4@ - Sunday, April 28, 1991 - North Shore News

Losing ozone through collective insanity

OF ALL the problems, plagues and paradoxes facing the
world today, the paramount one has to be the collapse of

the ozone shield.

Yet when a NASA satellite
beamed back the bad news recent-
ly that the shield was thinning at
twice the rate scientists expected,
the story was buried in the inside
pages of most newspapers and
barely got a mention on radio and

This in incredible.

The ozone shield, in case there
is anybody left who doesn’t know,
is the thin bubble of molecules
that surrounds the Earth, screen-
ing out just enough of the deadly
ultraviolet rays from the sun to
make life possible.

Without that shield, this planet
would be little more than a ball of
rock and lava orbiting in space.

For 20 years, the layer has been
decaying. The first ozone ‘thole’*
opened over the Antarctic then —
ironically, just a year after the
celebration of the first Earth Day.

Properly speaking, the ‘‘hole’’
is more like a lens opening, letting
in direct solar radiation. Another,
perhaps more accurate descrip-
tion, would be to think of the
hole as a vortex.

Unlike a mere wound or tear in
the ozone bubble, it creates a kind
of molecular suction pump, pull-
ing in ozone molecules from the
rest of the bubble to fill in the
hole itself.

Inevitably, this makes the bub-
ble thinner everywhere.

The result for Canadians is that
we are exposed io 8% more UV
radiation now than we were i0
years ago. According to figures
teleased last year, the amount of
ozone in the atmosphere over the
Northern Hemisphere has
decreased by 4%.

For every decrease of 1% in the
ozone shield, there is a 2% in-
crease in the amount of UV radia-
tion reaching our cells.

4

@

Magnussen Rec Centre.”

Alex and Lillian Fletcher

STRICTLY PERSONAL

By now, that percentage will
have increased by God knows how
much.

The single, unarguable cause of
this disaster is the manufacture
and release of chlorofiuorocar-
bons.

By the time it reaches the upper
atmosphere, a single CFC
molecule is like a steel ball bang-
ing around a billiard table full of
eggs, smashing tens of thousands
of “‘soft’? ozone molecules before
it is finally spent.

It is not just you, me, our kids
and grandkids whose health is be-
ing and will continue to be af-
fected for all our lives. The radia-
tion from the sun strikes at every
form of life right down to the mi-
croscopic phytoplankton organ-
isms found at the very bottom of
the food chain.

Already, there has been a
massive die-off of frogs around
the entire planet. These creatures
are viewed by scientists as an
ecological indicator species, not
unlike the canaries miners used to

Joyce Picketts

take down into the mine shafts
with them.

The disappearance of the frogs,
which are especially sensitive to
UV rays, is a warning to our
species that we would be insane to
ignore.

Unfortunately, | think we are
insane. Maybe not individually,
but collectively for sure. In the
face of a threat as monumental as
the destruction of the ozone
shield, upon which all life
ultimately depends for survival,
we are simply going about our
business as usual.

Instead of being arrested or at
the very least shut down,
chloroftuorocarbon manufacturers
like Du Pont are allowed to set
the agenda for a ‘‘controlled
phase-out” of CFCs. And gov-
ernments, including our own, go
along with it.

Newspapers, radio and TV treat
the subject as though it was a
problem already solved by the
signing of the Montreal Protocol
in 1987.

In fact, rather than solving the
problem, the Protocol has become
a vehicle for stonewalling, delay-
ing and getting away with what
will someday (if there’s anybody
left) be viee 2d as the most appall-
ing crime ¢ rpetrated in the histo-
ry of the planet.

Under the terms of the 1990
draft of the Protocol, CFC pro-
duction will in fact be allowed to
rise by 50% compared with
the amount that has been released
into the atmosphere already.

This amounts to a licence for
mass destruction of lifeona
mind-boggling scale.

Worst of all, companies and
countries that deplete the ozone
layer are permitted to do so under
a screen of secrecy, with national
export data and individual manu-
facturers’ statistics being withheld
from the public.

Even the claims that reductions

“Last year Lillian and I were “Right now, I'm in an apart- “We're very impressed
married and we think Cedar ment with younger people with Buron. They're taking
Village will be an ideal location —_ and we just don’t share the the time to do things right
for our new home — close to same interests. At Cedar and are building a quality
friends and relatives and to Village, I'll be among active far above what we've seen
the activities of the Karen and compatible neighbours.” _ before.”

Roy and Elsie Barnett

are slowly being made cannot be
verified.

In the meantime, the media
continues fo treat the ozone
destruction story as little more
than a scientific curiosity. The big
headlines go to the utterly insig-
nificant events like the fall of Bill
Vander Zalm, the perils of Brian
Mulroney, or even the biologically
indifferent matter of whether
Quebec separates from Canada.

While it is easy and logical to

AFTER HOURS
Criminal Matters Only
926-3181

ARDAGH HUNTER TURNER

Barristers & Solicitors

IMPAIRED DRIVING
[p86-4366]

300-1401 LONSDALE, NORTH VANCOUVER, B.C.

blame CFC industry profiteers,
indifferent or stupid politicians
and even insufficiently militant
environmentalists for failing to
rally to the defence of the ozone
shield, the media ought to be
blamed every bit as much for
myopia, obsession with petty
details, and a stunning
obliviousness to the dimensions of
the disaster unfolding directly
above our heads.

FAX
986-9286

. .
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