UNITE! Info #228en: A new "ozone hole" scare attempt
From: Rolf Martens (rolf.martens_at_mailbox.swipnet.se)
Date: 02/06/05
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Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2005 14:24:27 +0100
UNITE! Info #228en: A new "ozone hole" scare attempt
[Posted: 06.02.05]
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01. A "DANGER" FROM AN "ARCTIC OZONE HOLE"?
NO, THE PLANET'S OZONE LAYER REMAINS AS
THICK AS EVER.
Recently, some people tried to "heat up" again a scare which
was quite "popular" with the reactionary bourgeois politicians
and mass media some 20 years ago but which has practically
been forgotten in the last six-seven years, since it so clear-
ly is contradicted by reality, more and more so for each year
that passes too.
This scare attempt started with the publishing, on 28 January,
of a "report" by the UK-based so-called European Ozone Re-
search Coordinating Unit, and continued with some mass media's
soon repeating that "report", in propagandistically "improved"
versions. The BBC Online, for instance, did this on 29.01 and
the national TV station here in Sweden followed suit too.
There "soon might develop" an "ozone hole" over the Arctic,
since the stratosphere is now colder than it has been in the
last 50 years, this "report" said. And in particular the media
versions of it tried to make people believe, firstly, that
such an "ozone hole" would pose "a threat" of "severely de-
creased" levels of ozone over northern Europe in February and
March of this year and thus "dangerously increased" ultravio-
let (UV) radiation there in that period. Secondly, it was
maintained that such an "ozone hole" would even "contribute
to" a purportedly ongoing "long-term depletion of the ozone
layer of the entire planet".
Both of these propositions are quite false. There certainly
has never been any "danger" of "excessive" ultraviolet radia-
tion in northern Europe, nor is there one now. Precisely in
such high-latitude regions, the UV radiation in fact is always
much weaker than in regions closer to the equator. And that
layer of ozone rather high up in the planet's atmosphere which
filters out such radiation to the levels of it to which all
life is adapted has not been "depleted" at all either. It re-
mains as thick today as it was, say, 50 years ago.
The real problem which most people have been confronted with
since some decades back in connection with questions of the
ozone layer and ultraviolet radiation is that of a big "infor-
mation hole" concerning such matters, combined with large
amounts of reactionary scare propaganda "radiation". This is a
social problem, not one having to do with the actual natural
environment.
The main ruling forces among those who are profiting on the
existing global "order" of capitalism and imperialism have
been raising a false "ozone hole/depletion" scare - and there
today are several other equally false purportedly "environmen-
tal" scares coming from them too - in order to cover up some
dealings of theirs which are very harmful to the vast majority
of people on earth and against which there should be protests
everywhere.
02. WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THE "OZONE
HOLE/DEPLETION" SCARE?
So-called warnings about a purported "depletion of the ozone
layer due to the use of CFCs (freons)" first were advanced
publicly around 1974 and became a big theme in the main inter-
national mass media in the 1980s and early/mid-1990s. From the
beginning on, this was a propaganda hoax, only "supported" by
certain hypotheses and not something based on any actual
scientific observations.
This scare propaganda covered up the forcing through, by the
governments of some relatively highly-developed, "rich" coun-
tries, led by that of the USA, of the so-called Montreal Pro-
tocol of 1987, with far-reaching bans against CFCs.
These environmentally quite unjustified bans are still in
force today, and also have been added to after 1987. The sub-
stances usually known as chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs are of
some different kinds. They, and some similar chemicals (halons
etc) which have been banned too under the same pretext, are
all very effective technically, cheap to manufacture and quite
difficult to replace satisfactorily in their respective func-
tions, in many industrial fields such as refrigeration, air
conditioning and firefighting.
These bans thus have created rather serious problems for some
different types of industries in the relatively highly-deve-
loped countries themselves, to begin with. And above all, they
are hitting the refrigeration industries of the poorer, inter-
nationally-oppressed and -exploited countries very hard.
By producing the expensive and technically much inferior "sub-
stitutes for" the CFCs (etc), some big chemistry companies in
the USA, for instance, are making even bigger profits than be-
fore, and thus are thriving on the Montreal etc bans. This the
corresponding industries in the less developed countries can-
not do. Therfore the technique of refrigeration, needed for
the transportation of certain vital foodstuffs and medicines
in warmer regions of the world, is now encountering enormous
difficulties precisely in the countries situated there.
The continued upholding of the Montreal Protocol bans thus not
least is killing a large number of people in the poorer coun-
tries each year, which no doubt is part of the imperialists'
intentions with these bans too. In this way they are a paral-
lel to that likewise arch-reactionary and even more murderous
ban against the effective pesticide DDT which has caused mala-
ria to re-appear on a large scale in for instance Africa. One
must demand that all these bans be abolished.
03. SOME SIMPLE FACTS ABOUT ULTRAVIOLET RADIATION
AND THE OZONE LAYER WHICH THE MASS MEDIA ARE
USUALLY "FORGETTING"
Firstly, it should be noted that the intensity of the ultra-
violet radiation at the earth's surface varies very much with
latitude. The reasons for this are some obvious facts of geo-
metry.
In the regions close to the equator, containing for instance
the cities Kinshasa, Nairobi, Colombo (in Sri Lanka), Singa-
pore and Quito (in Ecuador), the UV radiation is some eight
(8) times as intensive as that in regions at latitudes of 55º-
60º North or South, such as Scotland, southern Sweden (from
where I'm posting this), central Russia/Siberia and central
Canada, or the southernmost parts of Chile and Argentina.
Even when taking a holiday in one of the countries around the
Mediterranean, say, which rather many Europeans living at 55º-
60ºN can do and like to do today, those visitors will expe-
rience an ultraviolet radiation as much as three to four (3-4)
times as intensive as that at home. It's a UV radiation level
which people living in for instance Madrid or Cairo, or in
Delhi, Beijing, Shanghai, New York or Los Angeles (cities all
at latitudes between 30º and 40ºN) are quite accustomed to.
As a thumb rule can be taken that for every 10 km by which you
approach the equator from a higher/lower latitude, the inten-
sity of the ultraviolet radiation at the earth's surface in-
creases by 1%.
How much could a temporary "ozone hole" over the Arctic cause
UV radiation levels in northern Europe to rise, then?
It would not be even nearly enough to give us who live in this
relatively cold and bleak region, UV-radiation-wise, "a free
vacation in Spain". Thus it was really a farce when one of the
persons responsible for the EORCU "report" on 28.01 was quoted
as saying:
"We will watch the development [concerning ozone over the Arc-
tic in February-March] from day to day,and will inform the
public and our authorities if the situation becomes worrying"
- meaning, if such a "danger" to us North Europeans in fact
should arise as our perhaps receiving ultraviolet radiation
doses just as "horribly large" as are the normal ones for in-
stance in Spain or in New York City.
To that ultraviolet radiation which reaches the earth's sur-
face, all human, animal and plant life of course has adopted
itself. This goes both for those higher intensities of it
which are normal in some regions and for the lower ones in
other regions. For most of those plants used in agriculture,
tropical UV levels are best. Concerning human adaption, it may
be of interest in this connection to mention some results of
research on the origins and the various evolutions of mankind
which apparently have been widely accepted as correct.
These results indicate that all of mankind originated in Afri-
ca and has populated the rest of the globe by migrations from
that continent which began some 80,000 years ago. Some 50,000
years ago, one such migration reached Europe, a region with
much lower intensity of UV radiation. While dark skin, typical
for inhabitants of central Africa for instance, is more fa-
vourable for protection against the harmful effects which
large amounts of such radiation may have, it's less favourable
for the human body's making use of those beneficial, necessary
effects which it also has, causing vitamin-D production etc,
in such regions where that radiation is relatively scarce.
Thus in Europe, during those 50,000 years of possible change
in a population due to mutations, the skin colour of later
generations came to be a much lighter one than the original,
making it possible for their bodies to absorb more of that
much weaker UV radiation there. Similar changes have taken
place in other northern regions, such as China.
Precisely the big differences in UV radiation intensity at
various latitudes no doubt have played a major role in the
emerging of those different human races which to a large ex-
tent still exist on earth and which will probably take a
rather long time to vanish by merging into each other com-
pletely.
Ozone, the main substance which prevents surface life from
being exposed to excessive ultraviolet radiation, consists of
oxygen molecules with three atoms, O3, instead of the two in
ordinary oxygen, O2. It constantly is being created in the
stratosphere, by UV radiation, and constantly is being de-
stroyed too, in part likewise by such radiation and in part by
some other processes.
Production of ozone is biggest, naturally enough, over the
tropical regions on earth, those closest to the equator. The
thickness of the ozone layer there remains more or less un-
changed by the seasons, at a level of some 200-250 DU (Dobson
Units). At higher and lower latitudes however, and quite in
particular at the poles, the thickness of the ozone layer va-
ries considerably with the seasons.
The main reason for this is that the intensity of all sun ra-
diation, including the ultraviolet, ozone-producing part of
it, which comes in towards those higher- and lower-latitude
regions, varies rather much with the seasons. It's lowest in
the winter and highest in the summer.
The ozone layer over Sweden, for instance, varies between
some 350-450 DU, in March-April, and 220-270 DU, in November.
Its mean thickness over a year is some 330 DU - perhaps sur-
prisingly, a somewhat higher annual mean than that of the tro-
pical ozone layer. This is because a certain transport of
ozone from the tropics to the higher/lower-latitude regions is
constantly taking place. The winds that always are blowing in
a general direction away from the hottest regions on earth and
towards the cooler ones are carrying this ozone with them.
There is a certain regular period of some 26 months in the
strength or weakness, globally, of these winds blowing from
the tropics. This also causes some variations in the thickness
of the ozone layer over the higher and lower latitudes
Further, there are year-to-year variations in the global pro-
duction of ozone due to the sunspot cycle, which usually has
11 years, sometimes 10 or 12 years, between sunspot maxima. In
a year with many sunspots, the mean global ozone level in-
creases to some 2% above the average; in one with few, it de-
creases to some 2% below it. The latest sunspot maximum was
in 2001.
Concerning some particular ozone phenomena close to the poles
- which, contrary to the scare propaganda, nobody needs to
worry about - see below in section 04.
The effect which different thicknesses of the ozone layer has
on the amount of ultraviolet radiation reaching the surface
below approximately is, that an ozone level decrease of 1%
causes an UV radiation increase of 2%.
04. THE PROPOSITIONS AND PREDICTIONS OF THE "OZONE
HOLE" SCARE PROPAGANDA, AND ONE EASY WAY TO
CONFIRM TODAY THAT THEY WERE/ARE ALL WRONG
The so-called theory on which the "ozone hole/depletion" scare
is based maintains that chlorine and other halogen atoms in
the stratosphere, resulting from a breaking up of CFCs etc
which have reached such heights, "are destroying ozone" there.
The scare propaganda increased enormously in volume after an
"ozone hole" over the Antarctic purportedly was "discovered"
in 1985. This was "proof" that a depletion of the global ozone
layer was actually taking place, the propaganda said.
But this "ozone hole" over the Antarctic had existed long be-
fore CFCs came into common use, earlier research in fact had
shown. It's not really a "hole" but only a rather large seaso-
nal thinning-out, due to the particularly low temperatures and
some other factors typical precisely for the Antarctic conti-
nent - and not present in the Arctic regions either.
In September-October each year, the ozone layer over the Ant-
arctic is thinned out to some 100 DU - which poses no danger
to life there or anywhere else - because a meteorolgical vor-
tex temporarily stops those winds from the tropics which
otherwise are brining replenishment of the continent's ozone.
Around March each year, this "hole" has disappeared complete-
ly; the ozone layer over the Antarctic then has thickened
again to its normal maximum of 450-500 DU.
If indeed chlorine from CFCs in the stratosphere *could* des-
troy ozone - which has always been no more than a hypothesis
- then this could only take place precisely over the Antarc-
tic. And the seasonal so-called "ozone hole" there has not be-
come deepened or widened in recent decades either, contrary to
a sometimes still recurring propaganda which tries to create
an impression that it has, by juggling some data.
The main proposition of the "ozone hole/depletion" scare was
and still is, that the ozone layer of the entire globe "has
been depleted" in the last few decades, and that it "still is
being depleted". This either, purportedly, due to "a destruc-
tion of ozone by CFCs over all regions on earth" or "at least"
due to a "gobbling up" of global ozone by "the Antarctic ozone
hole".
But no such depletion in fact has ever taken place. This can
be demonstrated in several ways, much more clearly today too
than at the time of the reactionary and harmful 1987 Montreal
Protocol for instance. One simple proof of it I shall show
readers, below.
The propositions and "predictions" of the "ozone depletion"
scare propaganda in the beginning, 20-30 years ago, often in-
cluded such ridiculous fantasies as a "depletion, already
started", of some "9% per decade", which would then cause a
thinning-out of 50% by the year 2050. The main propaganda soon
"settled down" to maintaining that there "at least" had been a
global ozone depletion of "3% per decade since the 1970s",
which, if CFCs were not banned, "would continue for a long
time" too, thinning out the ozone layer to 50% in some 200
years.
Also, this propaganda said and still is saying, when it some-
times is being repeated today, that even the bans against CFCs
from 1987 and onwards would only cause the supposedly "da-
maged" ozone layer to be "repaired completely" after some 50
or even 100 years. Because of a supposed "latency effect" "due
to large amounts of CFCs' already having reached the strato-
sphere before 1987", the purported "damaging of" the global
ozone layer would continue and would even be "worse than ever"
in the years 1995-2005, according to the main scare "predic-
tions".
Of course in 1987, there were only rather few reliable data
on whether emissions of CFCs, in common use only since a few
decades back then, in fact had damaged the ozone layer or not.
It was for political reasons that the reactionaries so hur-
riedly forced the Montreal Protocol through anyway.
It later very clearly turned out that their propositions and
"predictions" about the global ozone layer had been quite
wrong. Very notably, from the year 1998 on, when the sunspot
cycle was approaching a big maximum and the ozone layer be-
cause of this soon came to be thicker than in many years be-
fore, the "depletion" scare propagandists practically ceased
altogether to bring the question of that ozone layer up pub-
licly. The facts already so clearly were refuting their ear-
lier propositions and not least their "worse-damage-than-ever"
"predictions".
In two earlier Infos in this series, #166en (in 8 parts) and
#167en, both posted in March 2002, I've written about the
"ozone hole" scare in some detail, citing several refutations
of it. One clear such refutation, easy also for us non-experts
to understand, can be found at the homepage of the SMHI, the
Swedish Meterorological and Hydrological Institute (which in
its comments of course tends to support that scare and avoids
mentioning that refutation of it which its own data contain).
Above all, that website has a continually updated graph at:
http://www.smhi.se/kund_t/ozon/data/ozdev.png
Its caption reads: "Monthly deviation (%) of total ozone
Norrköping/Vindeln from Uppsala 1951-1996" and (now, in Febru-
ary 2005) "Linear trend Feb 1988 - Jan 2005 0.5% / decade".
This refers, firstly, to an earlier series of measurements of
ozone levels over Uppsala (at 60ºN), at a time when there cer-
tainly could have not have been any "ozone depletion". Second-
ly, ozone levels over Norrköping (at 58ºN) and vindeln (at
64ºN, a somewhat "arctic" station) are being measured daily
since February 1988. The trend of the ozone level over Norr-
köping from then up to the current time is shown by a straight
line cutting through the graph of the measurements.
That trend of the thickness of the ozone layer over Norrköping
in the 17 years since early 1988 is shown to be +0.5% per de-
cade - that is, the layer's thickness by no means has de-
creased in that time but has remained practically constant.
The "+0.5% per decade" trend in the measurements should, be-
cause of the uncertainties involved, not be taken as showing
that the ozone layer over that city has actually thickened.
But if there had really been a global ozone depletion trend,
at any time, of some "3% per decade", as has been and still is
being maintained by the scare propaganda, then obviously, this
would show up very clearly in the data from the particular
measuring station in Norrköping too, beacuse all gases inclu-
ding ozone of course are mixing globally in the atmosphere.
There could not be one spot on the planet, one here in Sweden
at 60ºN, say, over which the mean ozone level had remained so
very constant in all those years, if there had been a "conti-
nuing global ozone depletion" of "some 3% per decade".
For somewhat closer investigation, readers could download a
zipfile (of some 660k) from the SMHI site, at:
http://www.smhi.se/kund_t/ozon/data/ozon.zip
When opened, this file will show subfiles "ozdev" (with the
same graph as the abovementioned, though here only extended to
December 2001) and also "norr2004", "vind2004" etc. These show
the levels of ozone, varying with the seasons from some 350-
450 DU in March-April to 270-220 DU in November, as measured
during several years by the stations at Norrköping and Vin-
deln.
Graphs in the last-mentioned files show these stations' daily
measurements in each year from 1988-91 to 2004, compared to
those season-dependent boundaries for ozone level variations
which were found by the Uppsala station in 1951-1966. Readers
will find that the ozone levels and variations in the latest
period have not differed at all from those in the earlier pe-
riod.
It remains to be seen whether there will be more of the re-
cently "re-heated" scare propaganda, concering the Arctic and
northern Europe, in the next two months or so of that purpor-
edly "possibly threatening ozone hole". If so, it should be
discounted of course as an already long-since refuted hoax.
What should be done in this context remains the raising of
this demand:
The harmful and environmentally quite unjustified bans of the
1987 Montreal Protocol and its follow-ups, against the use of
certain modern and important substances, must be abolished.
UNITE! / VEREINIGT EUCH! / UNISSEZ-VOUS! / ¡UNIOS! /
FÖRENA ER! Info en/de/fr/es/se series:
Advocates the political line of Marx, Lenin and Mao Zedong.
Each item # will be posted in one or more language(s). Leaf-
lets in the INFORMATIONSBLAD series published by me, mainly
in Swedish, since 1975 are available on request.
Befürwortet die politische Linie von Marx, Lenin und Mao Ze-
dong. Jede Nummer # wird in einer oder mehreren Sprache(n)
gesandt werden. Flugblätter der Reihe INFORMATIONSBLAD, von
mir hauptsächlich in Schwedisch seit 1975 veröffentlicht,
sind auf Anfrage erhaltlich.
Avocate de la ligne politique de Marx, Lénine et Mao Zedong.
Chaque numéro # sera envoyé en une ou plusieurs langue(s).
Volantes de la série INFORMATIONSBLAD, publiée par moi prin-
cipalement en suédois depuis 1975, sont accessibles sur de-
mande.
Partidaria de la línea política de Marx, Lenin y Mao Zedong.
Cada número # se envía en uno o más idiomas. Están a su dis-
posición, bajo petición previa, distintos folletos de la
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Förespråkar Marx', Lenins och Mao Zedongs politiska linje.
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Flygblad i serien INFORMATIONSBLAD, publicerad av mig huvud-
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Postal address:
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Nobelvaegen 38U4
SE - 214 33 Malmoe
SWEDEN
Tel: +46 - 40 - 124832
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