Ozone Layer success versus Global Warming FAILURE! Why the difference?

35 years ago scientists discovered we were badly damaging the ozone layer, so a major global initiative was created to repair it. At the same time scientists also discovered that greenhouse gas emissions were causing dangerous levels of warming in our atmosphere, but NO major global initiative was set up to solve this problem and now we may be too late. WHY did the world respond to one existential crisis and not the other??

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Research links

NOAA

EPA - Basic Ozone Layer Science

BBC iPlayer - Big Oil vs the World

Carl Sagan 1985 Congressional Hearing

James Hansen Congressional Hearing 1988

Climate Town

Planet Proof

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[alistairshanks]

The difference in reaction to the Ozone hole and CC can be exactly aligned with the lobbying potential of the main industries affected by the necessary changes. You hit the nail on the head when you drew attention to the difference in financial and political clout between one small section of the chemical industry and the entirety of the fossil fuel industry. Big coal and oil just dusted off the Big Tobacco playbook when looking for a way to discredit CC research and influence politicians and as it had worked for Big Tobacco it also worked for big oil and coal. This was the perfect example of "profit before people" and upped the ante to "profit before planet" and the story is not finished yet.

[davesutherland]

The banning of cfc’s was also heavily opposed until the alternative was available. We largely have the alternatives to fossil fuels, but the industries that benefit from change are not the established players. In the case of cfc’s the new ‘winners’ were the established players. That difference is pretty important to the dynamics of the issue.

[gbst]

I am a retired chemist. I worked 28 years for a pharmaceutical/chemical company doing basic research. I understand the profit motive of these types of companies. -- A chemical patent allows exclusivity (monopoly) on a product for a limited amount of time. This is a very profitable time in a product's lifecycle and no company would want to cease production during this time. They are very good at convincing politicians that the need for the product outweighs any damages it may cause. -- When the patent expires, competition is allowed, and the product is no longer as profitable. If a product is taken off the market at this point it is not that important to the company. And if the company has a back-up product that still has patent protection, it can be great thing to have the original product banned. The company could have exclusivity (monopoly) again. The company will convince the politicians that banning the product is unfortunately necessary and that the company has a replacement for it, so there will not be a major disruption of the market. -- This is what happened with CFC's. DuPont was largely out of the CFC business. The product was being made by generic companies that had little influence with politicians. CFC's were replaced with HFC's and DuPont had a profitable product again. -- The scientists that took their findings, that CFC's damaged the atmosphere, to governments were able to get them banned because it was profitable for major corporations. -- The oil business is different, the banning of CFC's is not a good model for CO2 reduction.

[WayneTheBoatGuy]

A few years ago, I had “heard” that the ozone hole had always been there and the scientists realized they had over-reacted back when we banned CFCs. And until this video I had never really heard a decent follow up to where we actually stand with this problem. Thanks for making this!

[peterusher]

Takes me back! In 1977, I organised for the UN, the first meeting on ozone depletion in Washington that in turn led to the annual assessment of ozone depletion, and eventually to Vienna for the Convention and Montreal for the protocol. For the reasons you describe, the success that was Kyoto, did not lead to prevention of climate change, our original goal. Now, we are faced with adaptation, and probably forced rather than managed. Sad.

[TJonLongIsland]

Fixing the ozone layer was much cheaper and simpler.

[jimmiller]

Fun Fact -- the scientist that created Freon also popularized the use of Lead in automotive fuel.

[ger]

Always nice to see you tubers helping each other ❤

[desrender]

A couple of years ago I read that a US satellite, had detected industries in north western china that were still using ozone depleting chemicals, which would explain why the Ozone layer has not recovered as fast as expected

[Campaigner]

The reason why no action is and were taken is easy to understand just as you said.

[CatchingCharkraLight]

I live in New Zealand, we still get Sunburnt in less than a minute in Summer.

[trueriver]

The scale of the lobbying by the oil and coal industries is the key to the difference

[zacharycharmaine]

Thanks for making this great video. Im so glad i found this channel

[terencefield]

Lovelock engineered the ozone tester that identified the problem. He described the Gaia hypothesis. Hard faced sceintists trashed him.
He was one of the first to publicise the appalling reality that would follow in global warming.
The bastards got to the old fellow - one of the most independent minded wise and clever people who dealt with this matter.
Then in very old age this fine and wise man partially retracted, saying he got it wrong by a few decades or so.
And he was the best we had.
All the others knew, said nothing, watered it all down (save for only a tiny number of brave souls not infrequently eviscerated by their universities as a result) and now the dependency on hydrocarbons has fallen from 87% to 85% in over 40 years.
Meanwhile we are treated with the intelligence of pigs in stys.
Which, for very large numbers of people, seems just is about right.

[ducharmehvactraining]

I am not a global warming denier or have any dog in the fight with the fossil fuel industry. I also agree that moving heat from one place to another for our advantage is the future. What Iam concerned about is the lack of training, honesty and the cost of maintenance and service of cold climate heat pumps. We talk about the rebates that can help you install one of these machines but not about how one bad day with a CCHP can blow your whole heating budget. They are not reliable or bullet proof enough. I have seen a bad storm wipe out several PC boards when they are needed most. We need easier to service manufacturing made in the USA, so we don't have to search for technicians and parts to make a repair.

[maplemutt]

The societal and political inertia regarding the changing out of the world's energy infrastructure now vs the rapid changing of a gas used in some products to address the loss of ozone then is really not a useful comparison. In terms of effort and cost, they are light years apart. The energy infrastructure is changing and will reach the goal of no fossil fuel sourced energy at some point, but it's a significantly larger and more expensive process than swapping out the gas used in some products. Of course, it doesn't help the installed base of fossil fuel incumbents have a significant monetary incentive to hang on for dear fossil fuel life.

[pdxyadayada]

Keep up the good work! I await your videos every week. But, why the heck have you only received 38 ‘likes’ so far? I think that your weekly posts should be required viewing by international policy makers, in my opinion.

[brianrcVids]

The same thing that happened with climate change is happening with our food system. By now there is scientific consensus we need to move away from meat based diets to save our environment and biodiversity, yet the mass media largely ignores it and treats at as up to debate.

Animal agriculture is the number one cause of ocean dead zones, water pollution, habitat destruction, and species extinction. It is also heavily implicated in climate change. We could reduce our agricultural land use by 75% and still feed the world if we moved away from meat and dairy. Please read the Forbs article: "Journalists Are Making The Same Mistake With Dietary Change They Made With Climate Change: Study"

[jimmiller]

What changed since the Ozone problem? Cable "news" (like Faux) and the internet serving as an echo-chamber for ignorance.

[mondotv]

I'm going to say before even watching it's a problem of scale and necessity. We didn't need spray cans and heat exchangers with chlorofluorocarbons- there were ready made alternatives and they weren't going to cost much to implement. CO2 emissions are a much more expensive, embedded in just about everything we do, and for some reason decarbonisation has become politicised. That's despite the fact that any rational economic analysis will show that while doing something now will cost $trillions, not doing something or intervening later will cost so much more. Now I'll watch the video because Dave is better at this than me.