Word: cfcs
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...Rumen Bojkov, special adviser to the agency on ozone issues, told reporters. On the other hand, he said, the ozone level could recover within a half-century. The report, the work of 226 scientists around the globe, explains that international efforts to reduce the use of chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, have made a dent but take a few years to clear...
...crucial questions for policymakers was whether CFCs would remain in the atmosphere for a long time. Asked today when it was proved that CFCs could hang around for many decades, Du Pont scientists readily acknowledge that the issue was largely put to rest in the '70s. As late as 1982, however, a Du Pont scientist was still arguing in print that CFCs were short-lived...
...ozone treaty, nations were warned of the danger but did nothing. In the U.S. those who had the power to take action instead engaged in self-delusion: the Reagan Administration at first dismissed the ozone threat as a nonissue, while Du Pont and other manufacturers underestimated future sales of CFCs, making the hazard seem minimal...
...alarm first sounded back in 1974, when Sherwood Rowland and Mario Molina of the University of California at Irvine warned about the destructive impact that CFCs could have on the atmosphere. Before banning these important industrial chemicals, however, scientists had to confirm that CFCs did in fact attack ozone and that society produced enough of the chemicals to create a ! problem. Within a few years, most scientists accepted that CFCs were a real threat, though uncertainties remained. In 1978 the U.S. banned the use of CFCs in aerosol sprays and began pushing for international controls...
...Pont, which poured $15 million into developing substitutes during the late 1970s, all but halted its research shortly after Reagan's election because no further regulation was on the horizon. Earlier, Du Pont had publicly committed itself to stop production of CFCs if "reputable evidence" showed they posed a hazard to the ozone layer. The company, however, set a tough standard for what constituted "reputable evidence." Du Pont challenged Rowland at every turn in the 1970s, and he believes the company's aggressiveness sent a chilling message to other scientists in the field...