/sci/ - Science & Math

What really amazes me is when climate "skeptics" actually start to use ozone depletion as if it proved their hysterical case.

Here you have a natural gas that's occurring in concentrations that are much smaller than that of CO2 (less than 1ppm). Geoscientists - many of whom like Susan Solomon and Paul Crutzen later started forking on CO2 emissions - then identified a potential threat by human emissions of ozone depleting substances. After a lot of push-back by the responsible industries, scientists (i.e. the British Antarctic survey) found the first signs of human impact in the form of a giant ozone hole that formed over much of Antarctica during the austral summers. Governments then got together to form a binding international treaty, the Montreal Protocol, to phase out the relevant substances. The treaty also allowed India and China to phase out their CFC production later than the developed Western countries.

Yet, climate skeptics sometimes cite the fact that we don't have to worry about ozone depletion anymore as evidence that global warming is just another environmentalist fad. I'm sure if they had live in the 70s and 80s, we would have heard from them about how Joseph Farman faked his data, how the ozone hole is completely normal and how the Montreal Protocol is a plot to hamstring Western industry and bring about white genocide or something.