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Comment by wtcactus | Hacker News Reader

Of course that, as usual, this was due to the West taking the hit, and China continuing doing pollution as usual:

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48353341.amp

Let’s hope that now that Europe needs to focus on more important issues, they stop hindering our productivity with environmental artificial limits so that China can keep increasing their pollutants and industry.

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> they stop hindering our productivity with environmental artificial limits so that China can keep increasing their pollutants and industry.

This is a strange take to me. We've had a great positive environmental impact and your take away is "but China is bad so we should also be bad!"

Why not instead use tarrifs and international pressure for what it's good for. "Goods linked to CFC emissions get an automatic 25% tarrif".

In fairness China did crack down on that[0]. Some limits are excessive, but here the minor hit was worth it.

[0]

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03277-w

https://www.dw.com/en/ozone-layer-recovery-back-on-track-aft...

Thank you for posting this, this is a very important follow-up to the parent's linked paper.

I'm a stratospheric scientist. Back when the reports were written, that CFC's were still being emitted in China, our community was pretty bummed and weren't very hopeful, but we were very happily surprised when China got those emmissions under control so quickly.

To be clear… are you suggesting that b/c one party started doing something damaging that we should all forgo trying and continue doing something that is a clear and present danger to our atmosphere’s ability to provide UV protection?

I’m also curious what issues you suggest Europe focus on that would require abandoning these straightforward, if slightly more costly, manufacturing efforts.

> the West taking the hit

It’s not like the west didn’t benefit massively from it initially. Just like with carbon emissions where China will likely never emit as much as say the US will cumulatively, despite a much larger population too.

As a New Zealander who's had skin cancer, and lives under constant high UV rates because of the lack of an ozone above my country (and Australia, South America, South Africa), I'd really like it if Europeans continued to reduce/stop ozone harming emissions.

I second this. No skin cancer yet but 40 years of exposure.

I third, as someone who hasn't had skin cancer yet, but potentially deserves it due to being lax with sunscreen too often.

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