How we fixed the ozone layer (2021) | Hacker News Reader

How we fixed the ozone layer (2021)

worksinprogress.co

109 pointsDarkContinent70 comments

One fact from this saga to boggle the mind: a big reason that the international treaties on ozone-harmful chemicals succeeded was because Ronald Reagan, president at the time, had skin cancer removed from his nose right around the time that studies on ozone layer depletion were coming out.

The issue was low priority for him and his administration, but the fact that he had personally suffered from the effects of excessive UV made it personal for him, and so he eventually pushed for action.

Same hypocrisy with supporting stem cell research after Reagan was diagnosed with Alzheimers, but opposing first. Or the Cheneys' attitudes towards same sex marriage after one of their daughters came out as lesbian.

Is it hypocrisy or just changing one’s mind? I guess I’m generally thankful for people changing their minds rather than sticking steadfastly to one thing (even if that is a good thing).

It’s more just a complete lack of empathy.

On the contrary, it would seem like Cheney was/became rather empathetic to his daughter's situation.

Caring only about one's immediate blood legacy strikes me as more opportunistic than empathetic when one is a top leader whose explicit responsibility is to work to improve the lives of all citizens.

On the other hand, this is Dick Cheney we're talking about; an empathetic human response isn't something he's otherwise demonstrated in his business or political dealings.

That's not "on the other hand", that's literally the point of the observation.

Eh, these people are human though. Different people care about different things, and these change based on personal experience.

Empathy is something you feel, rather than something you calculate.

You don't know the human. You only know a character on TV. That character is intermediated for you by many hands. Maybe the character acts in reality as you think, or maybe they are literally acting to gain your approval. We don't know anything about the people presented to us.

I would argue that this is how you become a top leader. It's really discouraging to realize that only a certain type of people even want to win a popularity contest. Even dictators are winning the "more popular than the alternatives" contest, though the alternative might just be death.

Also that might be the stated responsibility, but the implicit one is to improve the outcomes relative to perceived alternatives. Many times the alternatives area manufactured.

There's an overall trend that this example fits in where people tend to act on spectrum of outright denial, not caring or actively exacerbating/ridiculing/etc, when it comes to problems experienced by people other than themselves.

It's only when they themselves, or someone they care about, experiences something that they begin to care about it. It speaks to a selective empathy, one that is ultimately selfish, because it is only given when it starts to impact them. It is especially selfish when that lack of empathy has benefited them in the past, as well.

I feel like this is just how most people behave, for better or worse. I have a set of strongly held opinions about certain things that may or may not be considered socially acceptable and when people I actually know that I care about are experiencing particularly bad consequences as a result of secondary or tertiery effects that "derive from" from views (in the sense of legislation being passed that is in line with the views that I hold, or anything adjacent from this) as such, I sometimes loosen up - isn't this pretty reasonable, natural given that we empathize with people we know more than people we don't know?

It isn't really hypocrisy -- it's more of a moderating factor given one's connections with people one might know, assuming the desire to fit in with society and have more pro-social interactions with others.

> I have a set of strongly held opinions about certain things that may or may not be considered socially acceptable and when people I actually know that I care about are experiencing particularly bad consequences as a result of secondary or tertiery effects that "derive from" from views (in the sense of legislation being passed that is in line with the views that I hold, or anything adjacent from this) as such, I sometimes loosen up - isn't this pretty reasonable, natural given that we empathize with people we know more than people we don't know?

I'd say that it is natural to empathize more with people we know. I'd also say that it is totally unreasonable to ignore what is happening to other people when forming ones opinion on something. Maybe it is normal but I can not understand why you would think that it is in any way reasonable.

If you only care when something affects you/your immediate family, that’s selfishness, not empathy.

Empathy is when you recognize the basic humanity of others and are able to put yourself into their shoes and feel what they feel.

Yes, it most certainly is. The definition of hypocrisy is claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which your own behavior does not conform.

I think it ceases to be hypocrisy when you make a change. It's something, but let's not completely dismiss a positive change. Is that not the entire objective of education and awareness via activism? People deserve credit for acting.

Hypocrisy was probably not the perfect word to use, and I am happy for the positive change. Having said that, it needs to be pointed out when somebody supports policies that disadvantage people right until the point when those policies start negatively affecting them. Maybe "lack of general empathy" is the right phrase, like somebody else in the thread said.

There's a necessary extra bit, which is that you seek to change other people's behaviour but not your own. It's critically important that we're able to hold moral positions inconsistent with our behaviour, otherwise moral discourse simply reflects peoples' desires about how they wish to live. Indeed, we see this without any unnecessary charges of hypocrisy (people's moral positions are really just positions of convenience).

Even if we abandon the word "hypocrisy" for the sake of this discussion, being unable to care about an issue unless it directly effects you is just as bad, if not worse in some ways.

We're a reactive species in general. We rarely act in a proactive manner and require personal experience to change habit and thinking, especially after the age of 25 when neural pathways become harder to change.

Empathy is a thing worth considering, working on, being better at. I try.

Harder, but far from impossible. I work with the adult (26+) I/DD population in the US (individuals with developmental disabilities) and one of their biggest challenges is coping with and learning to buffer emotional reactions, while also being able to understand the emotional experiences of others. This often takes years of practice, and sometimes therapy for a neurotypical individual to master. And yet, I see progress regularly enough in the I/DD population that I often wonder what excuse the neurotypical population has when they collectively display a lack of emotional checks and balances, or empathy.

We're reactive, sure, but let's not throw that out there and use it to discount the fact that we can, without a doubt, learn to control those reactions. Social change often moves at a glacial pace because of this attitude, when the reality is that it up to us, right now, to break the cycle or change the pattern.

I think the objection is that they did not change their minds based on the merits of the situation, but because it suddenly was personally. Its hypocrisy because the relavent deciding factor was personal not general.

Sometimes personal acquaintance with a topic has a profound impact on people. Even politicans are human.

Look at LBJ.

I don't see why it boggles the mind. There's a significant portion of the population that doesn't care about something until it perceptibly affects them.

Whether reasonable or not, we generally expect loftier motives from our elected officials.

The mind boggling thing is that he was the right person at the right time. If some other Republican had been in office, they probably wouldn't have pushed as hard as he did to take action on the issue.

And where would we be today if history had gone just a little bit differently? Heatwaves, wildfires, hurricanes, deforestation, mass extinction, AND I can't go outside without dressing like a beekeeper? It gives me a cold feeling in my stomach.

The same Ronald Reagan that had the White House solar panels taken down. Kinda ironic (to me, at least).

Source? Everything I read tells me that’s just a guess.

Keep in mind that Dow made billions on CFC replacements.

Carter banned CFCs in aerosol sprays and planned to remove them from refrigeration. Reagan EPA head and Gorsuch mother calls CFC threat an unsubstantiated scare story, DuPont halts work on CFC alternatives, and CFC production peaks during the Reagan administration: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-linden-ozone-hol...

Reagan removes skin cancer from nose in 1984: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1985/08/06/r...

New Reagan EPA head appointed in 1986 pushes for Montreal Protocol ratification: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/21/reagan-seeks-to-pr...

So basically coincidental information?

That is an extremely tenuous connection.

Another reason the Reagan took it seriously was that Margret Thatcher vouched for the science and that it was serious.

Before becoming a politician Thatcher was a research chemist (she studied X-ray crystolography under Dorothy Hodgkin) and so understood the science behind it all.

She had a brief "green" phase in the late 1980s which helped environmental concerns be seen as less of a "treehugger" thing in the UK and supported the creation of things like the IPCC and the Montreal Protocol. Unfortunately she later reverted to treating it as a political issue. It's frustrating to think about where we might be now if she had continued to treat it as a serious issue that needed cross-politics action rather than treating it as a partisan issue.

> Another reason the Reagan took it seriously was that Margret Thatcher vouched for the science and that it was serious. > Before becoming a politician Thatcher was a research chemist (she studied X-ray crystolography under Dorothy Hodgkin) and so understood the science behind it all.

It's worth clarifying that Thatcher's study of crystallography was for her final-year undergraduate dissertation at Oxford. She got a second-class degree in Chemistry, and this was her only earned academic qualification. She did nothing that would be regarded as academic research. As for her work after graduation, she worked for just four years as an industrial chemist at a company that made plastics, before starting a legal career.

There is no evidence that she had any particular knowledge of atmospheric science. Perhaps her degree gave her an understanding of chemistry at an undergraduate level, but I'm always a little irritated by her being described as a "scientist" or that she did "research". I don't think that either claim is true.

Was her knowledge and familiarity with the subject better than Reagans? Maybe that's why he believed her. She knew some of the societal costs (being a world leader) and some of the science too.

Ad Hominem? Makes me a lot irritated, folks claiming that no degree of education is quite enough to understand whatever science they disagree with.

Yes, that’s the point I was making. I believe he was sceptical initially. They were friends and she had enough scientific knowledge to understand the data being presented and the mechanisms behind it. Therefore she was able to convince him that it was a serious issue.

> Was her knowledge and familiarity with the subject better than Reagans?

Based on my memory of Regan and a quick review of his educational achievements, I'd say you're probably right.

> Maybe that's why he believed her.

World leaders don't usually take scientific advice from people with just a bachelor's degree. Especially when said world leader is the head of a government that has multiple world-class national laboratories, a space agency, and employs tens of thousands of highly qualified scientists. If Thatcher influenced Regan's thinking on the ozone hole then I suspect it's because he recognised her as a fellow social conservative, not because of anything she might have been able to say about the catalysis of O3 to O2.

> She knew some of the societal costs (being a world leader) and some of the science too.

As a prime minister who famously stated in public that "there is no such thing as society", and who presided over the miner's strikes, I find it hard to believe that she knew much about "societal costs".

> Ad Hominem? Makes me a lot irritated, folks claiming that no degree of education is quite enough to understand whatever science they disagree with.

That's not what ad hominem means. I wasn't taking issue with her character (I never knew her), I was taking issue with her (as a public figure with political policies) being factually described as a "scientist" who did "research".

By that point Reagan and Thatcher were close political allies and friends. From everything I’ve read about this that is the biggest part of it. She convinced him that this was a serious issue and that the scientists were not being hyperbolic scaremongers, a common attack thrown at any experts bring predictions of bad things to come.

Independently of the above, and as someone who grew up working class in the north of England during her time as prime minister, she was one of the most obstinately dogmatic and malign people ever to have gained serious political power in the UK in the twentieth century. We would do well not to valorise her.

I’m not valorising her. Even her green period was short lived and ultimately ended due to her political convictions being stronger than her critical thinking skills. It makes it worse, that she had the knowledge to understand the impacts, but chose politics over doing the right thing.

My apologies. My remark about not valorising her was a general one that I wanted to keep separate from my response to @JoeAltmaier. I'm happy to clarify that it wasn't addressed at you.

Oops, sorry, I think I got a bit lost in the comments.

This is all true, but I don’t see why that means she couldn’t get her head around the chemistry of how CFCs destroy ozone, or the mechanisms behind climate change, or indeed that she lacked the skills to understand the data and models she was being presented with.

The bigger reason was because the benefit/cost ratio of phasing out ozone destroying substances was so large.

We are still fixing the ozone layer. I am an aerospace engineer and part of a project to test and certify a non-ozone depleting fire extinguishing agent to replace Halon 1301 in commercial aircraft. Although production of Halon ceased in 1993, since then, ALL commercial aircraft have continued to be manufactured using stockpiled Halon. But the stockpile is being depleted, and as of 2014, manufacturers cannot apply for certification of new or derivative aircraft that use Halon fire extinguishing systems.

yeah exactly - I live in New Zealand - the ozone layer here isn't fixed yet, sure the worst of the southern polar hole has closed up - but elevated UV, skin cancer etc is still a fact of life here - kids in some schools are required to wear hats at recess

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_cancer_ra...

When skin cancer isn't removed as it is in some lists, the effects of the sun in Australia and New Zealand really shines through.

Interestingly it's not because of the ozone layer though. The Earths orbit brings it just under 2% closer to the sun during January which means the southern hemisphere gets ~7% more UV than the northern hemisphere during our respective summers. That coupled with predominantly white skin == cancer!

Source: https://www.cancerwa.asn.au/articles/news-2018/why-does-aust...

Yeah the ozone hole supposedly wasn't really the reason for skin cancer rates as the 'hole' itself never really extended much past Antarctica. It's more to do with your factors, clearer air, and possibly the global drop in ozone levels.

Although I have had white South Africans living in NZ mention the stark increase in sunburn for them, so other parts of the southern hemisphere don't experience it for some reason?!?

The Slip-Slop-Slap campaign made a huge difference, in particular for kids. My dad (b mid 1930s in South Australia) has a half a dozen skin cancers removed every year after decades of continuous sunburns when people thought it was good for you.

Terrible title. We haven’t fixed the problem[1], although I agree there is some worthwhile pat-on-the-back for fixing the cause. The ozone hole is still there decades later, and will be there for decades more.

As a New Zealander, we are affected by the extra UV radiation, and strong sunblock can be important.

The effect on NZers by UV should give us more understanding and sympathy for countries that will be drowned by climate change, but even though our government is more proactive than the US, our government still isn’t proactive enough.

[1] NASA website says “Scientists have already seen the first definitive proof of ozone recovery, observing a 20 percent decrease in ozone depletion during the winter months from 2005 to 2016.” “Models predict that the Antarctic ozone layer will mostly recover by 2040.” Also see synthetic image of 2021 hole: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2021/2021-antarctic-ozo...

This is a good opportunity to remind folks that the same person who invented chlorofluorocarbons also invented leaded gasoline.

Thomas Midgely Jr has been described as having had more adverse impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in earth’s 4.5 billion year history.

One of the good things Midgely did was to kill Midgely!

This is true. Midgley died after becoming entangled in a mechanical contraption he invented to improve his mobility after contacting Polio.

I appreciated this article more than I would've assumed. They are right, we tend to focus too much on failures and problems and forget about honoring success.

I’m originally from the Southern Hemisphere. I returned home for a holiday a couple of years ago, and was amazed to be reminded how one’s skin literally tingles in the mid-day Southern sun. I’ve always been told that the hole in the O3 layer is mostly over the South.

Great article, but I disagree with the title. We didn't fix anything, we just stopped destroying it. Nature has proved itself to be much more resilient than anything we are able to engineer.

This graph from the fine article illustrates this:

https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/styles/full_width/p...

The damage stopped rising shortly after the Montreal Protocol was signed. However, the current state of the Ozone hole is just about what it was at that time. Things have not gotten better, they just stopped getting worse.

Well, I didn't mean to be critical in general. The article makes the case that it's improving, and will eventually be fixed. I hope that's true, but it's not something we patched and got working. Nature is simply a really tough cookie.

Although it is an era of information explosion, many people think they have enough channels to obtain information, but in fact, the vast majority can only see what others want you to see, except for a few who are willing to spend energy to dig deeply into information.

This is the key point of the whole article I think, and why anything changed at all:

> DuPont’s patent on CFC technologies had expired.

It is good to celebrate success, but it would be nicer if large industries had a track record of integrity and empathy on decisions that affect humanity negatively.

The expiration of a patent (license to operate as a monopoly for a period of time) would increase the production of a useful chemical, not decrease it. In fact, occasionally illegal production is detected by surveillance measures and eradicated. This incident was the talk of my industry a few years ago: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02109-2

Especially in this case. CFCs remain the most effective chemicals for a number of uses. It's only through social agreement manifested as political and consumer action that we eschew them in favor of alternatives.

I'm not an expert in this area, but from what I understand, I don't think that's actually true. I believe the advantage was that they had very high performance at low pressures, which reduced the demands of the mechanical design. This was obviously advantageous when material science, compressors etc. weren't as advanced, but is not as much a deal anymore.

Or, the loss of a highly profitable monopoly on CFCs removes a motive from Dupont's perspective to lobby and publicize against ozone-related action.

There were claims that Freon was being manufactured in India and sold really cheap.

We didn't fix anything, we just stopped hitting a hammer on it..

What a presumptuous article. What exactly have we "fixed"? We simply stopped destroying it, and nature took care of the rest.

If I stop causing a recurrent issue that is all my own fault anyway, should I go ahead and pat myself on the back?

This is almost akin to a murderer saying that he saved a person by practicing self-control.

On the scale of human civilization it probably makes sense to celebrate the small wins, even the ones that are effectively due to inaction (e.g., not emitting CFCs anymore). But I think even that undersells it slightly, given that the negative decision in this case occurred despite all economic incentives and the international community’s lack of enforcement power.

What a cynical and unhelpful view.

Yes, if a person manages to stop a cycle of recurrent bad behavior that is their fault, they should celebrate that.

They've recognized a problematic behavior for what it is, and curbed that behavior, even though their baser instincts are probably encouraging them to keep doing it. Even though continuing to do it is a lot easier in many cases than stopping it.

They've gained mastery over themselves, and that is something to celebrate. Hell, they've even managed to SEE the problematic behavior for what it is. They've managed to see it within themselves. That kind of introspective ability does not come for free, there are a lot of people in this world who never develop it at all.

I think that's something to pat yourself on the back for, no matter what it is.

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