Poste invité par David Middleton
Sacré bleu !
Trump Budget Attacks Montreal Protocol, Reagan’s Crown Jewel
May 24, 2017 David Doniger
The Trump FY18 budget proposal slashes funding to support compliance with the Montreal Protocol, Ronald Reagan’s treaty to save the ozone layer.
The cut—which appears to be on the order of 40 percent—welches on U.S. international commitments and will imperil the global phase-out of ozone-destroying chemicals.
The Montreal Protocol—widely considered the world’s most successful environmental treaty—was negotiated under President Ronald Reagan in 1987 and is his crowning environmental achievement. It has been strengthened repeatedly under both Republican and Democratic presidents.
[…]
This year will mark the 30th anniversary of the Montreal Protocol, the “treaty to save the ozone layer.” This treaty is often cited as the textbook example of a successful environmental treaty which literally saved the planet at a reasonable cost. In many ways it is a perfect model for global efforts to save the planet from climate change:
- Instrumental measurements of the phenomena do not date back far enough to establish natural variability.
- Measurable mitigation success won’t occur for decades.
- Unverifiable claims that things would be worse if we hadn’t acted are treated as evidence that the treaty was successful.
- The threat was hyped.
- The true economic costs have been blurred.
This excerpt from a Smithsonian Magazine article sums it up quite well:
[…]
Rumors of blind sheep—the increased radiation was thought to cause cataracts—and increased skin cancer stoked public fears. “It’s like AIDS from the sky,” a terrified environmentalist told Newsweek’s staff. Fueled in part by fears of the ozone hole worsening, 24 nations signed the Montreal Protocol limiting the use of CFCs in 1987.
These days, scientists understand a lot more about the ozone hole. They know that it’s a seasonal phenomenon that forms during Antarctica’s spring, when weather heats up and reactions between CFCs and ozone increase. As weather cools during Antarctic winter, the hole gradually recovers until next year. And the Antarctic ozone hole isn’t alone. A “mini-hole” was spotted over Tibet in 2003, and in 2005 scientists confirmed thinning over the Arctic so drastic it could be considered a hole.
Each year during ozone hole season, scientists from around the world track the depletion of the ozone above Antarctica using balloons, satellites and computer models. They have found that the ozone hole is actually getting smaller: Scientists estimate that if the Montreal Protocol had never been implemented, the hole would have grown by 40 percent by 2013. Instead, the hole is expected to completely heal by 2050.
Since the hole opens and closes and is subject to annual variances, air flow patterns and other atmospheric dynamics, it can be hard to keep in the public consciousness.
Bryan Johnson is a research chemist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who helps monitor the ozone hole from year to year. He says public concern about the environment has shifted away from the hole to the ways in which carbon dioxide affects the environment. “There are three phases to atmospheric concerns,” he says. “First there was acid rain. Then it was the ozone hole. Now it’s greenhouse gases like CO2.”
It makes sense that as CFCs phase out of the atmosphere—a process that can take 50 to 100 years—concerns about their environmental impacts do, too. But there’s a downside to the hole’s lower profile: The success story could make the public more complacent about other atmospheric emergencies, like climate change.
[…]
Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/ozone-hole-was-super-scary-what-happened-it-180957775/#W5LRedAOT3ymcci1.99Give the gift of Smithsonian magazine for only $12! http://bit.ly/1cGUiGvFollow us: @SmithsonianMag on Twitter
Rumors of blind sheep!!! Drastic measures to eliminate CFC emissions!!! Thirty years on, the ozone hole has not significantly changed… Although it would have been worse without Montreal (wink, wink) and it will heal by 2050 (nudge, nudge). This is from NASA’s Ozone Hole Watch page:
The annual thinning of the ozone layer over Antarctica has occurred during every Antarctic spring in which anyone was actually trying to measure it and continuous records only date back to 1986.
Ozone in the upper atmosphere is created when UV radiation from the Sun strikes oxygen molecules. This leads to the creation of ozone. The ozone layer doesn’t work like sunscreen; it’s more like reactive armor.
Stratospheric ozone is created and destroyed primarily by ultraviolet (UV) radiation. The air in the stratosphere is bombarded continuously with UV radiation from the Sun.When high energy UV rays strike molecules of ordinary oxygen (O2), they split the molecule into two single oxygen atoms.The free oxygen atoms can then combine with oxygen molecules (O2) to form ozone (O3) molecules.
O2 + UV light → 2 O
O + O2 + M → O3 + M (where M indicates conservation of energy and momentum)
The same characteristic of ozone that makes it so valuable – its ability to absorb a range of UV radiation – also causes its destruction. When an ozone molecule is exposed to UV energy it may revert back into O2 and O. During dissociation, the atomic and molecular oxygens gain kinetic energy, which produces heat and causes an increase in atmospheric temperature.
During the Antarctic winter very little sunlight hits the upper atmosphere over Antarctica and the Antarctic polar vortex prevents much in the way of atmospheric mixing between the polar and higher lower latitude air masses. This leads to an annual depletion of Antarctic ozone from mid-August through mid-October (late winter to mid spring). As the Antarctic spring transitions to summer, there is more exposure to sunlight and the ozone layer is replenished.
This process has occurred since the dawn of continuous ozone measurements in 1986. NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory / Global Monitoring Division used to feature a very disingenuous chart on their ozone page.
The image above has been replaced with the following:
The NOAA ESRL/GMD charts imply that the annual ozone hole did not exist during an earlier period of measurements from 1967-1971. This is wrong. The actual data from 1967-1971 clearly show that the annual ozone hole did exist. It may have been less pronounced at higher altitudes and it may have bottomed out in September rather than October; but it did exist. At low altitude (200 MB and 400 MB) it was nearly identical to the present-day…
There are a lot of reasons why earlier measurements differ from the modern data:
- The older data were sparsely sampled (1/4 the number of profiles) and the earlier ozonesonde balloons rarely, if ever, reached higher altitudes (40 MB and 25 MB).
- Natural climate oscillations. 1967-1971 was during a period of global cooling. 1986-1991 was during a period of global warming.
- Fluctuations in the polar vortex. It has been demonstrated that fluctuations in the polar vortex can influence Antarctic ozone observations (Hassler et al. 2010).
- Chlorofluorocarbons (CFC’s). It is possible that CFC’s did exaggerate the Antarctic ozone hole. However, the data clearly show that CFC’s did not create it.
Anthropogenic CFC emissions may very well have contributed to the area and depth of the annual Antarctic ozone hole. Reducing CFC emissions was a good thing. However, there clearly is no evidence that this was a crisis which required immediate, drastic, global action. CFC’s could have easily been replaced gradually with substances less hostile to the stratospheric ozone layer. The panic was so severe, that no cost analysis was even required for the Montreal Protocol.
No estimate of the global cost of replacing CFC-based technology has been made, but the Environmental Protection Agency estimated that the cost in the United States alone would be some $3 billion, mostly for replacing equipment made obsolete or unusable by the ban.
Unsurprisingly, the Competitive Enterprise Institute estimated that the cost in the United States would be more than ten-times the EPA estimate.
The CFC phaseout may well be the single most expensive environmental measure taken to date. During the policy debate, the costs were underemphasized to the point that they never became an important factor. The impact on consumers was scarcely considered. It may be too late to reverse course on the CFC phaseout, but it can serve as a lesson for the future.
I have not been able to find any recent estimates of the costs imposed on the U.S. economy by the Montreal Protocol. However, I know the costs were not insignificant and all of the benefits are either: 1) model-based assumptions and/or 2) 50 years in the future.
The ozone hole panic cost many people a lot of money. Refrigerating fluids, particularly in automobile air conditioners, had to be replaced. If you were the owner of a 1980’s motor vehicle or in need of air conditioner repairs in the 1990’s, you may as well have traded your vehicle in; because the cost of repairs became almost prohibitive due to new environmental regulations related to CFC’s (I owned a 1983 Chevy Camaro back then). If your home HVAC system was manufactured before the CFC ban, you faced a similar dilemma. The elimination of CFC’s even drove up the cost of asthma breathalyzers inhalers. The elimination of CFC’s may have evened worsened AGW!
The economic cost of this particular chapter of environmental junk science was minuscule in comparison to that of the current environmental swindle (anthropogenic global warming)… But this should serve as a clear reminder that citizen scientists have a duty to always check the work of government and academic scientists when they start Chicken Littling about the latest environmental crisis du jour.
References:
[1] Data Visualization >> South Pole Ozone Hole >> South Pole Total Column Ozone
[2] Hassler, B., G. E. Bodeker, S. Solomon, and P. J. Young. 2011. Changes in the polar vortex: Effects on Antarctic total ozone observations at various stations. GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 38, L01805, doi:10.1029/2010GL045542
[3] Oltmans, S. J., Hofmann, D. J., Komhyr, W. D., Lathrop, J. A. 1994. Ozone vertical profile changes over South Pole. NASA. Goddard Space Flight Center, Ozone in the Troposphere and Stratosphere, Part 2, p 578-581
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Montreal was the blueprint for Kyoto, Paris, etc, etc. Basically place all or most of the burden on the USA because we are the biggest economy. Liberals, here and abroad, believe that is only fair since they truly believe we became wealthy by exploiting all other nations. The whole ozone fiasco and media furor was also a blueprint for AGW religion. Yes, there are PR professionals that have studied both and how to feed the public. One a different note: Once upon a time when my staff measured something, collected data, they had never measured before and decided somehow “it” was the cause of a problem I would ask them how do we know before people traveled to the Antarctica and we put satellites in orbit that there were not holes in the ozone layer? Some would all look around the room bewildered. Some would get angry because “you are changing the subject.” The smarter and wiser ones would say “we didn’t know.” If we never measured it before then it is unknowable. We might develop methods to make it at least more knowable but if we didn’t measure it in the past we cannot know. Proxy data is OK but again it is difficult to impossible to know cause and effect in the past.
Ed,
I totally agree with you. The same problem occurs in medicine. We have fabulous new technological tools that can detect physical and chemical properties of our bodies that could never previously be observed. It is curious how many of these new features are deemed to be pathologies in need of expensive drug therapies. Biology not medicine should guide our understanding of heath and biology shows us how ignorant we actually are.
When tallying up the costs, don’t forget its not just Freon that got banned. TriChlorEthane was widely used in the electronics industry as a circuit board cleaner. After the soldering operation, boards were run thru the TriChlor tank and came out spotless. After TriChlor was banned by Montreal, we had to switch to water based cleaning. This added a few steps to the manufacturing process, since not all parts could be washed, so had to be installed post assembly and wash, and then cleaned with an alchohol scrub. There were a couple of years of learning to do this correctly where a huge amount of scrap was created. Corrison problems from the H20 would show up months after shipping product. There were also a lot of parts that had to be changed since they could not be washed in water. This led to perfectly working boards being re-designed and inventory being scrapped. I would be very suprised if this did not cost the industry billions of dollars, and it continues to add to the cost to this day, since it requires a more expensive manufcturing process.
Also, Kodak used to make a very effective film cleaner based on TriChlor which is unavailable today. There is a substitute available, but it costs much more than the Kodak cleaner did.
Used Triclo hot bath for cleaning mechanical parts for Gardena in Germany in the 80’s . No protection at all for “die Gastarbeitern”, so I used to hold my breathe and working 1 min in , on min out.
The ozone layer is self-healing. There was never any danger.
The chemical reactions that form the ozone layer have a positive pressure coefficient.
http://acmg.seas.harvard.edu/people/faculty/djj/book/bookchap10.html
As long as molecular oxygen exists in the atmosphere of Earth, ozone will form from solar UV.
The atmosphere is of biological origin. See atmospheric evolution.
Huge hole on Uranus.
http://a2.att.hudong.com/01/46/20300000241358132132464569431.jpg
My Brother, Dr. Dale Hugoson, reduced the CFC emissions by the greatest amount of anyone, except those that replaced CFCs in Styrofoam cups, with CO2. He worked EHS for Motorola in the ’90s. By 1992 they had STOPPED using CFC’s (liquid, which evaporated right after usage) to remove the left over resins on the wave soldered circuit boards, corporate wise. THIS WAS THOUSANDS OF TONS…combine that with ALL such operations being replaced with TURPINES, across the world, the CFC emissions went to a FRACTION.
http://img.clipartall.com/yay-cathay-pacific-clipart-yay-clipart-500_320.jpg
It still had no effect on the ozone hole.
Another thing that was destroying ozone in 1991-1994 was the SO2 from Mt Pinatubo. That stopped afterwards too.
Did the temperature of the stratosphere respond the the laudable efforts of Motorola?
I am surprised that you can do an Ozone hole story without once mentioning chlorine. The process by which Ozone was believed to be depleted was that chlorofluorocarbons (CFC’s) did not degrade in the low atmosphere at all so they became a vehicle to introduce chorine to the stratosphere with the UV breakdown of CFC’s at very high altitudes. The chlorine radicals from the decomposition of the CFC’s provided a much faster path for decomposition of ozone.
Its been a long time since I looked at this but I also don’t know how long the normal residence time is for ozone in the stratosphere but it is dynamic and dependent upon sunlight. So there should be no ozone over the poles during winter but it should reform in the spring when the polar atmosphere is out of the earth’s shadow. If there is a lot of chorine sources over the poles, it can delay the ozone layer formation in the spring. The question is what is the source of the chlorine and why does a hole form mostly over Antarctica. The latter question is likely answered by the stability of the polar vortex in the southern hemisphere vs. the northern one but you have to assume that the chorine sources that build in the atmosphere are from CFC’s. The fact that Antarctica is surrounded by ocean and winds circling the poles likely has a lot of ice crystals entrained, there is obviously a natural source of chlorine at these latitudes that needs to be accounted for. Has anyone tried to do sort out the CFC vs. the natural portion of chlorine at these latitudes?
FFS! The Smithsonian has made a freudian mistake due to their dogmatic pejoration of anything “warm” and angelizing anything “cold” as it relates to Earth science. The ozone hole forms at the beginning of spring because of COLD temperatures which make PSCs possible that are still extant as sunlight returns, and then disappears when the atmosphere becomes too warm for PSCs. The cult has truly diminished science to a state where anything warm must be bad and anything cold is good. The cult is basically the dark side.
They use the statements: ” solar uv both creates and destroys ozone”.
I defy anyone to find a graphical analysis showing the relationship between solar uv and ozone creation!;
also, find a graphical analysis of the relationship of solar uv and the destruction of ozone!
I’m stating that, if the relationship exist, they are not published. They chemical analysis is well stated. BUT, if Solar uv is, say, 200 sfu at Penticton, what is the amount of ozone created?
Is this just like the Climate Change scientific junk?
The equations balance and the Chapman Reactions explain the distribution of stratospheric ozone:
https://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/ozone/additional/science-focus/about-ozone/ozone_cycle.shtml
https://www.ucar.edu/communications/gcip/m1sod/m1pdfc2.pdf
http://www.cchem.berkeley.edu/molsim/teaching/fall2008/ozone/Ozone%20website_files/Page603.htm
Thanks, useful stuff.
Looking at these transformations, I would guess that this is saying oxygen absorbs the incoming UV and converts it into kinetic energy instead of allowing it to pass through? That’s what it looks like to me, at least, but I am not a chemist. If UV is changing the O2 to 2 O, then this is absorbing the UV energy. When the UV finds O3 and splits it to O2 and O, then this, too, absorbs UV energy. So either way, whether you destroy O3 with a compound or not, incoming UV will be absorbed by Oxygen. How is this something that can get out of balance in the first place, unless you change the amount of UV? What am I missing?
And meanwhile the people who drive the economy think somewhat differently.
https://thinkprogress.org/kentucky-coal-mine-solar-farm-a5d10d6526bb
John Podesta (Think Progress) drives the economy?
I can’t find any information about a coal company called “Berkeley Energy Group.” Their partner EDF Renewable Energy seems to be in the business of harvesting taxpayer-funded subsidies.
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/kentucky/articles/2017-04-18/what-to-do-with-a-former-coal-mine-make-it-a-solar-farm
The Berkeley Energy Group executive doesn’t even know what the capacity will be or how much it will cost.
Drive the economy? That’s hilarious! Virtually all growth for the past 8 years has been produced from borrowed and or printed money. Hey Gareth! How much do you need to borrow to get completely out of debt!
Fungi are thought to produce about 160,000 tons of chloromethane annually.
There is a lot we do not know about ozone. It is reputed to be the cause of the lapse rate inversion in the stratosphere, but the stratosphere continues to warm well above the altitudes of high ozone concentration.
The initial stalling of the lapse rate may actually be due to CO2.
Take on geoengineering please.
Too easy.
Great post, and good discussion. Next stop, acid rain?
Rain is always acid due to CO2 dissolution, but the “acid rain” of the 70s was real and caused by SO2 from burning coal. Developed countries now install scrubbers to prevent this. China not so much on a lot of their older plant.
It was a regional/local problem that was easy to fix, before the EPA got involved.
Back when acid rain was the all the rage, I remember reading a geoengineering-type proposal to dump lime sludge into streams in the Northeast of the US to neutralize it.
So many environmental scams, so little time.
A perfect treaty according to the outgoing Kofi Annan , patting himself on the back and trying to use it justification for the war on “carbon” ( which of course means life ).
https://climategrog.wordpress.com/uah_tls_365d/
It was ozone depletion which was behind most of the stratospheric cooling which occurred at the end of the last century. But this was not a steady slide, it was two step changes which were the result of the two major stratospheric eruptions.
This was little or nothing to do with CFCs , the UN bogeyman of the day. This conclusion is only reached by drawing a straight line through the data and ignore the real form and information which it contains.
Since there have been no major volcanic eruptions since ozone has flattened out and slightly recovered. This is being falsely claimed as massively successful Montreal Protocol because the initial cause was falsely attributed.
The stratospheric cooling coincides with the late 20th c. warming in the troposphere : the drop in ozone was letting more sunlight into the lower climate system.
Both Paris and Montreal were false solutions for incorrectly attributed problems.
Pretty good correlation:
?w=680
So what does a 40 percent budget reduction in compliance mean? Black market CFCs are going to take off in the US? Or just smaller payments to other countries to encourage them to comply?
The NRDC article is incorrect on HCFCs.
HCFCs were introduced as replacements for CFCs. CFCs have large OZONE DEPLETING POTENTIALS, HCFCs do not.
However, HCFCs have large WARMING POTENTIALS, hence the continued negotiations of also phasing out of HCFCs for other constituents that neither have ozone depleting potentials nor large warming potentials. And plenty of such alternatives have been developed over the years. In that sense, replacing HCFCs is not a ‘biggie’.
This is what this is all about – the warming effect of HCFCs and whether they should be phased out. It is NOT about ozone depletion. NRDC got it completely wrong by suggesting that this is about the ozone layer. But hey, never waste a good story – even is it is not true.
http://www.un.org/en/events/ozoneday/substances.shtml
The replacement for HCFCs in automobiles is called 1234YF, it costs over 1000 dollars for 10 pounds. Mercedes says it is not safe and are refusing to use it, they are developing a CO2 based system. If you buy a new car there is a decent chance that it is using 1234YF.
I hope I’m not repeating anyone – I don’t have time to read all the comments right now. But you missed the biggest cost of all: the catalytic converter. Cost is probably in the trillions with the added irony of tremendous toxicity released by mining for all the platinum.
Off- piste –
Imagine the hell if this was used in Fracking-
“Furthermore, the photovoltaic industry is one of the fastest growing emitters of hexafluoroethane (C2F6), nitrogen trifluoride (NF3), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), three greenhouse gasses that have a global warming potential 10,000 to 24,000 times higher than CO2 according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (The industry uses these gasses for cleaning sensitive manufacturing equipment.) In 2011, the CEO of Praxair, a major supplier of industrial gasses, opened the company’s annual report with a letter that highlighted the photovoltaic industry as one of its most impressive growth sectors”
Why DO the French say “Holy blue!” anyway?
It’s an archaic rhyming slang for sacre dieu which was considered taking the name of god in vain. It’s like saying “gosh” or “darn”.
WUWT has always been a great place to learn about climate science, but now it is also a great place to learn about foreign expressions!
Thanks! I never knew that.
I read in a book that because of ozone depletion that we got warming since the two coincide with each other each time there was a warming trend. If this is true then Trump should leave the Protocol alone. The book is called: In Praise of Carbon: How We’ve Been Misled Into Believing that Carbon Dioxide Causes Climate Change by David Bennett Laing
This is a good, clear article. It certainly resolves some very germane questions concerning CFC’s, the ban, and the costs.
I have suggestions for future articles, with similar attention to actual science and the true costs of doing unscientific things to address nonexistent problems.
Number one: Ethanol from corn produces lower fuel efficiency in cars and other internal combustion engines. Can we get rid of it, please?
Number two: Whirly-swirly light bulbs that are far more expensive than incandescents, don’t last all that much longer, and are apparently a deadly chemical hazard if they break. Get rid of them, please.
Number three: Replacing paper with internet transactions: Of all commodities on earth, paper is clearly one of the cheapest and most easily renewable or recyclable; and the internet adds greatly to people’s risks.
Was it George Carlin or P.J.O’Rourke who said the only thing you need to know about Climate Change ( and ozone depletion?) is there is nothing we can do about it.
Or did I just make that up? I’m not sure.
David
Interesting and timely main post as usual from yourself. The ozone hole season is near.
I note there is no real comment above about what the possible alternatives are as to what is causing, or is responsible for the seasonal reduction in ozone during the months of August through to December.above Antarctica. Or for the months preceeding Antarctic spring where values go below the magic 220DU value.
All I see is discussion about chemical destrution. All ozone reduction appears to be related to chemical destruction, without any real evidence.
What do others think is occuring above Antarctica ???
Winter.
Looks like the Pied Piper is leading the rats to the sea, i.e. UN “Special Envoy for Cities and Climate Change” is not only paying the UN Green Climate Fund for his “Specialness” (Church Lady says, “Well Isn’t That Special!”) and now is leading the “Rats” as in 5-particular States Governors and Sanctuary Cities to the sea, Mr. Michael Rubens Bloomberg. Au revoir duckies. Ha ha
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQW_4kowyZ4
I only skimmed the comments, so forgive me if this has been addressed, but:
Why are we still spending money on the Montreal Protocol? Where is that money going?
I am always perplexed how heavier than air molecules produced in the northern hemisphere ended up high in the stratosphere above the south pole.
You call that tiny seasonal fluctuation a hole? Check this out.
http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/cassini-3.jpg
Saturn’s North pole. Now that’s a hole.