The Weekly Anthropocene, January 18 2023
Dispatches from the Wild, Weird World of Humanity and its Biosphere
Earth
The healing of the ozone layer (a region of O3 in the stratosphere that shields life on Earth from ultraviolent radiation) is one of the greatest environmental success stories in history. When ozone holes began forming in the 1980s, the world’s governments quickly reacted, signing the Montreal Protocol in 1987 (entering into effect in 1989) phasing out ozone-destroying CFCs, and it started to get better around the year 2000. Now, the UN’s latest quadrennial assessment on the ozone layer reports that progress continues to be excellent: nearly 99% of banned ozone-layer-depleting substances have been phased out, and Earth’s ozone layer is now expected to fully recover to 1980 levels (before the ozone hole) by 2066 over Antarctica, 2045 over the Arctic, and 2040 for the rest of the world. (Here’s the full report). Excellent news!
This also helps in the fight against climate change, for several reasons. UV damage to plant tissues from a t…
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