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Ozone Hole Swallows Earth
October 20, 2006There's an interesting article making the rounds about the hole in the ozone layer. For the uninitiated, the atmosphere is made up of layers - the troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere, caramelosphere, nougatosphere and creamy milk chocolatosphere. Somewhere between the caramel and nougat is the ozone layer, a special layer of the atmosphere that contains ozone particles designed to keep the caramel from inappropriately mixing with the nougat. Ozone is actually a nerdish version of oxygen. Most oxygen runs around in pairs, but ozone is a sort of geeky-clique of three maladjusted oxygen atoms. I know all of this science stuff because my son is learning about Chemistry in home schooling this year so I read ahead in case he has any questions.
The ozone layer has been under attack by refrigerators since the 70s, when most humans adopted food-saving technology in order to keep their baloney good for more than three hours. Refrigerators release something called CFCs, which stand for "Ozone Destroying Particles." Since most refrigerators come from a giant manufacturing plant located in Antarctica, the largest hole has formed above that continent. Destruction of the ozone layer would be catastrophic, because the nougat would run into the caramel and turn into a sticky mess that would raise everyone's blood sugar and cause unprecedented obesity.
Five billion articles (give or take) appear via Google News for "ozone hole" tonight. An Official Story from the NASA site can be found here. The article itself is not dated, but if you refer to this page you can see that it's from October 20, or today. It talks about the record-breaking ozone hole.
Curiously, though, scientists are saying there is no reason for panic. For example, if you read this article from the Australian you'll see:
While the size of the hole is alarming, it does not mean that increased amounts of ozone-depleting chemicals are reaching the atmosphere, said Paul Lehmann with the Bureau of Meteorology Research Centre in Melbourne. "There is mounting evidence that the ozone is slowly recovering," he said.
So basically you had to get your panic out of the way back in the 70s, when the hole was tiny. Now that it's bigger than North America and we've gotten rid of all of our refrigerators there's no cause for panic.
I'm not sure what's going on, but I blame the Baloney Lobby.
