
The ozone layer is healing - subbu88
https://tecake.in/stunning-nasa-video-shows-ozone-layer-healing-due-human-efforts
======
juliangamble
> The lead author of the study, Susan Strahan, an atmospheric scientist
> belonging to NASA’s GSFC (Goddard Space Flight Center) in Greenbelt,
> Maryland explained that it can be clearly observed that the chlorine level
> near the ozone layer is coming down while reducing the amount of depletion
> in the ozone.

Quibble: Is it actually 'healing' if the depletion rate is decreasing? The
hole in the ozone is still getting bigger. It's just getting bigger at a
slower rate. (I realise that this is the title the article uses - but I
believe it is incorrect).

(This is a particular issue in Australia - we have increased occurrence of
skin cancer due to this.)

~~~
toomanybeersies
I think that the article is possibly just poorly written.

According to Wikipedia, the ozone levels stabilised in the 90's, and started
to recover in the 00's:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ozone_hole_recovery.jpg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ozone_hole_recovery.jpg)

I'm led to believe that the ozone layer depletes and regenerates in cycles,
and what the article is highlighting is that the amount that is depleted in a
depletion cycle is lower.

~~~
WillReplyfFood
Ozone is created by extreme events during lightningstrikes and reduced by it
reacting/beeing bound otherwise. So yes, there is a natural cycle, with slight
variances around the norm.

I cant wait to see my bosses eyes- when i expand this theory of
irresponsibility for everything upon bugs. There is a natural occurance rate
of bugs and a natural error rate in software. To try and meddle with it- or to
blame developers for it, is just plain wrong and nearly as insane as
environmentalism.

Sometimes in the morning, you can smell it in the air- the distinct taste of
lazy.

~~~
bluejekyll
I disagree with this analogy. As software engineers become more experienced,
they start avoiding patterns or obviously flawed software constructs which
they recognize as potentially creating bugs in the future.

Things like marking fields of objects final/const, requiring immutability of
objects, reduce bugs interior to objects. Immutable objects also reduce
multithreading issues. That’s one pattern that can be used to reduce common
bugs.

Nature doesn’t do this. For example: Southern California has a fire season
(natural) followed by a wet season (natural) which tends to cause sever
mudlides. These natural processes never learn from experience that large fires
before the rain is more destructive (I know I’m stretching here and fires
would be smaller if we didn’t put down the small ones initially).

My point is that humans, software engineers included, learn from past
mistakes. Ideally we improve from those, not just throw our hands up and say
bugs are a “natural” result of the software development process. Software will
always have bugs, but ideally you as an engineer never make the same one twice
(with the exception of off by one errors ;)

------
scadge
I hate this magazine narrative style, where each consecutive paragraph or two
tell totally the same but in different words and referring to another Mr. or
Ms. Scientist. The whole article could easily be 10 times shorter.

But the news is good.

------
oblio
We should be thankful there's no big CFC lobby, I guess? :)

~~~
adrianN
We should be thankful to the chemists that came up with substitute
refrigerants that break down in the lower atmosphere and don't kill the ozone
layer. Just like the discovery of oil saved the whales.

~~~
dalbasal
This. What got us (is getting us) out of the ozone mess (the climate change of
my childhood) was technology and alternatives. No one had to revert to an
icebox, or take any steps back in terms of what they consume.

In policy terms, it was (mostly) relatively simple stuff. It was mostly bans,
not theoretically sophisticated policy of taxes, subsidies, traceable credits
and such. If I was king of the world, I’d think of carbon a similar way. Try
to gradually ban carbon fuels, as soon as viable alternatives make this
feasible. It seems we are nearing that stage for both electricity grids and
cars. Forget about sophisticated economic interventions (I’m dubious of the
economics of these anyway). Just change to an apples-to-apples alternative
asap, with a focus on the ‘p.’

~~~
azernik
We did have to take steps back; the new refrigerants were generally more
expensive and less efficient, while the ban made old equipment impossible to
legally service (no replacement CFC!).

It's just that the loss in consumption was small enough to not matter to the
general public, because their use was not a super large fraction of the
economy.

With something as essential as fossil fuels, you have to take a more gradual
approach, and market-based economic tweaks are the best way to make those
changes in the least costly sectors first.

~~~
dalbasal
I agree that carbon is bigger, riskier, etc. But, in the early 90s, I was
being educated at primary school to fight deodorant and watching educational
videos about teenagers wearing radiation suits. All that raised awareness, but
didn’t fix anything directly. Bans did, and they were relatively painless
(compared to industry predictions) because viable alternatives existed. The
effects were barely felt outside of a few industries, though I concede that
some fridges had to retire early. But people mostly just continued as usual,
and we don't need to make those videos any more.

It feels analogous (not a perfect analogy, obviously) to now.

We have huge campaigns promoting “consumer action” like better insulation,
energy moderation & such. At the political/lobby/policy level, we have
complicated solutions based on impossibly complex models of the world. They
model human behaviour like fuel demand given some portfolio of
tax/credit/cap/whatnot interventions (econometrics, basically), including the
invention of new technologies. That model feeds into a climate model. It’s all
tied together with a pathological ribbon of international politics. All along
the way, all sorts of additional interest come into play from industry lobby
to municipal transport plans to pet projects.

"Market based tweaks" are based on so many assumptions, many of them motivated
in all sorts of unhelpful ways. As I hinted above, I don't buy the economics
of price-based interventions at all, personally. Regardless, it feels to
complicated to be a good idea.

I’m basically saying that I think simpler is better. We now have increasingly
viable alternatives to carbon grid power and ICE engines. Put together a
phase-out plan, based on bans. Subsidize the most severe (or politically
connected) end of the spectrum. Tax, regulate or whatnot around the edges.

The important part of the “analogy” (IMO) is this: viable alternative=>ban. If
alternatives exist, bans can work relatively quickly, painlessly, and with
less room for "corruption" of various sorts (remember ethanol?).

~~~
azernik
I agree that public education campaigns are not a solution; but you expressed
a lot of skepticism about also the _economic_ interventions short of a total
ban on carbon-emitting fuels. Before a ban becomes practical, other methods
must be used to reduce usage, and economic interventions like taxes,
alternative energy incentives, and properly-designed carbon markets have
proven effective (though that last seems pretty hard to get right).

~~~
dalbasal
I guess we disagree on how well taxes, incentives, and carbon markets have
done. II think that most of the wins we got have come from more direct
interventions like building public transport (NY & Amsterdam vs Houston or
Montreal) and replacing carbon based grid power.

..the skepticism... Basically, the majority of “interventions” are based on
price. Higher prices, lower consumption. That’s the economics assumption in a
nutshell. The reason _I_ think that this is flawed is “ _demand elasticity_.”
We know fuel demand to be “inelastic” meaning that for any change in price,
consumption will change very little. To cut consumption by 25-50%, prices will
need to increase a lot, more than feasible in a normal political situation.
Fuel consumption is inelastic in the medium-long term, very inelastic in the
short term.

Fuel is often used as a literal textbook example (along with cocaine) for this
concept.

The only way to change the elasticity is alternatives. The economics of
encouraging the invention of alternatives is.. well.. “theory” in the
pedestrian sense of the word. Academic ideas that are debated without much
resolution. This part is not like the first part (elasticity), which is well
understood. So, these interventions might work for creating alternatives, but
I dunno.

In any case, it looks like alternatives have appeared (regardless of how we
think they got here). So, lets cut the BS, trust ourselves to assess the
viability of these alternatives , pick winners and go for a 10-20 year phase
out culminating in a near total ban.

Conceptually, I’m arguing against the idea the economics-based policies should
be abstract, general policies that could apply to carbon, sugar, makeup or
anything. I’m saying look at this specific market. Picking winners in 2018 is
a lot less risky than picking winners in 2008, when EVs or mostly solar grids
were still unproven. If we determine that alternatives are viable (I think we
are just getting there now) then pull the trigger, ban carbon fuel.

~~~
azernik
Changes to fuel costs aren't totally inelastic. The problem for altering
consumer behavior is:

1\. The decisions that change fuel consumption - what car to buy and where to
live/work - are taken infrequently, and so make feedback slow.

2\. People are bad at weighing costs that don't show up in the sticker price.
This is addressable and addressed through incentives applied at the time of
purchasing _a car_ rather than purchasing _fuel_.

Issue 1 also applies to business users (automotive and industrial alike), and
is inherent to any big infrastructure transition - even with a ban, you'd
still have this long lead time.

Issue 2 is solvable on the consumer side with proper structuring of
incentives. Both the American subsidies for electrics and the European
punitive taxes on gasoline cars seem effective at changing public behavior,
and have made EVs competitive earlier than they otherwise would have been
(hence spurring a lot of private R&D money that would not have flowed
otherwise).

~~~
dalbasal
1\. (fuel cost) is the purer version of the carbon tax. In theory (the one
behind most of these policies that I'm objecting to), this should be
sufficient.

As you say, it's slow. I'd also say that it's no good (due to inelasticity)
even if we were willing to wait. Say you could turn the American consumer into
a Belgian one in 10 years by _doubling_ petrol prices. They'd still drive a
bit more due to cities' structure and the country's size, but in little euro
hatchbacks they'd save 25% of the fuel/carbon.

Maybe I'm exaggerating. Maybe we could cut 30% with a 75% price increase.
Either way, that's a lot of pain for very moderate long term gain. Most hard
hit would be poorer people who can't afford to "upgrade" their car.

I agree on the second point. This is a better policy.

Unfortunately, the European punitive taxes are mostly not upfront or even new
car specific. This puts most of the burden on old car drivers, with most of
the "elasticity" going towards EOLing cars younger and upgrading to newer ICE
cars tailored to this new tax regime. Its a slow, inefficient and regressive,
but still preferable to fuel/carbon taxes.

Simpler would be better. €X upfront subsidy or tax on EVs or ICEs. More
emphasis on EVs than efficient ICEs as ICE efficiency is not really en route
to where we want to go, 0 emissions. Less economic/policy sophistication.
Intervene at the time decisions are made (like you say). Build towards a ban.

~~~
azernik
The policies you're advocating for exist already.

European and Europeanized-country car taxes I know of (Danish, Israeli) do
indeed apply at time of purchase - _and_ are altered based on vehicle type.
For example, Israeli car purchase taxes are 83% plus VAT, but only 30% for
emissions-free vehicles; Denmark, meanwhile, has car registration taxes set at
around 100% for cheap cars and 150% for more expensive cars, and varies the
tax wildly to promote environmental efficiency and safety (originally EVs were
completely exempt from this tax, although there's been talk about eliminating
that exemption for budgetary reasons).

This burden is indeed not specific to new cars, but that's necessary to
incentivize faster EOL of old equipment (see also the US "cash for clunkers"
program, which addressed a similar policy goal); it _is_ , though, completely
upfront and extremely transparent to the consumer, and strongly impacts
consumer investment decisions.

------
moreless
Not to be a sceptic, but how reliable are these measurements?

~~~
kaybe
Very reliable. There was/is a lot of dedicated funding for this issue and so
we have dedicated satellite instruments and people working on them. Ozone is
comparatively easy to measure due to its super strong and clear absorption
coefficient. Stratospheric changes are both slow and on larger spatial scales,
making satellite resolution perfectly sufficient.

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imron
Just like highlander II predicted!

