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Emissions of banned, ozone-depleting chemical CFC-11 have climbed 25% since 2012

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Emissions of banned, ozone-depleting chemical CFC-11 have climbed 25% since 2012

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, as a third-world citizen, I just can't fathom why anyone here would give a shit about ozone layer. We are extremely dismissive of those issues here because we care about the future of humanity and Earth a lot less that first-world populace. We have no incentive to protect the Earth so that children of first-worlders can live healthily in 2050 whenever. You fucked us all up with colonialism and whatnot, and…

I concur that there's an ivory high tower that a lot of well-educated people preach from. Saying you're a third world citizen won't move people like that. Being dismissive or even antagonistic against such people just turns them off from even interacting with you on here. It feels good temporarily but it doesn't solve anything. I encourage you to well-document what you see. That takes time, patience, and maybe a smal…

I don't want to end up being tortured and killed by "my" government that is in reality "yours" anyway. Thank you.

Re: Emissions of banned, ozone-depleting chemical CFC-11 have climbed 25% since 2012

#122
post #88
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If by "too broad a sense" you mean "incorrectly," then sure.

"An economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state." --Oxford Did you have a different definition in mind?

[deleted]

Re: Emissions of banned, ozone-depleting chemical CFC-11 have climbed 25% since 2012

#123
post #110

Everybody's saying China, and, well, maybe. But what about North Korea? Despite China having a reputation for shady business practices, the Chinese government at least often gives the environment a higher priority than the US does. Also, North Korea probably has tons of outdated hardware, I would guess, and little respect for the outside world. God help us if it is North Korea. Things are delicate enough as it is, wi…

Heck it could be South Africa - it has a larger economy and population than NK AFAIK. (Or at least equal economy)

My father here in SA had a tank of CFC gas when he was an air conditioner repairman.

Re: Emissions of banned, ozone-depleting chemical CFC-11 have climbed 25% since 2012

#124
post #5

The overall, just-worrying-factor of this aside, I think it's rather surprising that "someone, somewhere" is putting up CFC-11 in the atmosphere and somehow the only way people got a hold of this was by looking at the ozone layer. If that's indeed the case, that would be a reminder that though there's a lot of information about a lot of stuff nowadays, much of what matters to us can still be going on on completely in…

> Alternatively, and more innocently, this could be due to the end of the life-cycle of several appliances in Second/Third World countries -- or maybe even First World (do you know anyone with an aging fridge?). I don't think this can be overstated. True or not, the common belief held by most people in the US is that older Freon based systems are better than modern systems. This is due in part to the high cost and lo…

Older Freon based systems are much less picky about system condition than systems with newer refrigerant and in practice that makes them much more reliable because you can just top them up and keep going. They're also much more easily user serviceable so anyone doing their own service just keep repairing them.

Re: Emissions of banned, ozone-depleting chemical CFC-11 have climbed 25% since 2012

#125

Then someone, somewhere needs to make ozone.

It continues to amaze me that (some) people (appear to) believe we have a fixed quantity of ozone and once that's depleted, we're in trouble. From [1, PDF]: "These reactions occur continually whenever solar ultraviolet radiation is present in the stratosphere." [1] https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/csd/assessments/ozone/2010/twentyq...

Yeah but every chlorine atom up there is a nanomachine that destroys all ozone molecules it can touch, and it lasts one century in average. So, given enough, no amount of ozone generation can compensate.

Re: Emissions of banned, ozone-depleting chemical CFC-11 have climbed 25% since 2012

#126

If this is true and we found the place where it was being produced, could we be justified in destroying the facility by missile strike in order to save the world?

How about just having police visit? They're more likely to apprehend the owners of the facility (you know, the actual culprits) and to preserve evidence of exactly what has occurred. Also in many nations they are less likely than a "missile strike" to kill everyone present.

Sure, but what if the corruption goes very high up, and the police do nothing? Or it’s an uncooperative rogue state?

Do we just let the ozone burn?

Re: Emissions of banned, ozone-depleting chemical CFC-11 have climbed 25% since 2012

#127
post #103

Does anyone have an idea of how difficult it would be to create a sensor network to monitor for CFCs? What would the PPM at source be? Quick googling suggests that there are sensors that can detect down to 1000PPM [1], but I'd guess you'd need something substantially lower than that. [1] https://docs-apac.rs-online.com/webdocs/15a6/0900766b815a66d...

Around 200 parts per trillion in the atmosphere in general. https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/05/it-seems-someone-is-... At the source it might be high enough.

Re: Emissions of banned, ozone-depleting chemical CFC-11 have climbed 25% since 2012

#128
post #110

Everybody's saying China, and, well, maybe. But what about North Korea? Despite China having a reputation for shady business practices, the Chinese government at least often gives the environment a higher priority than the US does. Also, North Korea probably has tons of outdated hardware, I would guess, and little respect for the outside world. God help us if it is North Korea. Things are delicate enough as it is, wi…

Heck it could be South Africa - it has a larger economy and population than NK AFAIK. (Or at least equal economy) My father here in SA had a tank of CFC gas when he was an air conditioner repairman.

The data suggested southeast Asia

Re: Emissions of banned, ozone-depleting chemical CFC-11 have climbed 25% since 2012

#129
post #67

Now I know I'm old, because the headline refers to CFCs by symptom than by name... (Wikipedia article about the guy behind them, no one-trick pony: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr. )

>In 1940, at the age of 51, Midgley contracted poliomyelitis, which left him severely disabled. This led him to devise an elaborate system of strings and pulleys to help others lift him from bed. This was the eventual cause of his own death when he was entangled in the ropes of this device and died of strangulation at the age of 55 Wow.

He died as he lived: by regrettable inventions.

Re: Emissions of banned, ozone-depleting chemical CFC-11 have climbed 25% since 2012

#130
post #2

> also because alternatives exist, making it hard to imagine what the market for CFC-11 today would be. Well I've heard of someone who was stockpiling and was planning to sell banned Freon. That was years ago. There is a black market for it because equipment that uses it doesn't simply work on newer approved stuff. If I randomly heard about it, chances are there are more insantces of it. And if there is demand someon…

> Well I've heard of someone who was stockpiling and was planning to sell banned Freon. That's not a bad investment opportunity. Freon prices in HVAC maintenance have risen dramatically in the past couple years. According to the technician who serviced my mom's system Monday, it was $100/lb last year and is $170/lb this year.

Casually I was just speaking about this with my HVAC technician yesterday and he told me that here (Italy) the raise was even steeper, something like 2.5 or 3 times over the last two-three years (cannot remember the actual prices he told me).
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