenland that has doubled in speed since the 1990s, to the epilogue in post-Katrina New Orleans, the “perpetually sinking” city whose disastrous buffeting in 2005––presumably as Kolbert’s book was in progress––merely holds out the promise of future mega-storms to come (198–99). Meanwhile, much of the material that comes in between relentlessly accumulates hypotheses of future catastrophe, each of them couched in the vivid language of environmental apocalypse: entire ecosystems at the point of collapse; whole cities threatened with inundation; the specter of climate-change refugees “numbering in the millions” (188)––all of these examples and more point to the fact that, while it “may seem impossible to imagine that a technologically advanced society could choose, in essence, to destroy itself, … that is [exactly] what we are now in the process of doing” (189). Still, the idea of apocalypse as singular event is undermined in the text, not only by the plurality of possible apocalyptic futures, but also by a catastrophist approach to history in which disasters––especially natural disasters––are embedded in the past. In image after image in Fieldnotes , the past is identified in terms of environmental catastrophe: buried in the Greenland ice, to take just one prominent example, “there is nuclear fallout from early atomic tests, volcanic ash from Krakatau, lead pollution from ancient Roman smelters, and dust blown in from Mongolia on ice age winds” (50). The overall effect is to gesture towards what Stefan Skrimshire calls the “Eternal Return” of apocalypse––the process by which apocalypse, far from being a single defining event, is caught up in a historical pattern of recurring cycles of global crisis, and the “normalization” of catastrophe serves to confirm the “persistence of cyclical time” (“Eternal Return” 232; Buell, “Short History”). Hence, I would argue, the melancholic tone of the text, which is moved repeatedly to mourn that which it seems powerless to alter; and which, in so doing, ironically confirms the very political inertia it seeks to denounce.

Ortega Breton, H., and Phil Hammond. “Eco-apocalypse: environmentalism, political alienation, and therapeutic agency.” Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2016. 105-116.

For some analysts, today’s representations of apocalypse are simply the latest version of a “pervasive sense of doom” that has characterized human civilization for millennia. 2 For others, in the context of current environmental problems, a sense of impending disaster expresses a scientifically supported assessment of today’s “risk society.” Anthony Giddens argues that “Doomsday is no longer a religious concept, a day of spiritual reckoning, but a possibility imminent in our society and economy.”
3 Our argument is that the current fascination with the end of the world is best understood neither as a near-timeless feature of human culture nor as a reasoned response to objective environmental problems. Rather it is driven by unconscious fantasy; the symbolic expression of an alienation from political subjectivity, characteristic of a historically specific period in the life of post–Cold War societies. With the script of the real apocalypse already written through scientific projections, how do environmental discourse and popular culture represent people? We will first consider recent critiques of the use of apocalypticism in environmental discourse, then examine elite uses of eco-apocalypse in political discourse, and finally discuss two films that envisage a world destroyed by catastrophic climate change: The Day After Tomorrow (2004) and The Age of Stupid (2009).

Peeples, Jennifer, et al. “Industrial apocalyptic: Neoliberalism, coal, and the burlesque frame.” Rhetoric & Public Affairs 17.2 (2014): 227-254. Rhetorical scholarship and cultural commentary have demonstrated that environmentalist voices are consistently associated with apocalyptic rhetoric. However, this association deflects attention from the apocalyptic rhetoric that comes from industry and countermovements to environmentalism. This essay seeks to remedy that oversight by proposing the concept of “industrial apocalyptic” as a significant rhetorical form in environmental controversy. Based on analysis of the rhetoric of the U.S. coal industry, we find that these industrial apocalyptic narratives rely on a burlesque frame to disrupt the categories of establishment and outsider and thus thwart environmental regulation. Ultimately, we argue that industrial apocalyptic co-opts environmentalist appeals for radical change in the service of blocking such change and naturalizes neoliberal ideology as the commonsense discourse of the center.

Homer’s Iliad and the Odyssey, written in the Early Iron Age, are accounts of the Late Bronze Age Collapse.

APOCALYPSE IMAGES

LBAC IMAGES

Homer’s Iliad and the Odyssey, written in the Early Iron Age, are accounts of the Late Bronze Age Collapse.

RELATED POST: LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/04/16/theend/

1. Sixth Mass Extinction: A Sixth mass extinction could destroy life as we know it. Alarming declines in the number of insects, vertebrates and plant species around the world have raised fears that we are in the midst of a sixth major extinction that could cause a collapse of the natural ecosystems we rely upon to survive. Urgent international action is needed to halt this potentially catastrophic decline in biodiversity, according to Professor Georgina Mace, head of the Centre for Biodiversity and Environmental Research at University College London, UK. While Prof. Mace believes that we’re only on the brink of this extinction, she says the threat is so severe that biodiversity loss needs to be addressed on a global scale in a similar way to climate change. The evidence from all of the recent studies … indicates it is increasing. We’re losing biodiversity more quickly than we did in the past. ‘If you look at extinction rates, which is hard because you need to be sure something is really extinct, they are probably 100-1,000 times higher than in pre-human times. ‘Another way of measuring (biodiversity) is to look at the abundance of life rather than numbers of species. For vertebrates (birds, fish, amphibians, reptiles, mammals) there is a fairly good estimate that more than 50% of the vertebrate abundance has been lost in the past 50 years. The information for invertebrates and plants is less good, but there is some evidence to suggest insects are declining just as quickly, if not more so. One recent paper showed the mass of insects is falling by 2.5% a year. For methodological reasons, this is likely to be an over-estimate, but there can be little doubt that certain insect groups are undergoing very significant declines. ‘Then we are also losing the interactions between these species.’ [LINK]
2. Sixth mass extinction is here. There is no longer any doubt: We are entering a mass extinction that threatens humanity’s existence. That is the bad news at the center of a new study by a group of scientists including Paul Ehrlich, the Bing Professor of Population Studies in biology and a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. Ehrlich and his co-authors call for fast action to conserve threatened species, populations and habitat, but warn that the window of opportunity is rapidly closing. “[The study] shows without any significant doubt that we are now entering the sixth great mass extinction event,” Ehrlich said. Although most well known for his positions on human population, Ehrlich has done extensive work on extinctions going back to his 1981 book, Extinction: The Causes and Consequences of the Disappearance of Species. He has long tied his work on coevolution, on racial, gender and economic justice, and on nuclear winter with the issue of wildlife populations and species loss. There is general agreement among scientists that extinction rates have reached levels unparalleled since the dinosaurs died out 66 million years ago. However, some have challenged the theory, believing earlier estimates rested on assumptions that overestimated the crisis. [LINK]
3. A Cosmic Climate Change Scenario: Alien apocalypse: Can any civilization make it through climate change? [LINK] :  Every civilization that may have arisen in the cosmos lasts only a few centuries before it falls to the inevitable climate change that civilization triggers. Astrobiology is the study of life and its possibilities in a planetary context including ‘exo-civilizations’ or what we usually call aliens. Discussions about climate change rarely take place in this broader context — one that considers the probability that this is not the first time in cosmic history that a planet and its biosphere have evolved into something like what we’ve created on Earth. If we’re not the universe’s first civilization that means there are likely to be rules for how the fate of a young civilization like our own progresses. As a civilization’s population grows, it uses more and more of its planet’s resources. By consuming the planet’s resources, the civilization changes the planet’s conditions. In short, civilizations and planets don’t evolve separately from one another; they evolve interdependently, and the fate of our own civilization depends on how we use Earth’s resources. In order to illustrate how civilization-planet systems co-evolve, Frank and his collaborators developed a mathematical model to show ways in which a technologically advanced population and its planet might develop together. By thinking of civilizations and planets — even alien ones — as a whole, researchers can better predict what might be required for the human project of civilization to survive. The point is to recognize that driving climate change may be something generic. The laws of physics demand that any young population, building an energy-intensive civilization like ours, is going to have feedback on its planet. Seeing climate change in this cosmic context may give us better insight into what’s happening to us now and how to deal with it.
4. Sir David Attenborough believes we are ­running out of time to save the planet unless urgent action is taken to tackle the global warming he fears is destroying Earth. In his starkest warning yet about our future existence, the veteran broadcaster has joined other experts in calling for an end to the use of fossil fuels that pump choking carbon monoxide into the atmosphere. We have pumped so much carbon dioxide into our atmosphere that our world is now 1C hotter than it was in pre-industrial times. “Climate change can wipe out an entire species, 8% of species are now at threat of extinction solely due to climate change. “With the loss of even the smallest organisms we destabilise and risk collapsing the world’s ecosystems, the networks that support the whole of life on Earth. “We stand at a unique point in our planet’s history. One where we must all share ­responsibility for the future of life on Earth. We are running out of time but there is still hope. If we better understand the threat we face, the more likely it is we can avoid such a catastrophic future. Former director at the NASA Goddard ­Institute for Space Studies, Dr James Hansen, warned about climate change dangers in 1988. But he says leaders ignored the evidence and precious time was lost. Dr Hansen adds: “It would’ve been easy to solve the problem if we started to make fossil fuels more expensive and develop ­technologies to replace them. The graceful polar bear is one of the thousands of species which faces extinction thanks to careless regard for the environment. But we didn’t do that. And now there are consequences. It is an uphill battle today, with US president Donald Trump dismissing global warming as “a hoax”. Harvard professor of science Naomi Oreskes says: “Organisations who had the most to lose were fossil fuel companies, making huge profits. They undertook a concerted campaign to confuse the science and message. The cycle of denial has worked. And even today, the US president has said [climate change] is not true. One of the most obvious places climate change is taking hold is at the poles, where ice is melting at an alarming rate and threatening the existence of wildlife such as polar bears. University of Leeds climate scientist Professor Andrew ­Shepherd says: “It’s too much for Earth’s ice to withstand. Things are worse than we’d expected. The Greenland ice sheet has lost four trillion tons of ice and it’s losing five times as much ice today as it was 25 years ago. Last year UN experts gave us 12 years to stop a climate change ­catastrophe. At the current rate the planet would heat up 1.5C by 2040. Any hotter would bring bad storms, floods, heatwaves and droughts. [DAILY MIRROR]  
5. THE FIVE WAYS THE HUMAN RACE COULD BE WIPED OUT BY GLOBAL WARMING: The deadly possible effects of global warming have been laid bare in a new book that reveals how disease, starvation and rising tides could kill off human beings. ‘FALTER: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?’ lists the lethal, and unexpected, ways that humans could become extinct – within a few generations Melting ice caps could bring back disease locked in permafrost – killing swathes of people. Natural disasters could be triggered by collapsing ice caps – with 65ft waves wiping out any coastal life in its path – repeating what happened 8,000 years ago Cereal crops – the cornerstone of human sustenance – could dry out because of global warming with plants unable to grow in parched new lands.
6. THE UNINHABITABLE EARTH: Famine, economic collapse, a sun that cooks us: What climate change could wreak sooner than you think. By David Wallace-Wells. It is, I promise, worse than you think. If your anxiety about global warming is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible, even within the lifetime of a teenager today. And yet the swelling seas — and the cities they will drown — have so dominated the picture of global warming, and so overwhelmed our capacity for climate panic, that they have occluded our perception of other threats, many much closer at hand. Rising oceans are bad, in fact very bad; but fleeing the coastline will not be enough. Indeed, absent a significant adjustment to how billions of humans conduct their lives, parts of the Earth will likely become close to uninhabitable, and other parts horrifically inhospitable, as soon as the end of this century. The Uninhabitable Earth is the most terrifying book I have ever read. Its subject is climate change, and its method is scientific, but its mode is Old Testament. The book is a meticulously documented, white-knuckled tour through the cascading catastrophes that will soon engulf our warming planet.
7. George Monbiot video (above): Climate change is eating the planet. We have to go straight to the heart of capitalism and overthrow it to save the planet from climate breakdown and ecological breakdown.
8. Climate Change Can Lead To The Extinction Of 50% Of The Animal And Plant Species By The End Of The Century. March 16, 2018 ·
9. The end of coffee: As temperatures rise and droughts intensify, good coffee will become increasingly difficult to grow and expensive to buy.  TIME Magazine, June 21, 2018.
10. “The scientists are unanimous on this. We have no more than 12 years to take incredibly bold action on this crisis,” O’Rourke said. “Can we make it? I don’t know. It’s up to every one of us. Do you want to make it?”  Posted Mar 15, 2019 by Michael L. Brown
11. The End of the World Is Coming, and You Are Responsible. New climate-change narratives ordain humans with godly powers to undo and repair the planet. Is it science, or a new religion? By Sean Cooper
12. ‘The world is going to end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change,’ Ocasio-Cortez says.
13. It is absolutely time to panic about climate change. Author David Wallace-Wells on the dystopian hellscape that awaits us. “It is, I promise, worse than you think.” That was was the first line of David Wallace-Wells’s horrifying 2017 essay in New York magazine about climate change. It was an attempt to paint a very real picture of our not-too-distant future, a future filled with famines, political chaos, economic collapse, fierce resource competition, and a sun that cooks us.
14. It’s The End of the World, Again: Climate Change and The Collapse of Civilizations. Anthropogenic, or human-induced, climate change and the growing crisis caused by our dependence on unsustainable energy practices should be focal points for any discussion about the future for our species.The man-made climate change crisis we face today is similar in scale to many natural climactic events that led to the fall of our mightiest civilizations. From the dawn of man, how we deal with climate change and utilize our resources has always defined our history and it will define our future.
15. The Problem With Putting a Price on the End of the World: Economists have workable policy ideas for addressing climate change. But what if they’re politically impossible? Climate change is a threat like no other. Fatal heat waves, droughts, wildfires and severe hurricanes are all becoming more common, and they are almost certain to accelerate. Avoiding horrific damage, as a United Nations panel of scientists recently concluded, will require changes in human behavior that have “no documented historic precedent.”
16. The majority of C02 emitted from burning a single tonne of coal or oil today will be absorbed over a few centuries by the oceans and vegetation, the remaining 25% will still be affecting the climate in 1,000 years. It will then require thousands and thousands more years for its complete absorption through the natural climate cycle. As Archer puts it, “the climatic impacts of releasing fossil fuel C02 to the atmosphere will last longer than Stonehenge, longer than time capsules, longer than nuclear waste”.
17. The Copenhagen Diagnosis: According to THE Copenhagen Diagnosis, regardless of when a peak in global emissions finally occurs, the global temperature cannot be expected to stop rising until several centuries later, due to the extremely long life cycle of C02. The carbon that we are releasing into the atmosphere today is in the process of ‘programming’ a potential 2-5 meters of sea level rise by around the year 2300 and “even a thousand years after reaching a zero-emission society, temperatures will remain elevated.
18. Proof that climate change causes collapse of civilizations:  Vikings arrived and thrived in Greenland during the medieval warm period and when the Little Ice Age began in the early 14th century, it became increasingly difficult to farm. By the middle of the 16th century, the changing climate had contributed to the collapse of the Viking civilization on Greenland.
19. Proof that climate change causes collapse of civilizations: Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilization, was home to the Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, and Assyrian empires. Summers in Ancient Mesopotamia were hot and dry while winters were cooler and wetter with rainfall sufficient enough to allow for rich agricultural economy. Climate changes gradually reduced rainfall and caused the collapse of civilization in Mesopotamia.
20. Proof that climate change causes collapse of civilizations:  The Khmer Empire flourished between 802- 1431 CE. Its capital of Angkor Wat was one of the most ancient hydraulic cities, with a sophisticated system for irrigation to ensure optimal water reserves for the population’s growing needs. In the 14th and 15th centuries, climate change caused decades of severe drought struck, interspersed with violent monsoon floods, bringing about political and social unrest which eventually led to the collapse of the Khmer civilization.
21. Proof that climate change causes collapse of civilizations:  Classic Maya civilization city states flourished during the classical period, starting in the 4th century CE. Between 660 and 900 CE, a drying trend led to agricultural decline, increased warfare, and less trade. A drought lasting between 1020- 1100 CE occurred in the midst of the population collapse, which marked the definitive end of the Classic Mayan culture and a collapse of the Mayan civilization.
22. Proof that climate change causes collapse of civilizations:  The Indus Valley Civilization existed between 3300-1700 BCE, developed sophisticated infrastructure and urban planning, and the population is estimated to have reached over 5 million. A 200-year drought that began around 2000 BCE made agriculture unsustainable, and cities were gradually abandoned.The civilisations affected could not anticipate the change in their natural environment.
23. The global nature of the climate change risk we face today bodes ill for humanity. If our civilisation collapses on this planet, there is currently no alternative location where humanity may thrive. However, scientific and technological developments have made us more aware both of the risk we face, and of our influence on it. As a result, for the first time in history, we are in a position to reduce and possibly avoid the risk of civilisation collapse due to climate change. Global governance is a process of cooperative leadership that brings together national governments, multilateral public agencies, and civil society to achieve commonly accepted goals. It provides strategic direction to address global challenges.

WHAT CLIMATE CHANGE MENTAL ILLNESS LOOKS LIKE

LINK TO SOURE: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/28/everybody-has-something-to-lose-the-exciting-depressing-life-of-a-climate-writer

The Guardian’s global environment editor, Jonathan Watts, says that the climate emergency resonates with readers on an emotional level.

I report from the Amazon to the Arctic on the disappearing wonders of a rapidly deteriorating world. Along with a growing number of colleagues, I investigate who is affected, who is to blame and who is fighting back. This is both depressing and exciting. The trends for the climate, the oceans, the forests and the soil are unrelentingly frightening. Humanity has never faced a more wicked problem than the collapse of these natural life support systems. Nobody is free of responsibility. Everybody has something to lose, especially those with the most power. The challenge is huge, urgent and beset with opponents. But change is happening nonetheless. The primary challenge for a journalist is to make it feel personal. Without that, the science becomes abstract, global issues seem too huge to grasp, and it becomes difficult to relate to far off places and other species. Without that, the “environment” slips too easily into an elite pigeonhole for academics, policymakers and middle-class white people, when it should be recognised as the main driver of inequality, conflict and injustice. This is not just another subject; it is a prism through which to see the world.

I came to this view reluctantly. Starting as a cub reporter in Asia in the 1990s, I initially wrote about politics, finance and sport – issues that are traditionally considered newsworthy because they are fast moving, human-focussed and marketable. The more I travelled as a foreign correspondent, the harder it became to ignore how the degradation of the air, water, soil and climate was threatening people, other species and future generations. These themes rarely made front-page news, but they were often the underlying cause of political tension, economic instability and psychological unease. In the noughties I visited Tibet to look at a new railway development, but discovered greater concerns about denuded grasslands, desertification and melting glaciers. In Xinjiang and Mongolia, I went to report on ethnic tensions were heightened by a massive expansion of mining operations and an influx of construction workers. On the Yangtze, I joined an expedition of marine biologists that declared the extinction of the Baiji dolphin due to pollution, river traffic and hydroelectric dams.

In 2012, I moved to Latin America, hoping to find a less destructive model of development, but found similar tensions in the Amazon, Patagonia and Atlantic. If anything, there were even greater levels of corruption and political instability connected to resource extraction and infrastructure projects. Media organisations tend to focus on the local sparks of protests, scandals and bankruptcies, but viewed together from a global environmental perspective, it is possible to make out a broader pattern of exploitation and increasing evidence of a systemic breakdown. Single articles do not easily capture this so it is sometimes important to gather material together and collaborate with other organisations in bigger journalistic projects such as the Polluters, Green Blood, Age of Extinction and Defenders. More important still is to take the “environment” out of a media ghetto, in which it is treated as a separate and somewhat fringe subject with a specialist vocabulary that can create even greater distance.

In English, the word “environment” is uneasy on the ear and stiffly at odds with the vibrant orgy of life it represents. This reflects the word’s hodgepodge Victorian origins. The first use of “environment” in its modern sense was in 1828 by the Scottish thinker Thomas Carlyle, who borrowed the French “environ” (surrounding) to express the German term “umgebung” in a controversial translation of Goethe. In that era, as now, the word ENVIRONMENT means a flux of landscape, spirit and culture that shaped humanity more naturally than the mechanistic drives of the Industrial Revolution. But it is also wrapped up inside a western Enlightenment duality of self and “other”. The environment thus became something to exploit, rather than something that humanity was part of. As Albert Einstein later put it: “The environment is everything that isn’t me”. Every individual feels themselves to be the centre of their own universe suggesting that nature is something separate that we can affect without being affected. Carlyle and Einstein would be horrified at how far this duality has gone.

Over the past 50 years, the natural environment has been treated as an antonym of the human economy. The greater the gap between them, the more peripheral and frightening the environment seems. The environment ministry of every country is the weakest part of the government and the sustainability officer of every corporation is not allowed to make important decisions.

BUT RECENTLY ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS HAS BEEN CULTIVATED AMONG THE MASSSES BY THE CLIMATE CRISIS.

The people at large may have the occasional pang of conscience about the environment, but very few treated it as a priority until recently because it was psychologically easier to push the issue to the margins. That has changed dramatically over the past year. The peripheral issue has moved front and centre thanks to long campaigns by climate campaigners.

Greta Thunberg, school strikers, Extinction Rebellion and the Sunrise Movement. It is because persistent warnings from scientists are so much starker in the wake of the IPCC’s 1.5C report last October. And most of all, it is because record heat, fires, storms, droughts and species decline show we are hitting ecological limits. There is no margin left.

To accurately reflect the disruption caused by the crisis, we have to disrupt our normal forms of reporting. The Guardian has responded by changing the language of our styleguide to reflect the urgency expressed by scientists, by giving more prominence to the climate and nature crises, and by focussing attention on areas where change is needed – including fossil fuel corporations and the financial, legal and political systems that support them. I believe this will be just the start, and not just for the Guardian. In future, I hope journalists in all organisations and fields will question their role, put more priority on humankind’s relationship with nature, and re-imagine what coverage should be.

That does not mean following the populists in tearing up the foundations of knowledge and sinking into the mire of relativity and fake news. The battle for ideas is best fought in peer-reviewed journals rather than gladiatorial-style TV talkshows where loud voices drown out strong principles. Science remains paramount. Accuracy must always be the goal. But truth is more than datasets. It has to resonate on an emotional level. And it has to apply as much to the periphery as to the centre.

Bringing together the personal and the global is easier said than done, but that is the task ahead. In one way it has always been the job of journalists to make this connection. After all, that is what “media” means. But this work as a go-between feels particularly urgent now that our environment is breaking down and our politics is splintering into nationalist tribes. Addressing that is a responsibility. That is what keeps me from sleeping sometimes. It’s also what keeps me alive.

THIS POST IS A CRITICAL EVALUATION OF THE ASSUMED CAUSAL RELATIONSHIP IN CLIMATE SCIENCE BETWEEN FOSSIL FUEL EMISSIONS AND OBSERVED CHANGE IN ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION. IT IS PRESENTED AS A SYNTHESIS OF THE RELATED POSTS ON THIS SITE.

RELATED POST#1:  THE CRUCIAL ROLE OF FOSSIL FUEL EMISSIONS IN THE THEORY OF ANTHROPOGENIC GLOBAL WARMING [LINK]  

Here NASA scientist Dr. Peter Griffith explains the foundational concept of the science of anthropogenic (AGW) global warming and climate change and the kind of climate action implied by the science that humans must undertake to moderate and control the progress of global warming. He holds up a chunk of coal and explains that “the carbon in this chunk of coal was taken out of the atmosphere 350 million years ago. And since the Industrial Revolution, we’ve been taking it out of the ground and using it for fuel and that has released this very old carbon back that is not part of the current account of the carbon cycle into the atmosphere. This external and unnatural perturbation of the delicately balanced carbon cycle causes atmospheric CO2 to go up. What this means is that anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is NOT a theory about carbon dioxide emissions in general but a theory specific to the impact of the industrial economy that dug up fossil fuels loaded with carbon from carbon cycles that are millions of years old. This is EXTERNAL CARBON that is not part of the current account of the carbon cycle. The essence of the theory of AGW is that external carbon from very old carbon cycles in fossil fuel emissions cause warming by increasing atmospheric CO2 levels and that therefore the amount of warming can be attenuated by reducing fossil fuel emissions. (Hansen, 1981) (Meinshausen, 2009) (Stocker, 2013) (Callendar, 1938) (Lacis, 2010) (Hansen, 2016) (IPCC, 2000) (IPCC, 2014).

At the root of the proposed AGW causation chain is the ability of fossil fuel emissions to cause measurable changes in atmospheric CO2 levels in excess of random natural variability because very old external carbon in fossil fuel emissions acts as a perturbation of the current account of the carbon cycle. AGW climate change theory is specific to the impact of the industrial economy and specific to CO2 from fossil fuels as the ultimate cause of the observed warming since the industrial revolution. Carbon cycle flows are not a factor either in AGW theory or in the design of climate action and carbon budgets needed to attenuate AGW. For example, respiration emissions and photosynthesis absorptions are not a factor in the AGW equation. TO SUMMARIZE: AGW IS NOT A THEORY ABOUT THE EVILS OF CARBON DIOXIDE. IT IS A THEORY ABOUT THE EVILS OF FOSSIL FUEL EMISSIONS, This evil is understood as the responsiveness of atmospheric composition to fossil fuel emissions. Fossil fuel emissions cause atmospheric CO2 concentration to rise, and rising atmospheric CO2 causes higher temperatures, and the sequence of higher and higher temperatures caused by higher and higher atmospheric CO2 is understood as global warming and because the rise in atmospheric CO2 was due to human activity, the warming is understood as human caused or anthropogenic. A necessary condition for this theory is that atmospheric composition in terms of its CO2 concentration must be responsive to fossil fuel emissions.

RELATED POST#2:  MONTE CARLO SIMULATION#1 OF THE UNCERTAINTY IN CARBON CYCLE FLOWS  [LINK]  

As explained in the related post, climate science declares uncertainties in carbon cycle flows (shown below) but does not take them into account when making the mass balance. The mass balance made in this way does indicate that the annual rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration is approximately half of the annual fossil fuel emissions. This ratio is described in climate science as the RETAINED FRACTION, meaning that half of the fossil fuel emissions remains in the atmosphere net of carbon cycle flows to and from the atmosphere. This positive constant as a retained fraction implies that atmospheric composition is responsive to fossil fuel emissions. However, this retained fraction computation contains a fatal statistical flaw because the uncertainties in carbon cycle flows, though declared, are not taken into account in the estimation of the retained fraction. In the related post, the magnitude of this error is estimated with a Monte Carlo Simulation.

The simulation is used to estimate the highest value of the unknown standard deviations at which we can detect the presence of human emissions in the carbon cycle. For the purpose of this test we propose that an uncertain flow account is in balance as long as the Null Hypothesis that the sum of the flows is zero cannot be rejected. The alpha error rate for the test is set to a high value of alpha=0.10 to ensure that any reasonable ability to discriminate between the flow account WITH Anthropogenic Emissions from a the flow account WITHOUT Anthropogenic Emissions is taken into evidence that the relatively small fossil fuel emissions can be detected in the presence of much larger and uncertain natural flows. The spreadsheet used in this determination is available for download from an online data archive Data Archive Link . In the simulation we assign different levels of uncertainty to the flows for which no uncertainty data are available and test the null hypothesis that the flows balance with anthropogenic emissions (AE) included and again with AE excluded. If the flows balance when AE are included and they don’t balance when AE are excluded then we conclude that the presence of the AE can be detected at that level of uncertainty. However, if the flows balance with and without AE then we conclude that the stochastic flow account is not sensitive to AE at that level of uncertainty because it is unable to detect their presence. If the presence of AE cannot be detected no role for their effect on climate can be deduced from the data at that level of uncertainty in natural flows. The balance is computed from the atmospheric perspective as Balance=Input-Output where Input is flow to the atmosphere and Output is flow from the atmosphere. The p-values for hypothesis tests for uncertainties in the natural flows from 1% of mean to 6.5% of mean are presented below. The tabulation shows that fossil fuel emissions can be detected if the uncertainty in carbon cycle flows is less than 2% of average. Since the IPCC declared uncertainties for carbon cycle flows are greater than 6%, we conclude from this Monte Carlo simulation analysis that relatively small flows of fossil fuel emissions cannot be detected net of uncertainties in carbon cycle flows and that therefore it is not possible that atmospheric CO2 concentration is responsive to fossil fuel emissions.

1. Natural: Ocean surface to atmosphere:Mean=78.4,SD=N/A.
2. Natural: Atmosphere to ocean:surface:Mean=80.0,SD=N/A
3. Human: Fossil fuel emissions:surface to atmosphere:Mean=7.8,SD=0.6
4. Human: Land use change:surface to atmosphere:Mean=1.1,SD=0.8
5. Natural: Photosynthesis:atmosphere to surface:Mean=123.0,SD=8.0
6. Natural: Respiration/fire:surface to atmosphere:Mean=118.7,SD=N/A
7. Natural: Freshwater to atmosphere:Mean=1.0,SD=N/A
8. Natural: Volcanic emissions surface to atmosphere:Mean=0.1,SS =N/A
9. Natural: Rock weathering:surface to atmosphere:Mean=0.3,SD=N/A

RELATED POST#3:  MONTE CARLO SIMULATION#2 OF THE UNCERTAINTY IN CARBON CYCLE FLOWS  [LINK]  

The charts above show show 150 randomly drawn values of atmospheric CO2 concentration with and without fossil fuel emissions. In the second chart, with fossil fuel emissions included, he airborne fraction is found to be μ=0.477, close to the 0.5 assumed in climate science. However, the standard deviation of the airborne fraction is σ=1.27 in the presence of uncertain carbon cycle flows with their uncertainty taken into account. The large variance implies that the computed retained fraction does not have the statistical significance needed for its interpretation in terms of the phenomena being studied. We conclude from these results that when stated uncertainties in carbon cycle flows are taken into account, no evidence is found that fossil fuel emissions cause changes in atmospheric composition because because the uncertainties in carbon cycle flows are two large to be able to detect the effect of relatively small flows of fossil fuel emissions that are an order of magnitude smaller than carbon cycle flows.

RELATED POST#4:  DETRENDED CORRELATION BETWEEN ANNUAL CHANGES IN ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND ANNUAL FOSSIL FUEL EMISSIONS  [LINK]  

Here we use detrended correlation analysis to study the relationship between annual fossil fuel emissions and annual changes in atmospheric CO2 concentration reported by the Mauna Loa Observatory. Detrending is necessary because it is known that the correlation between time series data derive from two sources – (1) the responsiveness at the time scale of interest, and (2) shared trends. It is necessary to remove the effect of shared trends to measure the responsiveness at the time scale to be studied. An annual time scale is used as it is the norm in climate science for this relationship. The data and their detrended correlation analysis are presented in the charts below.

DISCUSSION: THE SOURCE DATA SHOW A STRONG STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT CORRELATION OF CORR=0.75 BETWEEN ANNUAL CHANGES IN MLO CO2 AND ANNUAL EMISSIONS. THIS CORRELATION APPEARS TO SUPPORT THE USUAL ASSUMPTION THAT CHANGES IN ATMOSPHERIC CO2 CONCENTRATION ARE CAUSED BY FOSSIL FUEL EMISSIONS AND THAT THEREFORE THESE CHANGES CAN BE MODERATED WITH CLIMATE ACTION TO CONTROL AND REDUCE THE RATE OF WARMING.

HOWEVER, IT IS KNOWN THAT SOURCE DATA CORRELATION BETWEEN TIME SERIES DATA DERIVE FROM TWO SOURCES. THESE ARE (1) SHARED TRENDS WITH NO CAUSATION IMPLICATION AND (2) RESPONSIVENESS AT THE TIME SCALE OF INTEREST THAT ALONE CONTAINS CAUSATION INFORMATION. .

HERE THE TIME SCALE OF INTEREST IS ANNUAL BECAUSE THE THEORY REQUIRES THAT ANNUAL CHANGES IN ATMOSPHERIC CO2 CONCENTRATION ARE CAUSED BY ANNUAL FOSSIL FUEL EMISSIONS. THIS TEST IS MADE BY REMOVING THE SHARED TREND THAT IS KNOWN TO HAVE NO CAUSATION INFORMATION OR IMPLICATION.

HERE WE FIND THAT WHEN THE SHARED TREND IS REMOVED THE OBSERVED CORRELATION DISAPPPEARS. THE APPARENT CORRELATION BETWEEN EMISSIONS AND CHANGES IN ATMOSPHERIC CO2 CONCENTRATION IS THUS FOUND TO BE SPURIOUS.

CONCLUSION: THE DATA FOR ANNUAL FOSSIL FUEL EMISSIONS AND ANNUAL CHANGES IN ATMOSPHERIC CO2 CONCENTRATION DO NOT SHOW THAT FOSSIL FUEL EMISSIONS CAUSE ATMOSPHERIC CO2 CONCENTRATION TO CHANGE. THE FINDING IMPLIES THAT THERE IS NO EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE IN SUPPORT OF THE THEORY OF CLIMATE ACTION. THIS THEORY HOLDS THAT MOVING THE GLOBAL ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE FROM FOSSIL FUELS TO RENEWABLES WILL MODERATE THE RATE OF INCREASE IN ATMOSPHERIC CO2 AND THEREBY MODERATE THE RATE OF WARMING.

THE CARBON ISOTOPE ARGUMENT FOR THE RESPONSIVENESS OF OF ATMOSPHERIC CO2 CONCENTRATION TO FOSSIL FUEL EMISSIONS.

IN RELATED POSTS WE PRESENT THE ANALYSIS FOR THE 13C AND 14C ARGUMENTS IN CLIMATE SCIENCE THAT IS PROPOSED AS EVIDENCE FOR THE RESPONSIVENESS OF ATMOSPHERIC CO2 TO FOSSIL FUEL EMISSIONS BECAUSE FOSSIL FUEL EMISSIONS ARE PURE 12C HAVING NOT BEEN IN THE ATMOSPHERE FOR MILLIONS OF YEARS.

RELATED POST#1: THE 14C CASE

LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/02/10/14c/

SUMMARY: The data do not provide convincing evidence that the recent datasets are not simply extensions of the Wellington post bomb curve and therefore we find no evidence that the decline in radiocarbon in atmospheric CO2 is the creation of fossil fuel dilution and not explained by the natural exponential decay of bomb 14C. 

It should also be considered that it is not possible for carbon isotopic ratios to identify fossil fuel emissions as the source of the rise in atmospheric CO2 because isotopic ratios are unable to distinguish between fossil carbon and geological carbon. 

RELATED POST#2: THE 13C CASE

LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/04/28/13c/

SUMMARY: We conclude that the 13C data do not provide empirical evidence that observed changes in atmospheric CO2 concentration can be attributed to fossil fuel emissions. We further note that the high correlation between cumulative changes in the 13C/12C ratio in atmospheric CO2 and cumulative emissions is unreliable and unacceptable as empirical evidence because of the spuriousness of correlations between cumulative values discussed in a related post[LINK] . 

Yet another consideration is that it is not possible for carbon isotopic ratios to identify fossil fuel emissions as the source of the rise in atmospheric CO2 because isotopic ratios are unable to distinguish between fossil carbon and geological carbon.

RELATED POST#1 ON THE ABSENCE OF A RESPONSE IN THE RISE OF ATMOSPHERIC CO2 TO CLIMATE ACTION

IN TERMS OF THE GROWTH IN RENEWABLE ENERGY, WE FIND NO RESPONSE IN THE RATE OF RISE OF ATMOSPHERIC CO2 CONCENTRATION IN RESPONSE TO THE CLIMATE ACTION DEMANDED BY CLIMATE SCIENCE FOR THE SPECIFIC PURPOSE OF SLOWING THE RISE IN ATMOSPHERIC CO2.

TOTAL INVESTMENT IN RENEWABLE ENERGY IN THIS PERIOD EXCEEDED $2.5 TRILLION AND TOTAL RENEWABLE ENERGY CAPACITY WORLDWIDE MORE THAN DOUBLED. THE EXPRESS CLIMATE ACTION PURPOSE OF THESE INVESTMENTS AND THESE INSTALLATIONS WAS TO SLOW THE RISE IN ATMOSPHERIC CO2 CONCENTRATION. BUT NO SLOWDOWN IS FOUND IN THE DATA. WE FIND IN THIS RELATED POST THAT DURING A DECADE OF STEEPLY RISING RENEWABLE ENERGY CAPACITY, THERE WAS NO CHANGE IN THE RATE OF RISE IN ATMOSPHERIC CO2 CONCENTRATION.

RELATED POST#2 ON THE ABSENCE OF A RESPONSE IN THE RISE OF ATMOSPHERIC CO2 TO CLIMATE ACTION

LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2021/09/11/climate-action-leaders/

CONCLUSION:

NO EVIDENCE IS FOUND THAT ATMOSPHERIC CO2 CONCENTRATION IS RESPONSIVE TO FOSSIL FUEL EMISSIONS.

POSTSCRIPT

TO BE CLEAR, WHAT WE HAVE SHOWN ABOVE IS THAT THE DATA ANALYSIS PRESENTED DOES NOT SHOW THAT ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION IS RESPONSIVE TO FOSSIL FUEL EMISSIONS AT AN ANNUAL TIME SCALE AND THAT THEREFORE, FOR CLIMATE SCIENCE TO CONTINUE TO CLAIM THAT ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION IS RESPONSIVE TO FOSSIL FUEL EMISSIONS AT AN ANNUAL TIME SCALE, THE APPROPRIATE DATA AND ANALYSIS THAT SHOW SUCH RESPONSIVENESS MUST BE PRESENTED.

THIS FINDING IS OFTEN MIS-INTERPRETED AS A CLAIM THAT ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION IS NOT RESPONSIVE TO FOSSIL FUEL EMISSIONS.

FOR THE RECORD, THIS BLOGGER DOES NOT MAKE THAT CLAIM. THE ONLY CLAIM I HAVE MADE IS THAT NO EVIDENCE WAS FOUND IN THE DATA PRESENTED ABOVE FOR SUCH RESPONSIVENESS AND THAT IF CLIMATE SCIENCE CAN PROVIDE THAT EVIDENCE IT SHOULD DO SO IN ORDER TO SUPPORT THIS FUNDAMENTAL RELATIONSHIP THAT THE WHOLE OF THE ANTHROPOGENIC GLOBAL WARMING THEORY RESTS ON.

I AM NOT PROPOSING A THEORY. I AM TESTING A THEORY THAT HAS BEEN PROPOSED BY CLIMATE SCIENCE.

THE CLIMATE SCIENCE EXPERT ON THIS ISSUE IS GLEN PETERS. HIS LECTURE PRESENTS THE DATA AND DATA ANALYSIS TO ESTABLISH THE SO CALLED “AIRBORNE FRACTION” THAT SERVES AS THE EVIDENCE IN CLIMATE SCIENCE THAT ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION IS RESPONSIVE TO FOSSIL FUEL EMISSIONS.

GLEN HAS GIVEN MANY ONLINE LECTURES TO PROVE THIS RELATIONSHIP. ONE SUCH LECTURE, ALONG WITH MY CRITICAL COMMENTARY, IS PRESENTED IN A RELATED: LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/12/29/climate-scientist-explains-the-carbon-budget/ . MY FINDING IS THAT WHAT GLEN SAYS MAKES SENSE UNTIL YOU TAKE THE UNCERTAINTY IN THE DATA INTO ACCOUNT.

BOTTOM LINE: CLIMATE SCIENCE ASSUMES THE AIRBORNE FRACTION BUT IS UNABLE TO PROVIDE EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FOR IT IN A WAY THAT TAKES UNCERTAINTY INTO ACCOUNT.

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CLIMATE ALARM#1: NRDC EXPERT BLOG BY DAVID DONIGER: WE SAVED THE OZONE LAYER. WE CAN SAVE THE CLIMATE. LINK TO SOURCE: https://www.nrdc.org/experts/david-doniger/we-saved-ozone-layer-we-can-save-climate

CLIMATE ALARM#2: THE GUARDIAN: HOW TO STOP THE CLIMATE CRISIS: SIX LESSONS FROM THE CAMPAIGN THAT SAVED THE OZONE: LINK: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/20/how-to-stop-the-climate-crisis-six-lessons-from-the-campaign-that-saved-the-ozone

PART-1; WHAT THE SOURCE DOCUMENTS SAY:

NRDC: Climate change is not the first planetary pollution crisis we have faced. That distinction belongs to the depletion of the earth’s protective ozone layer. Thirty-two years ago, countries signed the world’s most successful environmental treaty, the Montreal Protocol. That’s the treaty that saved the ozone layer, saved millions of lives, and avoided a global catastrophe. We too often take the rescue of the ozone layer for granted. A whole generation has grown up not hearing much about it, except maybe once each September when the return of the Antarctic ozone hole gets a brief mention in the news. As we struggle to curb the carbon pollution that’s driving climate change, it’s worth remembering, and learning from, our success in solving the ozone crisis. As beautifully told in the new documentary Ozone Hole, the story begins nearly 50 years ago when two chemists, Sherwood Rowland and Mario Molina, discovered that chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) released from aerosol sprays could rise miles over our heads into the stratosphere. There, the sun’s harsh rays split the CFCs apart, triggering reactions that destroyed ozone molecules. As the ozone shield weakened, more dangerous UV rays could reach the earth’s surface. That would have condemned millions of people worldwide to die from skin cancer, go blind with cataracts, or suffer from immune diseases. Their discovery made big news and galvanized Americans. Aerosol sales plummeted, as millions of consumers switched to pump sprays and roll-ons. Some companies quickly redesigned their products. But others dug in. For more than a decade, the chemical companies that made CFCs reacted much like today’s coal and oil companies: They denied the science, attacked the scientists, and predicted economic ruin. But scientists and lawyers at NRDC—well before I got here—fought back. They helped Rowland and Molina tell their story to Congress and the news media. They pushed for bans on CFC aerosols here at home and pressed the United States to demand the same from other countries. Rowland Sherwood (left) in the lab at the University of California, Irvine, with Mario J. Molina, January 1975. Twenty years later, they shared the Nobel Prize in chemistry.
University of California Irvine Special Collections Library. In the late 1970s, the public demanded action and the government responded. Congress added ozone layer protections to the Clean Air Act, federal agencies mopped up the last aerosols, and the State Department began working with other nations on a treaty. In 1980, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued an “endangerment” finding, saying that the other uses of CFCs in refrigerators, air conditioners, and industrial processes also posed a threat to the ozone layer and to public health. But when Ronald Reagan took office, things bogged down. Those of you who remember Anne Gorsuch and James Watt will know that protecting the ozone layer was not a priority in Reagan’s first years. The EPA did nothing, treaty talks stalled, and CFC use rebounded, so by the mid-1980s, production was back to its 1974 peak and rising fast. The danger was growing again. So I and an NRDC colleague, Alan Miller, sued the EPA under the Clean Air Act, because the agency was obligated by the endangerment finding to issue CFC regulations. Once William Ruckelshaus replaced Anne Gorsuch at the helm of Reagan’s EPA, the agency to its credit followed the science and settled our lawsuit with a plan of action. The EPA worked with NASA and other agencies to amass a compelling, peer-reviewed scientific assessment. The EPA brought together industry and environmentalists and others to agree on alternatives. The State Department restarted treaty talks. Congress held hearings in the mid-1980’s under the bipartisan leadership of Senators Max Baucus, John Chafee, and Al Gore, and Representatives Henry Waxman and Sherwood Boehlert, keeping the danger in the public eye. And the news media covered the story, without giving equal time to marginal skeptics. The surprise discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole in the mid-1980’s added new urgency. Within a year, NASA scientists led by Susan Solomon, now at MIT, nailed the connection between CFCs and the ozone hole. By 1986, even the chemical industry acknowledged CFC limits were needed. In 1986, I proposed the idea of a 10-year global phaseout—to start using available alternatives immediately and to create market incentives to rapidly perfect and deploy solutions for the remaining uses. Again to their credit, Reagan’s next EPA administrator, Lee Thomas, and Secretary of State George Schultz put a phase-out plan on the international negotiating table. Yet not everybody was on board. Interior Secretary Donald Hodel urged Reagan to tell people to just wear hats and sunglasses. (My role in exposing Hodel’s “Rayban Plan” is told starting at the 31:30 mark in the Ozone Hole documentary.) His plan became a punchline. Reagan, who himself had had skin cancer, continued to back the treaty. And in September 1987, countries reached agreement on the Montreal Protocol. By 1990 it had been amended to become a global phaseout agreement. That same year Congress added strong ozone safeguards to the Clean Air Act. Every president since Reagan has supported the treaty; every country on earth, from China to East Timor, is now a full party. Rowland and Molina received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1995. It is not easy to convey the scale of the catastrophe that was avoided, the disaster that did not happen. This is what NASA scientist Dr. Paul A. Newman has accomplished in his extraordinary analysis, “The World Avoided.” You can read about it here, and you can watch Dr. Newman’s presentation at an NRDC press event in 2012. (A more sophisticated animation of Dr. Newman’s findings is shown in Ozone Hole starting at 41:30.) Millions of lives saved. Hundreds of millions of cancers averted. Agricultural disaster avoided. These are big achievements. But our work is not done. Here are a few thoughts on what we still need to do under the Montreal Protocol and on lessons from the ozone treaty for the fight against climate change. First, as Dr. Newman has shown, the ozone layer is healing. While countries have committed phasing out the last ozone-depleting chemicals, we have to keep our eye on the ball to make sure it happens on schedule. And while national compliance with Montreal commitments has been extraordinarily high, governments have to work harder to crack down on law-breakers and smugglers. If we stick with it, scientists expect the Antarctic ozone hole to close up for good later this century. Antarctic Ozone Hole 1980 through 2018, courtesy NASA Second, we can do more under Montreal to fight climate change. There’s already been a climate change bonus. The CFCs were also extremely powerful heat-trapping pollutants, and replacing them has slowed climate change by a decade. Had we not acted, the world would already be suffering even more severe droughts, wildfires, floods, and storms. The extreme weather we’re suffering year after year would have been even worse. But one group of CFC replacements, called HFCs, poses a big problem. HFCs are also powerful greenhouse gases, and Dr. Newman’s science panel has estimated that if we let them keep growing, by midcentury they’ll trap as much heat as CFCs did at their peak. Another scientific team showed that if left unchecked they could add nearly half a degree centigrade to global warming by 2100, making it even harder to hold the overall warming to 1.5 degrees, or even 2 degrees, beyond which climate impacts become catastrophic. Wisely, the Montreal Treaty gave the parties the responsibility to ensure that replacement chemicals are safe—and that includes ensuring that they don’t magnifying climate change. So 10 years ago, two groups of countries—a group of island nations led by Micronesia, and the United States, Canada, and Mexico—proposed using the Montreal Protocol to phase down HFCs. It took a decade of education and tough negotiations, but in October 2016 the nations of the world agreed on the Kigali Amendment to phase down HFCs by 85 percent worldwide over the coming decades. Once again, countries came together following the proven formula under the Montreal Protocol, with all countries committing to cut their emissions, as developed countries take the lead and help fund action in developing countries. The NRDC team in Kigali when the HFC Amendment was adopted. The Kigali Amendment has been ratified by more than 60 countries and came into effect on January 1, 2019. The Trump administration said in 2017 that it supported the agreement’s goals and approach and was considering ratification. The HFC phase-down has broad industry and bipartisan support—13 GOP Senators wrote the president last year urging ratification and a bipartisan phase-down bill was also introduced. But the administration has made no decision yet. That’s better, of course, than Trump’s outright rejection of the Paris Climate Accord, but it still leaves the U.S. in limbo. So NRDC has embarked on getting leading states to take action. California passed HFC legislation last September, and Washington State is on the brink of enacting its own bill. New York, Maryland, and Connecticut have committed to HFC restrictions under existing laws, and many other states in the U.S. Climate Alliance are considering identical laws or regulations. There will be another bipartisan push for federal HFC legislation this year, with surprising allies running from NRDC to the National Association of Manufacturers. Meanwhile, the industry continues adopting climate-friendlier alternatives to HFCs. So, even in these difficult times, the Montreal Protocol stands out as proof positive that the earth’s nearly 200 countries can effectively cooperate to protect their citizens from a planetary pollution crisis—address climate change as well as ozone depletion. CONCLUSION: We saved the ozone layer. We can save the climate.

GUARDIAN: Thirty years ago, all 197 countries got together to ban the gases damaging the Earth’s ozone layer. Now we need to unite to combat an even greater threat. What can we learn from 1989? The ban on chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) gases has been an incredible success story. The ban on chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) gases has been an incredible success story.
Amid the anti-globalist chest-thumping of Brexit, Donald Trump, and the Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, it may sound like the stuff of folklore. But there was a time in the recent past when all the countries of the world moved quickly to discuss a common threat, agreed an ambitious plan of action and made it work. The Montreal protocol, which came into effect 30 years ago, was drawn up to address the alarming thinning of the ozone layer in the Earth’s stratosphere. It was the first agreement in the history of the United Nations to be ratified by all 197 countries. Since it came into effect on 1 January 1989, more than 99% of the gases responsible for the problem have been eradicated and the “ozone hole” – which, in the late 80s, vied for headline space with the cold war, Diana, Princess of Wales, and Madonna – is receding in the sky and the memory. According to the latest UN study, the “ozone holes” (there are actually two: one above each pole) are healing at the rate of 1% to 3% a decade and will have completely vanished in the northern hemisphere by the 2030s and the southern hemisphere by the 2060s. This is cause for back-slapping, but also frustration that the world has not been able to unite as effectively over the climate and biodiversity crises. Here are half a dozen lessons.
The satellite animation of the changing atmosphere over the Antarctic first shown in 1985 appeared to show a growing “ozone hole”. This was a scientifically imprecise description of the thinning that was concentrated at both poles, but the metaphor – of the roof over our home planet being punctured – captured the public imagination and conveyed a sense of urgency. By contrast, many people feel distant from climate problems, which are usually illustrated with images of polar bears, filled with caveats and headlined with vague labels, such as “global warming”, which sounds benign (or even desirable for those living in cold countries), and “climate change”, which comes across as a statement of the obvious. When scientists raised the alarm about CFC, there was initially uncertainty about their impact on the atmosphere and the process, but the risks from sunlight weakly filtered by the ozone layer (cancer, crop failure, ocean ecosystem collapse) were so great that world leaders decided not to wait. Instead, they applied the “precautionary principle”: “If in doubt, cut it out.” Even before the science was settled, they started to act. This was also supposed to be the case with the climate, but lobbying to deny the validity of the science stymied action. Governments temporarily put aside cold-war hostilities and united rapidly around a solution to the ozone problem. From the first research in 1973, it took just 16 years for the world to discuss, agree and put in place a solution that reversed the trend. By comparison, scientific warnings that carbon dioxide emissions could disrupt the climate date back to at least 1962. Yet despite numerous international agreements on the subject since then (Rio 1992, Kyoto 1998, Copenhagen 2009, Paris 2015), emissions are still climbing. In the 80s, the environment was not yet the polarising issue it has become, but the dominant figures – including the US president, George HW Bush, the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, and the British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher – still had to overcome business interests, treasury doubts and political short-termism to protect the future health of the planet. They refused to accept the delaying tactics of chemical companies that denied the science.

The phased ban on CFCs and dozens of other ozone-depleting gases was an economic blow to chemical firms, refrigerator producers and aerosol-spray manufacturers. Rich countries dealt with the job losses, technology upgrades and other economic consequences internally, but also provided support for poorer nations to manage the transition. From 1991 to 2005, pledges totalled $3.1bn. Similar arrangements exist for climate accords, but the sums need to be far higher because the actions are so much more expensive, the responsibility of industrialised nations is so much greater, and the impact on poor countries is incalculably worse.

The Montreal protocol has been updated numerous times as the science has sharpened and new climate goals have been incorporated. This month, the Kigali Amendment added a plan to cut hydrofluorocarbons by more than 80% over the next 30 years, which would reduce global heating by 0.4C by the end of the century. Under the Paris climate agreement, governments are supposed to ratchet up the ambition of their pledges to cut emissions, but most governments are failing to meet even their current inadequate targets. Looking at this list, a millennial might be tempted to conclude that the Montreal protocol was possible because it came about in a golden age when leaders were smarter, politicians more representative and populations more amenable to scientific persuasion. But, as anyone alive in 1989 knows, that is far too simple an explanation. The reality is that environmental action was easier then because the world had more ecological breathing room, capitalism was less dominant and the corporate push-back – and control over politics – was weaker. The ozone layer was a relatively simple fix compared with the climate, which is the biggest, most complex, multidimensional challenge humanity has ever faced. It is one thing confronting a handful of chemical firms, quite another to take on the world’s fossil fuel companies, car manufacturers, cement-makers and agribusiness conglomerates, representing hundreds of millions of jobs, trillions of dollars and 200-odd years of industrial development.

Bush, Thatcher, Gorbachev and the then Chinese leader, Deng Xiaoping, knew this in 1989, when global temperatures were already rising at an unnaturally rapid rate. A year earlier, in a US congressional testimony reported throughout the world, the then Nasa scientist Jim Hansen had declared “with 99% confidence” that this heating was a result of human activity.

They also knew the problem would be easier to solve then than 30 years in the future. Initially, Bush promised to lead a determined global response to climate change, but – as the short-term costs of a long-term solution became apparent – he balked. Instead of a comprehensive response, he merely strengthened research, paved the way for a drawn-out global negotiating process and complacently put his faith in future innovation and entrepreneurship. He may well have reassured himself that his environmental legacy was secure, thanks to action on ozone. But the climate can that he and others kicked forward 30 years ago is still clanking through the corridors of global conferences. It is a lot rustier now, but still basically the same half-response to a problem that becomes bigger and harder to solve with every year that passes. So this year’s anniversary of the implementation of the Montreal protocol should not just inspire nostalgia for 1989, but a curse on the first generation of leaders to dodge climate responsibility. And as we are already suffering the consequences of their failure, it should remind us that every day of delay has a massive and imminent cost. Each fraction of a degree of global heating that can be prevented will save lives, species and money. In our lifetimes, the ozone hole will be closed in the stratosphere while the increasingly angry beast of climate rages below. How angry is up to us. Montreal reminds us that nothing in politics is inevitable, that profits do not have to come before people, that global problems can have global solutions, that we can shape our own future. That depends on how far we are willing to push. In 1989, that wasn’t far enough. Nor has it been since. In 2003, the UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan, called the Montreal protocol “perhaps the single most successful international agreement to date”. Sadly, that still applies today. As the climate crisis escalates.

PART-2: CRITICAL COMMENTARY

(ITEM#1) The assumed comparative equivalence of the Montreal Protocol imperative of changing refrigerants to readily available alternatives with the Paris Protocol climate action imperative of overhauling the world’s energy infrastructure from fossil fuels to renewables is inconsistent with the reality of these vastly different and incomparable proposals.

The cost of compliance with the Montreal Protocol worldwide was less than $10 billon. The corresponding estimates for climate action runs into many $trillions. The two actions also differ vastly in terms of the complexity and the hardships to be borne by citizens of countries that participate. The assumption that climate action and ozone action are comparable such that since the ozone action worked so should the climate action, is not supported by the realities of these vastly different situations. While CFC alternatives were readily available in the marketplace, fossil fuel alternatives are still in development. LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/08/18/energy-storage/ .

The comparison of the ozone depletion with climate change as equivalent environmental issues that have parallels such that the feasibility of climate action can be inferred from the feasibility of changing refrigerants is not possible.

(ITEM#2) The comparison of climate action with action against ozone depletion also assumes that the action against ozone depletion was a success. The success assumption comprises two different assumptions: first, it assumes that there was empirical evidence of ozone depletion in accordance with the Rowland Molina Theory of Ozone Depletion (RMTOD), and second, that the Montreal Protocol ozone action was able to attenuate the rate of depletion. In related posts we show that there was not then and there is not now any empirical evidence to support RMTOD. The theory implies that CFC emissions will cause a gradual decline in Global Mean Total Column Ozone GMTCO. No such decline is found in the data as shown in related posts on this site listed in (ITEM#3) below. The volatility of ozone levels over the South Pole, described as an ozone hole and submitted as empirical evidence for RMTOD, is not a creation of ozone depletion but of ozone distribution as described in a related post on this site: LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/04/01/ozone-depletion-and-ozone-holes/ . Briefly, ozone forms only over the equator and it is distributed to the greater latitudes by the Brewer Dobson Circulation and other atmospheric circulations. The inefficiency and uncertainty of this distribution increases with latitude such that polar ozone levels tend to be most volatile to the point of periods of extreme depletion as seen in the South pole Ozone holes. The presentation of this phenomenon as evidence of RMTOD is an extreme form of scientific dishonesty.

(ITEM#3) Related posts on this site on the subject of the ozone depletion issue, the rise of UN global environmentalism, and the Montreal Protocol.

POST#1: A critical evaluation of Farman etal 1985, which stands to this day as the only empirical validation of the Rowland Molina Theory of Ozone Depletion (RMTOD). https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/03/12/ozone1966-2015/

POST#2: MARIO MOLINA AND THE ROWLAND MOLINA THEORY OF OZONE DEPLETION : https://tambonthongchai.com/?s=MOLINA

POST#3: THE OZONE HOLE OF NASA: And the distinction between the ozone hole and the Rowland Molina Theory of Ozone Depletion https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/11/04/the-ozone-hole-of-2020/

POST#4: EMPIRICAL TEST OF THE ROWLAND MOLINA THEORY OF OZONE DEPLETION: #1: LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/10/01/ozone-depletion-part-3/

POST#5: EMPIRICAL TEST OF THE ROWLAND MOLINA THEORY OF OZONE DEPLETION: #2: LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/09/30/ozone-depletion-part-2/

POST#6: EMPIRICAL TEST OF THE ROWLAND MOLINA THEORY OF OZONE DEPLETION: #3: LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/09/30/ozone-depletion-part-1/

POST#7: EMPIRICAL TEST OF THE ROWLAND MOLINA THEORY OF OZONE DEPLETION: #4: LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/09/30/ozone-depletion-part-1/

POST#8: EMPIRICAL TEST OF THE ROWLAND MOLINA THEORY OF OZONE DEPLETION: PART-5: LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/08/07/testozonedepletion/

(ITEM#4) THE UGLY HISTORY OF THE OZONE CRISIS: The essential argument here by the NRDC and the Guardian is that since global humanity acting through the UN was able to come together in the Montreal Protocol to solve the ozone crisis then it should be possible to repeat that success and solve the climate crisis in the same manner. As for the reasons for the failure of the UN to put together the Montreal Protocol of climate change they speculate that the barrier to global climate treaty like the Montreal Protocol is the influence of the political right in America and of science denial funded by fossil fuel interests. This simplistic analysis of the comparison of the ozone depletion and climate change issues overlooks important complexities that make the comparison impossible. The assumption of rapid response and solution to the ozone crisis in the absence of science denial is inconsistent with the history of the ozone crisis. This history reveals that climate change and ozone depletion do have something in common and that is an overbearing form of advocacy and activism that has been driven to fearmongering. The ozone story goes back to the 1960s when there was a plan to develop high altitude supersonic airliners. The high cruising altitude of the SST raised alarms that SSTs would cause both climate change and ozone depletion. The alarm related to chemicals and aerosols in SST exhaust and the science of their impact on the atmosphere. The climate change theory was quietly shelved and forgotten and the alarm later focused on ozone depletion with a forecast of 40,000 additional cases of skin cancer every year in the USA alone.

In 1971 a theory was proposed that Nitric oxide (NOx) in the SST jet exhaust will cause ozone depletion because NOx acts as a catalyst to destroy ozone according to computer models. The model forecast said that there will be a 50% ozone depletion and a worldwide epidemic of skin cancer. Animals that venture out during daylight will become blinded by UV radiation. Ozone science deniers pointed out that the ozone had survived the NOx in the fireball of open air nuclear tests, but by 1972, the ozone depletion activism against the SST had won and the SST program died because we were too frightened by the ozone depletion scare. 1972 was the first “Montreal Protocol”.

In 1973 fear mongering ozone depletion scientists turned their attention to the proposed Space Shuttle program. The shuttle design included two solid fuel rockets that emit hydrogen chloride (HCl) which the scientists said would cause ozone depletion. The space shuttle miraculously survived the 1973 scare but the ozone depletion game was now in full gear, having tasted the power of being able to inflict debilitating fear of ozone depletion.

1973: In a now famous paper {Lovelock, Maggs, and Wade 1973}, he presented the discovery that air samples above the Atlantic ocean far from human habitation contained measurable quantities of HHC. This was he first of three key events that led to the Montreal Protocol and its worldwide ban on the production, sale, and atmospheric release of HHC and the rise of the UN as a global environmental regulator.

1974 a new candidate of ozone depletion was identified. Environmentalist James Lovelock studied the unrestricted release of halogenated hydrocarbons (HHC) into the atmosphere from their use as aerosol dispensers, fumigants, pesticides, and refrigerants. {Halogenated hydrocarbons (HHC) are also described as HFC}. Lovelock was concerned that these chemicals were man-made and they did not otherwise occur in nature and that they were chemically inert and that therefore their atmospheric release could cause irreversible accumulation.

1974: Since HHCs were non-toxic and environmental science knew of no harmful effects of HHC, the environmental concern expressed in Lovelock etal 1973 about their accumulation in the atmosphere remained an academic curiosity. This changed in 1974 with the publication of a paper by Mario Molina and Frank Rowland in which is contained a theory of ozone depletion by HHC. According to the Rowland-Molina theory of ozone depletion (RMTOD), the extreme volatility and chemical inertness of the HHCs ensure that there is no natural sink for these chemicals in the troposphere and that therefore once emitted they may remain in the atmosphere for 40 to 150 years and be transported by diffusion and atmospheric motion to the stratospheric ozone layer where they are subjected to solar radiation at frequencies that will cause them to dissociate into chlorine atoms and free radicals. Chlorine atoms can then act as a catalytic agent of ozone destruction in a chemical reaction cycle described in the paper. It proposed that such ozone depletion by HHC poses a danger because the ozone layer protects life on the surface of the earth from the harmful effects of UVB radiation. The description in the source documents above states that “Rowland and Molina, discovered that CFCs released from aerosol sprays could rise miles over our heads into the stratosphere and destroy ozone molecules.” This statement is false. They did not” discover“ this relationship between CFCs and ozone. They proposed it as a theory. It required validation by empirical evidence.

1985: The RMTOD was later considered to have been validated with empirical evidence in a 1985 paper by Farman etal . “Large losses of total ozone in Antarctica reveal seasonal ClOx/NOx interaction J. C. Farman, B. G. Gardiner & J. D. Shanklin, Nature volume 315, pages207–210(1985) Abstract
Recent attempts to consolidate assessments of the effect of human activities on stratospheric ozone using one-dimensional models for 30° N have suggested that perturbations of total ozone will remain small for at least the next decade. Results from such models are often accepted by default as global estimates. The inadequacy of this approach is here made evident by observations that the spring values of total ozone in Antarctica have now fallen considerably. The circulation in the lower stratosphere is apparently unchanged, and possible chemical causes must be considered. We suggest that the very low temperatures which prevail from midwinter until several weeks after the spring equinox make the Antarctic stratosphere uniquely sensitive to growth of inorganic chlorine, ClX, primarily by the effect of this growth on the NO2/NO ratio. This, with the height distribution of UV irradiation peculiar to the polar stratosphere, could account for the O3 losses observed. This paper was the third and final key event in the sequence Lovelock to RMTOD to Farman, that led to the Montreal Protocol. It established that the atmospheric accumulation of HHC found by Lovelock (1) is not harmless by providing the RMTOD theoretical framework (2) that links HHC to ozone depletion and finally with the theory validated by empirical evidence in Farman etal.

THE MEDIA: The media then stepped in with an intensive exercise in fear based activism to promote compliance with the Montreal Protocol. Here are some examples: March 10 1987: Skin cancer is increasing in the United States at a near epidemic rate, outstripping predictions made as recently as five years ago, a research physician testified Monday before a House panel examining threats to the Earth’s protective ozone layer. Malignant melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, has increased 83 percent in the last seven years alone. Melanoma is increasing faster than any other cancer except lung cancer in women.: March 12, 1987 Consensus among scientists: If harmful UV radiation reached the Earth, it would cause monumental problems, including rampant skin cancer and eye cataracts, retarded crop growth, impairment of the human immune system and damaging radiation doses to all forms of life. Although many Americans and the people of other nations are still not listening or taking the ozone threat seriously, the Earth’s protective shield is getting thinner and developing mysterious holes. There is a growing consensus among scientists that ozone destruction is caused by the accumulation in the upper atmosphere of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), a class of industrial chemicals used for refrigerants, aerosols, insulation, foam packaging and other uses.: August 23, 1987: Ozone Hole: Scientists have begun the largest study ever of the depletion of the ozone layer in the atmosphere by sending a modified spy plane on missions 12 1/2 miles above Antarctica. The flights this past week were part of a $10-million project being carried out by a 120-member team of scientists, engineers and technicians who hope to decipher a mysterious ozone hole that has been detected over Antarctic each winter for the past eight years.

CONCLUSION: THE OZONE CRISIS WAS A CREATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS UNEP PROGRAM AND IT SERVED TO EXTEND THE THE CHARTER OF THE UNITED NATIONS TO INCLUDE A ROLE AS GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATOR. BOTH THE OZONE DEPLETION CRISIS AND THE CLIMATE CRISIS ULTIMATELY SERVE ONLY THE NEEDS OF THE UN BUREAUCRACY. LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/03/18/the-eco-crisis-ambition-of-the-un/

ABOUT THE NRDC

NRDC works to safeguard the earth—its people, its plants and animals, and the natural systems on which all life depends. We combine the power of more than three million members and online activists with the expertise of some 700 scientists, lawyers, and policy advocates across the globe to ensure the rights of all people to the air, the water, and the wild. {AN ADMISSION TO ACTIVSM BIAS}.

THIS POST IS A GRAPHICAL SUMMARY OF PER CAPITA FOSSIL FUEL EMISSIONS BY COUNTRY AND ECONOMY TYPE. THE WORLD’S COUNTRIES ARE CATEGORIZED INTO FOUR ECONOMY TYPES. THESE ARE (1) TOURISM, (2) PETROLEUM PRODUCTION AND EXPORT, (3) INDUSTRIALIZED COUNTRIES, AND (4) DEVELOPING COUNTRIES AKA THE THIRD WORLD.

THIS CLASSIFICATION PROVIDES THE CONTEXT FOR UNDERSTANDING THE SOURCES OF EMISSIONS. FOR EXAMPLE, IN TOURISM ECONOMIES, THE EMISSIONS ARE MOSTLY OF TOURISTS FROM RICH INDUSTRIALIZED COUNTRIIES WITH THE PER CAPITA COMPUTATION BASED ON A SMALL PERMANENT POPULATION; AND IN PETROLEUM ECONOMIES, THE EMISSIONS ARE MOSTLY FROM PRODUCTION AND NOT FROM CONSUMPTION.

PER CAPITA EMISSION DATA ARE PRESENTED BELOW IN UNITS OF TONNES PER YEAR PER PERSON.

CHART#1: AVERAGE PER CAPITA EMISSON OF EACH ECONOMY TYPE.

CHART#2: PER CAPITA EMISSIONS OF TOURISM ECONOMIES

CHART#3: PER CAPITA EMISSIONS OF PETROLEUM ECONOMIES

CHART#4: PER CAPITA EMISSIONS OF INDUSTRIAL ECONOMIES

CHART#5: PER CAPITA EMISSIONS OF DEVELOPING ECONOMIES

SUMMARY TABLE HIGHLIGHTING MIN-MAX VALUES

COMMENTARY

The comparison of fossil fuel emissions of different countries often arises in the context of anthropogenic global warming and climate change. Here we present these per capita emission data classified by economy type. Four economy types are identified in the data. They are 40 tourism economies, 16 petroleum economies, 57 industrial economies, and 98 developing economies. The data are presented graphically above in Chart#2 to Chart#5.

The average per capita emission of these economies in metric tonnes per person are compared in Chart#1 above. Here we find that on a per capita basis petroleum production and export economies have the highest per capita emissions and developing countries the lowest. An oddity is the tourism economy that derives its income mostly from tourists from industrialized countries, comes in second ahead of industrial economies. The other oddity is that the emissions of the petroleum exporters derives from the demand from petroleum products mostly in industrialized countries. These intricate relationships may imply that it may not be possible to understand global emissions in terms of countries.

The variance in per capita emissions among the countries within each economy type shows yet another oddity of the tourism economy. Here we find that the tourism economy has the highest variance among countries in the economy. A peculiarity of the tourism economy is that they are typically small island states with a small resident population but typically with the population at any given time dominated by tourists and their variable emissions distributed on a per capita basis among the small permanent population. This is the likely explanation for the highest observed per capita emission of 58 tonnes found in the tourism economy where the range goes from 0.3 tonnes to 58 tonnes.

The petroleum economy that shows the highest per capita emissions also shows the highest minimum emissions at the country level but not the highest maximum emissions. That honor goes to the tourism economy.

CONCLUSION: The per capita emission data are best understood when segregated into economy types with the statistical details of the data in addition to the mean.

For example, when assessing the relative position of China, we find in the data for industrialized economies in Chart#4 above that its per capita emissions of 8 tonnes appears to be somewhat higher than the mean of 7.52 tonnes for industrial economies, but in the context of the standard deviation of 3.43, that difference is not statistically significant. Therefore China can be considered to be average for industrial economies in terms of fossil fuel emissions. Chart#4 above shows that the outliers among industrial economies are Taiwan, South Korea, the USA, and Luxembourg with per capita emissions of 12 tonnes and higher.

Similarly, as seen in Chart#5 above, India’s emission of 1.9 tonnes per person is on the the low end in this category where the leaders from Indonesia to Thailand show per capita emissions of 2.5 to 6.5 tonnes per person. The comparison of emissions by country must first remove the size effect because size does not contain information about the mechanisms that need to be changed for emission reduction. And secondly, the comparison cannot be made across the board because of differences among economy types.

We suggest that emission comparison among countries must be made among countries in the same economic group and the effect of the size of the country must be removed by comparing per capita emission. Important and useful insights are gained in this kind of analysis that is missing in across the board total emissions among countries. The insight into the peculiarities of tourism economies, for example, provide insight into what governs their emissions and how these emissions compare with other economies and countries.