Ozone Hole Over Antarctica Bigger Than Ever

Elaine Meinel Supkis

Far from shrinking, the ozone hole over Antarctica is growing ever bigger. The international actions with controlling HCFC (hydrochlorofluorocarbons) hasn't been enough as an assortment of chemicals are now causing the ozone hole to grow ever larger. Increasing wind speed at high altitudes adds to the hole too.

The HCFC problem isn't getting better after all despite reports just three months ago.

WASHINGTON (AP) — This year's Antarctic ozone hole is the biggest ever, government scientists said Thursday.

The so-called hole is a region where there is severe depletion of the layer of ozone — a form of oxygen — in the upper atmosphere that protects life on Earth by blocking the sun's ultraviolet rays.

Scientists say human-produced gases such as bromine and chlorine damage the layer, causing the hole. That's why many compounds such as spray-can propellants have been banned in recent years.

Everyone thought the ozone depletion problem ended with the Montreal Protocols. This requires everyone to cease using freon to refrigerate. This international treaty has helped somewhat except the loopholes exempt about 75% of humanity and in this case, a whole lot of them who live in hot climates like India and southern China are now using many airconditioners and other things which use this freon.

I have to admit, I once accidentally released freon into the atmosphere back in 1979 when I was trying to tear out and remove a very old natural gas refrigerator only to discover, when I disconnected the pipes, one of them was the freon circulator. It still bothers me.

And this is the whole problem. Dealing with old stuff like this causes a lot of this gas to be released. And many automobiles in many countries have the old gasses and these are very prone to breaking, all you need is a fender-bender that affects the copper lines!

Note the timeframe for phasing out these gases.

In September 1987, 47 countries (including the United States) agreed to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, which first required controls on the world's consumption of ozone depleting substances. Over 160 countries have signed on to the Protocol, whose phasedown schedule for developed countries was accelerated twice and completely phased out Halon production at the end of 1994 and CFC production at the end of 1995. The Protocol's coverage has also been extended to include hydrochlorofluorocarbons and other chlorine- and bromine-containing substances such as some solvents and methyl bromide, a widely used soil fumigant.

At their meeting in Vienna (December 1995), the Parties agreed to phase down the use of HCFCs in developing countries and to phase out production of methyl bromide in

developed countries by 2010, to cap its production in developing countries in 2002. In 1997, the methyl bromide deadline for developed countries was advanced to 2005, and a developing country deadline was set at 2015. The 105th Congress enacted an amendment in October 1998 to adjust phaseout of methyl bromide to 2005.

In other words, it has barely been instituted in a handful of countries. Many appliances and other things using freon have been legally shipped to third world countries to be recycled or used. The recycling process releases a lot of gasses and obviously this is aggravating the ozone hole.

Freon is much cheaper than the subsitutes so many people try to smuggle it into the country from Mexico.

The 30-pound canisters looked harmless. The first in the row was a bubblegum color that might have been seen at a child’s birthday, inflating balloons. But if you crossed the Mexico-US border with it, you’d be smuggling one of the most environmentally dangerous products on the planet.

© Brittany Whiting/CEC
The United States was one of the world’s largest consumers of ODS gases.

That’s because each molecule inside these canisters can destroy an estimated 100,000 ozone molecules, and have a lifetime up to 100 years. They’re called ozone-depleting substances (ODS), and the illegal trade in them, including such products as automobile refrigerants, fire suppressants and industrial solvents in the United States can be nearly as profitable as the drug trade.

Of course, farmers release gases, too, as fumigants. And this is why all our strawberries are gigantic, for example. Small strawberries taste much better, I grow the old kind and the flavor is much greater due to the tasty part of the strawberry being concentrated in the smaller fruits. But everyone wants things super-sized. Well, the ozone hole is now super-sized.

And my dear hummingbirds, bats and bees are in the news again.

By Randolph E. Schmid, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — This is a story about the birds and the bees and reproduction. No, not that story. It's about plants. Most plants need to be pollinated by birds, bees, bats and other animals and insects to reproduce. And scientists say a decline in pollinators may spell trouble for crops.

Honeybees and bumblebees have been infected by the introduction of a parasite, while destruction of cave roosts has led to a decline in the bat population, according to a report released Wednesday by the National Research Council.

Other pollinator declines may also be associated with habitat loss but more research is needed to make sure, according to the council, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences.

I do hope they study this problem. The problem with the bees, I am betting, have been tremendously aggravated by the shipping of bee hives across the country. This clusters hives from any places into new places where parasites and pests can bop back and forth, from one hive to the next and then truckers haul them to new places where there are even more opportunity for the parasites and pests who have spread like wildfire!

I have been farming bees a long time and have lost all too many hives to pests. I used to use pest strips and other things but gave up. One day, a queen and her huge family came flying into the garage and we put them in a hive where they have happily buzzed about for two years now. There are virtually no wild bees left except we still have some bumblebees. This is because I farm organically so the bumblebees, who live in holes in the ground or old dead trees, don't get poisoned.

Neither do my host of toads and small snakes as well as newts and snails. Everyone gets to live. This year, pests have ravaged my place and this is due to global warming and the importation of a bunch of pests with no predators. Grrrr.

Yet honeybees, which pollinate more than 90 commercially grown crops, are one of the most affected pollinators. Indeed, honeybees had to be imported from outside North America last year for the first time since 1922, the report said.

The report urged the Agriculture Department to increase research into pest management and bee breeding practices.

In addition, long-term studies must be done on the populations of wild bee species and some butterflies, bats and hummingbirds, it said.

The butterflies like my farm because I have 'weedy' areas where I mow once in a while so the wild flowers flourish. Green lawns are deserts to butterfies. They need flowers with lots of pollen and many garden flowers are cultured to not have lots of pollen unlike wildflowers that produce tons of pollen, ack-choo.

Bats pollinate flowers, I used to watch them at night in the desert. All animals and plants evolved together. I have many hummingbirds here in summer because I do spoil them rotten, there just isn't enough natural flowers now for their fat little tummies. I wish there were more fields here but they are fast disappearing due to the collapse of dairy farming out here.

This is all a very complex problem. All I know is, industrial farming is toxic.

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Comments

[D.F. FActi]

I talked with the person who is head of the ag committee for the Sierra Club nationally. He said he lives in a conservative part of the country, and when his chapter offered a screening of An Inconvenient Truth, they thought that maybe 75 people would show up. They got 500.

My park fight just got tougher. I am bummed - and mightily pissed off. I name names on my little website. Our government presides over the United Soviet States of America.

[JSmith]

"Everyone thought the ozone depletion problem ended with the Montreal Protocols."

Not everyone - it was pretty clear at the time that CFCs would take a while to dissipate.

Here's an interesting article:

http://www.physorg.com/news78664702.html

Payoff paragraph (last one):

""The Antarctic ozone hole will reach sizes on the order of 8-10 million square miles nearly every year until about 2018 or so," said Newman. "Around 2018, things should slowly start improving, and somewhere between 2020 and 2025, we'll be able to detect that the ozone hole is actually beginning to decrease in size. Eventually the ozone hole will go back to its normal level around 2070 or so."

That pretty much squares with predictions made when CFCs were banned - that those molecules are very stable and would stay around for quite some time.