Lost in the ozone again
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The harbinger of bad news, Private Fraser, reports.
The environmentalist optimists looked at the closing of the ozone holes mainly due to the Montreal agreement and governments legislating on CFCs as a sign that with similar political will regulation, global warming could be ended.
But although it seemed everything was going well, new research has raised a new problem. The atmosphere's ozone is still thinning.
The cause of the decline is unknown but might be the result of global warming.
Another suspect is so-called “very short lived substances” (VSLS) – industrial chemicals that destroy ozone. It was thought they broke down too quickly to reach the stratosphere, but that may need to be re-examined.
Reduced protection from cancer-causing UV rays is especially concerning towards the equator, where sunlight is stronger and billions of people live.
Rather than start a new thread, does this news item suggest that we will see divestment from fossil fuels and leave the oil in the soil that the envirronmentalists so wishBP's annual profits more than doubled in 2017, largely thanks to the global increase in oil prices. The oil giant made $6.2bn ($4.4bn), up from $2.6bn made during the previous 12 months. Chief executive Bob Dudley hailed it "as one of the strongest years in BP's recent history". BP opened seven new oil and gas fields during 2017 and its oil production rose 12% to 247 million barrels of oil per day…The company's ability to generate cash remains prodigious.http://www.bbc.com/news/business-42957685
I hope we do see reduced use of fossil fuels. A case can be made against fossil fuels and for renewable energy and broader sustainability that is completely independent of the global warming thesis. Can capitalism achieve sustainability? I doubt it, but I don't see any difference in the underlying mentality of socialists. You believe in overcoming Nature, when in my view the mindset should be to live within and according to Nature. In short, I reject overcoming externalities in favour of self-overcoming. I suspect your implicit belief in anthropomorphising Nature arises because you know deep down that a Natural Order, even of an anarchistic kind (I believe a true Natural Order would be anarchistic), is inherently a 'fascist' and 'racist' view, as you would have it. Regarding the subject of political action on the environment, the reason unified and (as it seemed at the time) effective action could be taken against CFCs was because the underlying science was widely accepted as sound – the tiny number of skeptics, whether they were right or not, were effectively marginalised – and there must have been economic incentives that allowed profitable action to be taken. The same is not the case for global warming: the underlying science looks unsound, has been shown to be fraudulent in some crucial respects, is not agreed on in all quarters, and is questioned, challenged or even opposed by many able scientists who offer cogent science against it or undermining it; furthermore, in 'developing' countries like China, there are powerful economic interests against taking action.
Quote:It might be argued, too, that international measures have been and can be taken to solve the worst environmental problems, from the banning of the pesticide DDT in the 1970s to the more recent Montreal Protocol that reduced the use of CFCs.However, energy production and global warming are far different, being integrated as closely as they could be in capitalist production in general. Combatting them would not be a mere matter of disrupting the manufacture of aerosols or weedkillers, but of changing something which is part and parcel of the capitalist system and on which all companies depend. No company will take action which endangers their profits, just as no government will pass legislation that puts the capitalists whose interests they represent at a disadvantage. Capitalism is about competition and profit-making, and this is something which can never be done away with as long as it lasts.https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2000s/2008/no-1247-july-2008/capitalism-versus-natureMore specifically on CFCshttps://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/education/depth-articles/environment/profit-enhancing-chemicalsYou may say the science was moreorless agreed but as the article pointed out …trade was the main driver and the fact that the USA had a monopoly on the alternatives
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