Hopefully you’ll have seen this if you’ve been browsing the internet a bit over the last week, it’s certainly been doing the rounds, but for those that haven’t we thought we’d quickly blog about it. It’s some pretty awesome information that clearly shows that we can make a difference.
You see, the Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.net site, which is an interactive open access journal of the European Geosciences Union (whoa!) has published a very interesting study. To get straight to the point, it shows that the Montreal Protocol in 1987 worked! If you don’t know what the Montreal Protocol was, it was an international treaty that aimed to protect the ozone layer by phasing out substances that damaged it, in particular chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs.
Their study basically produced a model that looked at what would happen to the world if we had carried on in a kind of, ‘business as usual’ manner from 1987 with the use of CFC’s. The result? By 2060, the world is completely depleted of the ozone and any protection against ultraviolet radiation from the sun, and that’s bad.
The study shows that thanks to the Montreal Protocol, we got our environmental act together and have made a change. There will still be slight levels of depletion, we’re not completely in the clear, but the study clearly shows that it is possible for us to make a difference and seriously help out the environment. So, a little pat on the back for now…
