Great Mountain Living Near the Last Glaciers?
December 4, 2008 by Tommy Linsley
Filed under Climate Change
As people living in alpine areas throughout the world have noticed, the
glaciers are melting. Actually, they have been melting at a slow rate
for many centuries. It was not, however, until the industrial revolution
that the pace of melting began to increase. From glaciers with a long
recorded history, a record of melting traces the beginnings of increased
melting to about 1750 when the first industrial coal-driven applications
were being devised half a world away.
The entire ecosystem near these formerly glaciated areas has changed.
Areas at the top of the world were also the first to feel the effects
of a damaged ozone layer. This led to increases in rates of skin cancers
among mountain people world wide, but especially those near the poles.
They are also the first places on earth that noticed something odd about
honeybee behavior, as it was first reported in the mid 1990s – long
before colony collapse disorder in North America.
And you thought it might be somewhat romantic to live in the mountains
near some of the last remaining glaciers? Maybe for now, but not for
much longer if we can’t get a grip on climate changes.
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CFCs in Interesting Places
October 31, 2008 by Tommy Linsley
Filed under Sustainable Development
You Find CFCs in Some of the Most Interesting Places
Though it was realized by scientists in the early 1970s that
chlorofluorocarbons posed a massive potential threat to the ozone layer
that protects the Earth (and it’s inhabitants) from DNA-damaging solar
radiation, action was not taken on an international scale until for
nearly 20 years later. CFCs were, when they were invented in the 1930s,
supposed to be a safe alternative to the refrigerants that were commonly
used at the time.
During the 70 or so years that CFCs were manufactured in large quantities,
they turned up in far more than air conditioners and refrigerators. For
instance, they were the main propellant in aerosol cans for decades.
They are a very common ingredient in fire extinguishers, though most older
fire extinguishers have been emptied and refilled by the late ‘aughts.
Even after the international ban on these chemicals that was brought about
by the Montreal Protocols, CFCs and other “chloroalkanes” are still used
in airplane fire suppression systems. Yet another area for sustainable
development proponents to attack.
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Atmospheric Ozone
October 30, 2008 by Tommy Linsley
Filed under Sustainable Development
Atmospheric Ozone: A Qualified Success Story of International Cooperation
Not all the news about the atmosphere is bad. There are the occasional
success stories that keep people going. The reduction of the very
powerful ozone depleting chemical family known collectively as CFCs since
being banned worldwide in the 1990s is one such story.
Originally drafted in 1987 in Helsinki, Finland, the international treaty
for the control of substances that harm the ozone layer calls for a long
phase-out of these chemicals by signatory nations to minimize the economic
impact this act would have on less prosperous nations. Nearly every
nation on Earth has signed on, including all of the most heavy users of
these chemicals. Luckily these early sustainable development measures
have been around since before the term came to be mainstream.
Chlorine and bromine are the worst offenders, and for the first time since
they’ve been traced in the atmosphere, their levels are beginning to drop.
The treaty calls for all CFCs to be phased out by 2030, with the worst
offenders to be gone by 2010. The ozone hole that is observed over the
South Pole each year will take longer to recover, with the largest hole
ever recorded as recently as 2006.
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