ozone layer :: essays papers

ozone layer abstract of Learning of the Ozone ExperienceOn the 16th of September 1987, negotiators meeting in Montreal finalized a landmark in inter content environmental diplomacy the Montreal communications protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer. The Successful Conclusion of the negotiations in Montreal was widely hailed at the time as a historic even. As the protocol was the intimately ambitious attempt ever to combat environmental degradation on a planetary scale. In the 10 years since that meeting in Montreal, the accord has set in motion myriad actions by national governments, international organizations, scientists, private enterprises, and individual consumers.The results are clear by 1995, global production of the most significant ozone-depleting substance (ODS) the chlorine, containing chlorofluorocarbon (CFCs) was down 76 percent from its peak in 1988. But three is a red-blooded lag between the time when emissions begin to decline and the point at whic h the ozone layer begins to recover, as it takes years for CFCs and other ozone-depleting compounds to reach the stratosphere, and some depart for centuries once there. Yet it is clear that the Montreal Protocol ushered in a in the altogether era of environmental diplomacy. Although in some ways the ozone story is an inspiration, in other respects it is a cautionary tale.Since its beginning, the ozone experience has been characterized by a path breaking partnership between scientist and international policymakers. When CFCs were invented in the late twenties, they were viewed as wonder chemicals nontoxic, nonflammable, non-corrosive, and stable. The seeds of the Montreal Protocol were sown in 1974, when apothecary Mario Molina and Sherwood Rowland at the University of California at Irvine published a landmark hold in Nature. It hypothesized that the stability CFCs, while an asset for industrial applications, might recruit deadly for the ozone layer.Yet the scientific proces s was initially slow to restitution clear answers. Indeed, models in the early eighties suggested that CFCs would cause less grueling ozone depletion than Molina and Rowland had initially hypothesized. Fortunately, the scientific collaboration initiated years earlier began to bear fruit. devil months after the Vienna agreement was reached, a scientific bombshell provided a much-needed jolt to protocol negotiations just then getting under way. The findings took the knowledge base by surprise no such precipitous decline had been predicted by any atmosphere models. Ten years after the historic Montreal sign ceremony, the response to the protocol around the world has been substantial indeed.