Does Anyone Really Know What Time It Is?

Posted at July 19, 2008

Air Pollution Went Global, What Was Once An Urban Affliction Has Now Gone Systemic

Los Angeles researchers discover 25% of notorious smog is imported. Dust soot and pollutants from Asia are crossing the Pacific in huge brown clouds. They travel over 6000 miles (9,656.1 kilometers) in three days. Teams are chasing these clouds by airplane, sampling and tracking as they go. The movements of the clouds are as fickle as the wind and can touch anyone anywhere. No nation escapes, North American pollution makes it to Europe in three days.

This tells us we are all connected, we are all responsible.

It also tells us we have an even more complex problem of cleanup. These clouds are now stopping an accelerated heating of the ocean because they are blocking sunlight. Removing it will improve public health but likely speed up global warming.

October 2006, the ozone hole grows to it’s largest size equivalent to the size of the United States and Russia combined. This hole discovered about 20 years ago allows harmful ultraviolet rays to penetrate our atmosphere. Fortunately in 2006 levels of chemical concentrations harmful to the ozone layer in the atmosphere stopped increasing. It is expected the hole should start to shrink in the next 10 years.

This was made possible by the Montreal Protocol. In 1987 governments agreed to faze out the production of the gases that destroyed the ozone layer.

That is 21 years to signs of stabilization in levels of contaminants and a projected time of 10 years before we see any significant reversal. Thats 31years, and where will that leave us?

It is interesting to note here that the gases used to replace the ozone damaging gases are listed among the dangerous greenhouse gases.

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