Ozone Hole May Persist Two Decades Longer Than Projected - LA Times

SAN FRANCISCO — The ozone hole over Antarctica may persist two decades longer than predicted, until 2065, because ozone-destroying chemicals are still being released by developed nations a decade after their production and importation was banned.

The Montreal Protocol, ratified in 1987, banned the creation of chemicals such as chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, used as coolant by developed nations. It followed the discovery that such chemicals ripped apart ozone molecules and severely thinned the layer of ozone that sits about 20 miles above the Earth's surface and shields the planet from ultraviolet radiation that causes cancer and cataracts and can harm wildlife.

Developing countries have been allowed to continue using the chemicals for several decades to avoid the higher cost of replacement chemicals. Scientists had predicted that the phasing out of the chemicals by developed nations would allow the ozone hole over Antarctica to recover by 2040 or 2050.

But measurements taken in 2003 and released Tuesday showed that emissions of the chemicals from the United States and Canada made up about 15% of the world total even though the nations are no longer allowed to produce the compounds, said Dale Hurst, an atmospheric chemist from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who made the measurements. He estimated that developed countries accounted for about half of the world's total. "These fractions are surprisingly high," Hurst said at a briefing on the issue held in San Francisco at the American Geophysical Union's meeting of 11,000 earth scientists. "We would have expected them to be exhausted by 2003."

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http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-na-ozone7dec07,1,6480333.story?coll=la-news-environment

Who said more than a decade ago that pollution was a business cost and that it needed to be paid. bush and co want pollution to be cost free; for the short term. It will be up to our descendants to figure out how to rid the planet of the toxins and poisons that pour into the water, air and the Earth.