🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <38kpe8$56r@garuda.csulb.edu>, William Lane <wlane@csulb.edu> wrote:
|
|	Your CFC "insight" needs some serious rethink. There is a chemical 
|reaction which depletes O3 thru it's reaction w/CFC's.

[reaction snipped]

|	Ozone is decomposed to diatomic oxygen. Isaac Asimov, what the hell 
|kind of authority is he? I'm not either, but the above reaction is fact as are 
|the various studies done by such nobodies as NASA. 

NASA has become a very political body, of late, competing with other more
publicly-valued federal government programs for shrinking funds.  They have
a motive for making pronoucements which capture sensational public notice.

Did you know that NASA's most stunning annoucement was that there is an
ozone-hole over the NORTH pole, not the south pole?  Turns out they were
wrong.

|24 nations signed a pledge
|in 1987 to freeze CFC production at 1986 levels and cut production 50% by
|1999. I guess all those nations must have been responding to total BS, eh?

Could be.  I can think of plenty of other BS to which politicians all 
over the world suscribe.

|Maybe YOU should study some chemistry. The great thing 'bout the CFC problem
|is, that the second part of the intermediate reaction releases Cl which can
|now react w/more O3. As far as the CFC issue goes, YOU ARE WRONG!
|				-BIll Lane, w/some help from Dr. Dennis Anjo,
|				phd. analytic chemistry

In order to prove an effect such as the CFC-ozone connection, 
there must not only be the very real chemical reaction you state, but 
also some mechanism for getting it into the upper atmosphere.  Chemists 
can quite effectively prove that the reaction I snipped above can 
indeed cause a catalytic reaction between O3 and elemental chlorine,
which is created when UV reacts with otherwise-unreactive CFCs, but so 
far meteoroligists (including NASA) have not been able to demonstrate the 
transport mechanism, nor otherwise show an *actual* effect that is 
"above the noise".   

Turns out that the ozone layer is grossly affected by many factors, 
including seasonal variation, sunspot activity, lower-atmosphere storm 
activity, volcanic activity, and many unknown factors.  The relatively-
constant assumed effect of human CFCs on the layer is very difficult to 
separate from these much more distinct variations.  There may be an 
decrease in the average depth of the layer, OR it could just be a natural 
variation with a long periodicity, having nothing to do with CFCs.  
(I use "periodicity" imprecisely, since the variation is not actually 
periodic for most effects).  That's a big "OR" up there, and since we
just haven't been measuring the layer for very long, there's no
rational way to draw a conclusion.

OTOH, if we could somehow show that fly-fishing had a mechanism by which 
it could increase the intensity of earthquakes, wisdom would dictate that 
we limit our fly-fishing while we investigate further.  By the same token,
if we are doing something that demonstrably *could* hurt the ozone layer 
through chemical means, in a very catastrophic way, then I think it's 
important that we look for alternatives with some urgency, *just in case* 
our actions turn out for the worst, and keep investigating.

On the third hand, just to really confound the issue, did you know that 
the patent on Freon 12 just expired, and the "green" replacement to that 
CFC is patented and sold by the very same company?  Junk-food for thought.

Dave Svoboda (svoboda@ranger.rtsg.mot.com)  | I think God's got a sick
90 Concours 1000 (Mmmmmmmmmm!)              | sense of humor, and when
84 RZ 350 (Ring Ding) (Woops!)              | I die, I expect to find
78 CB400T Hawk (Baby Honda)                 | Him laughing...
83 IT 490 (The Beast)                       |
AMA 583905  DoD #0330  COG 939  (Chicago)   |         - Depeche Mode