20 votes

Whatever happened to the Ozone Hole?

Haven't heard about that in a long time. It used to be all you would hear about in the '90s. How we were doomed if we didn't solve it. So, how did that get resolved?

1. It healed itself
2. Laws were passed to force everyone to use something other than freon since the freon patent was running out and the new stuff was patented by the same company. Cha-ching! Problem solved.
3. It never was a problem. Just more BS from the Global Warming dolts.

Any guesses how the global warming thing will work out when in 20 years we look back?

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Ozone hole hasn't gone

Ozone hole hasn't gone anywhere. It's refrigerant replacement time again and now R134a has to be replaced with something supposedly more environmentally friendly.

R12 was replaced with R134a. Now R134a it has to be replaced. Governments are forcing the use of R1234yf. Meanwhile Mercedes Benz has determined that R1234yf does not meet their safety standards and does not wish to use it.( http://www.vasa.org.au/major-car-maker-renounces-r1234yf/ )

deacon's picture

Haven't you heard?

It's not global warming anymore,it is now called
climate change (as in,climates change)
To be honest,the planet might be in a cooling state
and this could be why they wanted to sell credits when it was called warming
if it is cooling,what a racket/scam to sell credits to everyone
to keep warmer,oh and make them all feel guilty and broke
that is,unless you are an ALGORE,who tried to set up his credit
program,thereby raking in billions upon billions
now back to the ozone hole,was this the one caused when HAARP was fired up?
if so,i guess it really was man made (ask the Inuits about that


the chemtrails cause the

the chemtrails cause the Earth collingfor 15 years

Uhhhh....The offending types of freons were baned

and replaced by safe(er) ones. Regulations were instituted mandating that the freon in junked air conditioners be collected rather than vented into the atmosphere.

Leges sine moribus vanae

A brief N.B. to the downvoters....


Leges sine moribus vanae

what do you suppose they are downvoting?

all you stated were well known facts.
this does not mean that the "facts" presented were correct by any means.

pretty ballsy to chose HVACTech as a screen name eh?

what would you like to know about thermodynamics?


She's messing with my thermodynamics... The song ain't bad either. Long time since I heard it.

I suppose the shrinking of the ozone hole

could have been a coincidence. What are they downvoting? I don't know, but I suspect it was the idea, that in this instance, perhaps the gummint got it right. I'm no fan of government coercion, but the industrial scale chemical pollution of our land, water and air concerns me.

Leges sine moribus vanae

The government isn't always wrong in what they say.

Particularly when it comes to science. They can manipulate the laws of society, but not the laws of nature.

I mean they made it to the moon. Is NASA lying about the principles of rocket science? (sadly a disturbingly number of people do take it that far).

It's not ethical to ban freons, but it doesn't mean the regulations didn't work as intended.

I agree with you.

deacon's picture

they can and do

manipulate the science,and it is always for their benefit
and to our detriment
such as global warming then turned climate change,but before that
it went through another name change
so while they cannot change the laws the nature,they can manipulate the data
for their own desired affect,and they do
Did we make it to the moon?


Just to clarify

The two issues of global warming and climate change are very different concepts.

Global warming is the overall total temp of the planet, it's atmosphere and it's oceans all rising. This has dramatic issues from a very small amount of rise (like 1-4 degrees). Since those rises aren't hardly noticeable by humans, this became muddled in the media.

This rise, however, causes the climate to do different things than we've grown to expect from it. This includes both hotter and colder events, higher or lower precipitation events and calmer and more violent events. How your climate changes depends on many variables but it's never a guarantee which way it will go, hence the name climate change as opposed to global warming.

Global cooling was never an issue and can all be traced back to a few mis-representing papers in the 70's that failed to read context when they snatched their headline from it. Follow your sources and you'll see too.

The moon? Really? That's quite a stretch. fyi, I worked with dozen of engineers that tested all the electronics in the Gemini and Saturn rockets. Many of them were intimately involved start to finish. This is a fake hoax.

deacon's picture

what i believe is true

is this,It is all a hoax
one name change after another as people caught on
and by caught on,i mean,people were starting to see the fraud
not only in them,but their data as well
Somewhere in comments here from way back,I have an article
from the mid 70's,it shed light on the earth cooling.Mow this article goes hand in hand with i believe is true.The earth is cooling,some people want more power and control,so the warming deal was created,if it is truly cooling
and they are selling credits,the ones buying credits are going to go broke
and the sellers are going to be richer (algore and his credit selling company)
more fraud


and a bit more crap :)


my comment about the moon,was in response to delysid,he thinks we went to the moon,I don't,it think it was faked


There's lots of truth mixed in with lots of gaming

Back in '01 - '06 or so, I was pretty involved in discussions with numerous big name energy guys. I was against foreign oil mostly because of the economic situation it put us in. I got more into it and became most concerned about peak oil. As a result, I dusted off an old solar idea from high school and updated it with a new Stirling engine design. A couple engineers joined up and we built some prototypes. In hunting funding, we identified that our biggest roadblock wasn't cost of the equipment, it was regulations stopping non-traditional solar from being hooked up to the grid.

Knowing this wasn't fair to the homeowner, I designed a smart grid system that was modeled after the internet. You can find it written up here: http://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2012/04/07/the-living-sm...

Anyway, this was about the time the global warming debate got heated up among energy types (it didn't hit the MSM for a few more years). I was actually adamant that CO2 forcing was maxed out and could not increase the Earth's temp beyond what it was doing at 350ppm. I held that opinion for a long time until the interaction came into play of methane, CO2 and the wavelengths of light/IR they blocked. This scared me quite a bit and after lots of research, I switched teams.

Many of the current arguments (from newbies to the topic) said that their region wasn't getting warm and the argument was made that they wouldn't notice the temp rise but that they would definitely see their climate change. I'm not sure if this is the origin of the CC name change but it was a Calif energy policy official that took this path. It wasn't long after before the public GW debate changed to CC.

This is all I know from a personal basis; take it with a grain of salt.

On the government intervention issue, I have a different take. Knowing personally as I do that we have cheaper alternatives to our energy needs than fossil fuels, I'm convinced that there are two competing conspiracies. The energy companies want us hooked on their goods and the money types want us to pay through the nose for it. If we recognize the problem and solve it first (by going solar thermal, not PV) the emissions will drop as a result of saving on our energy bills. Hence, we will have solved both problems. No expensive foreign energy and no government regulations costing us more. I am very adamant about this method because I'm convinced that it's the only way we're going to stop the elitists from implementing cap-and-tax on us.

So my short answer is this: Go solar and save money, get off foreign oil and we don't have to worry about climate change, global warming or CO2 taxes. It's the right thing to do and the tasty way to do it.

deacon's picture

while I know not enough

about this topic
I do,do as you have suggested,or at least moving in that direction
it is,just a great thing to do
but man,the start up costs of going solar alone,is about 2 yrs wages for me
the inverter alone for the house is around 40 grand,one that will/might last until its paid for
then theres the panels themselves,while not too highly over priced
plays a factor
What we have been doing is canning,dehydrating our own foods
buying in bulk saves a ton of money(while these are a bit off topic,it is a way for us to save money for better things
I have been playing with 2 things of interest to me
one is a 12 v water/hydrogen separator for use in engines
and the other is a propane powered engine,i had one once in a 78 chevy truck
and am totally curious about methane powered engines,maybe the next one,after i get the first 2 finished
than you for the link to the website,getting the gist of it


I'll try to address in order

Everyone is somewhere different in the learning curve of this game. Don't fret. Things work themselves out, just maybe not as fast as some would like.

Yes, it's expensive to go PV now but there's no way your inverter should cost $40k. I don't know what your home's load is but I'm thinking more like $2,400-$4k and longevity should be 20 years warranted. PV panels can be had for under $1/watt or $4,000 for a 4kW system (not installed). Installation mileage may vary in your region. (Partnering up to teach a new electrician the code and you might just get him to sign off on you installing it.)

Newer forms of solar are just around the corner. Google 'solar 1' or 'solar power tower' or 'Stirling dish' and you'll see whats being scaled down for home application next year. Prices will be similar BUT these 'can' have full energy storage built in for .5-7 days of no sun and they usually have options for using their waste heat to heat your home. This is double use for triple the time for the same price - 6 times the value.

Canning is good but my recommendation would be to research aquaponics with solar powered grow lights and get it set up to produce a weeks' worth of food and fish each week, year round. That way you don't have storage losses or costs and you have fresh all year. It's a much smaller harvest quantity so it's smaller footprint which is trickier but well worth it. I am working on such a system and can offer suggestions offline if you want.

I haven't seen any water>hydrogen systems that are energy positive but if you're actually getting it so, do let us know. The best electrolizers made require 140% the energy to power them compared to the energy available from the hydrogen made. The caveat to this is if you put it on an inefficient engine and the H2 makes the gas now burn efficient, then you may benefit more than you spent.

Regarding propane/NG fuels, check into gasifiers and capturing the producer-gas (or wood gas or syngas) they make. You can get heat and fuel from burning wood and sometimes even waste.

Keep trudging along! Love your sig.

pissant wannabe.

and you just discovered methane when?
would like for me to give you a dissertation on it's properties?

thermodynamics is NOT your field.

Someone needs to teach you a lesson in online communicating

Quit following me around. You don't know me, you don't know anything about what I talk about most of the time and I refuse to respond any more. Consider yourself blocked and recommended to be banned. There's no excuse for you to avoid all my technical points, change the subject, make false accusations and focus all your comments on trying to piss people off. Go back to your porch and play with your alligator, hick troll, I'm sick and tired of you devolving every technical discussion into gradeschool drama.

I treid to explain enthalpy to you, on your own terms.

as equals.
I gave an actual use for the concept. I even gave you a link to a psychometric chart.
that was NOT from wikipedia, and had ACTUAL uses and a glossary for understanding it.
the psychometric chart, is a sliding scale Todd. the one provided was only applicable at sea level

if you understood the thermodynamic properties of our atmosphere.
we would have clicked and worked together to help others to learn.

color me gone, from the DP.

HAHAHAHAAH made it to the

HAHAHAHAAH made it to the moon!??!?!!

look up "a funny thing happened on the way to the moon"

are you saying that this is all germaine?

well, dear sir, they do have something to say about that.

The government got something

The government got something right? Even when they're right, they're wrong.

Let's not forget that the number one polluter is the US gov.


It went

to live in la la land with acid rain from the 70's.


It takes something like 100 years to know if we did any good.

Last time I looke (3-4 years ago) the models said we wont be able to know if there is a significant change for like 100 years.

The planet/global warming

Can always heal it self given sufficient time. dont be sucked into the climate change/ and real science is all propaganda. there's a natural order to things.

being libertarian minded isnt just about politics and liberty its about self sufficiency and not raping the planet to death fucking future generations. certain things are just toxic and aweful, thats just chemistry and biology.

also the planet will most likely cool in 20 years, that was always predicted the UN just lied a whole lot look up what the thermolhaline current is and what happens when large amounts of fresh water are dumped into it ie. the polar ice caps





remember the 80-90's when all the girls used hairspray and hand awesome bangs that often stood 4-6 inches in the air? i'm not going to claim that everyone stopped using it and that is why we don't hear of the ozone hole anymore... no no no... i have a much more paranoid suggestion... ;)

What if... hairspray, came out, was loved, everyone used it, and there was a dreadful side effect that wasn't even studied until later? after it was studied and after it was already approved for human use by the government, they found that it causes cancer, lowers iq, etc ,etc you name it, it causes it. well, instead of admitting this and telling people to not use it, they made up a bigger lie and blamed the people who use it for causing a large hole in our ozone which will kill us all. hence, making them feel guilty and quit using the toxic sticky spray. lol ...


The ozone hole created the Grunge look.

The fashionistas were guilty of causing a hairspray hole in the ozone in the 80s. As punishment they werent allowed to shower in the 90s.

No knowledge on this topic

but logical thought......or questions.

1 How do you know that the hole hasn't was always there....but it only became a problem because someone finally discovered it?

2 If too much greenhouse gas is a problem.....wouldn't a hole be a way to let it out?

I don't waste time and brain space on this kind of stuff.....the dollar crashing is going to happen way before the ozone hole is a problem.

Deliberate duplicate post

I'm deliberately re-posting this since it is also a partial reply to the OP. Even though it is truly more geard to tamckissick's drivel to which it was applied below. Also, another reason for the re-post is because by the time I was through researching and writing it, the position it finally appeared in on the page, did not justify the amount of work expended.

In my reply to you chicken little (tamckissick), I will also reply to/answer the OP's original questions.

"1. It healed itself"

There was nothing to "heal."


This part is true. Laws were passed. World-wide. And they were passed, not strictly due to the scare-mongering stirred up over a naturally occurring phenomenon (although that was what most lawmakers were fooled into believing was the reason was for doing so), but ultimately for the reason you alluded to concerning the patent. The company you alluded to (which is Dupont BTW) had success once before with the use of scaremongering in eliminating their competition in the nylon business. The competition was hemp and the scaremongering was a movie called "Refer Madness." So, why not try it again?

The problem is that "HCFC's" are essentially the same product but more corrosive to seals causing old systems without upgraded seals to leak it leaving more of it in the air so it is really no boon at all, unless you're a shareholder in Dupont who holds the patent for them.

"3. It never was a problem. Just more BS from the Global Warming dolts."

This one is true as well, but it wasn't dolts that originated it. It was scientists who climbed onto the bandwagon once a "possible" connection to "ozone damage" was "made". You see, once a new field of research comes to light, many people jump into the newly created field and apply for grants to study it. These scientists now have a vested interest in maintaining the hoax, because to do otherwise would cause their meal-ticket/funding grants to dry up and they'd be in the unemployment line tomorrow.

And the above are just the industrial/political/scientist self preservation reasons why this hoax has been perpetrated upon us.

Now, to more directly answer you chicken little (tamckissick), here are some actual ozone hole facts:

"One of the more interesting results on atmospheric ozone which came out of the IGY was the discovery of the peculiar annual variation of ozone at Halley Bay (Fig.16)"(Antarctica). "This particular ozone instrument had been to Shotover to be checked up immediately before leaving England. Moreover, Evans, who took the original observations at Halley Bay, had also been to Shotover to become familiar with the working of the instrument and its maintainence. The annual variation of ozone at Spitzbergen was fairly well known at that time, so, assuming a six months difference, we knew what to expect. However, when the monthly telegrams from Halley Bay began to arrive and were plotted alongside the Spitzbergen curve, the values for September and October 1956 were about 150 units lower than was ex-pected. We naturally thought that Evans had made some large mistake or that, in spite of checking just be-fore leaving England, the instrument had developed some fault. In November the ozone values suddenly jumped to those expected from the Spitzbergen results. It was not until a year later, when the same type of annual variation was repeated, that we realized that the early results were indeed correct and that Halley Bay showed most interesting difference from other parts of the world. It was clear that the winter vortex over the South Pole was maintained late into the spring and that this kept the ozone values low. When it suddenly broke up in November both the ozone values and the stratosphere temperatures suddenly rose." Source: "Forty Years' Research on Atmospheric Ozone at Oxford: a History" G.M.B. Dobson March 1968/Vol.7, No.3/APPLIED OPTICS pp401-403.


Note the years spoken of for this discovery. It was 1956 and confirmed in 1957 and yet again in 1958 (1958 was not mentioned in text but the chart on pp 401 shows the 1958 data). Dobson was the president of the IOC (International Ozone Commission) in 1957. He recorded these events as a naturally occurring phenomenon. These measurements were made well before the widespread uses of CFC's. They (CFC's) were just coming into their own at that time. Since the "Ozone hole" scaremongers have to use the relative stability of this molecule to justify how a substance 7 times heavier than air can actually even make it to the stratosphere, this would, by the scaremongers own theories place the release of any CFC's that may have led to this drop many years before that. To be sure, that just never happened back in 1957 and it's very doubtful it ever happens with any significance or consequence today as no amount of time is going to "lighten" an in-tact molecule that is 7 times heaver than air.

One other thing to note about the author of the above article, Dobson... Ozone is measured in Fraking DOBSON UNITS!!! The man was no slouch and can't be passed off as a "Denier" (for there was no "Ozone" controversy at that time) and is certainly not a crackpot because again... Ozone is measured in Fraking DOBSON UNITS!!!

One thing Dobson failed to account for in his article though and that is how ozone is actually produced. Ozone is created by sunlight. (Source: Stratospheric Ozone An Electronic Textbook" ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: The Stratospheric Ozone Electronic Textbook was funded, developed, written, and edited by members of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Atmospheric Chemistry and Dynamics Branch)

The relevant text is contained in chapter 1 section 3.

Ozone's creation by sunlight (as acknowledged by NASA which is certainly no ozone denier proven by the above textbook which is loaded with "depletion" horse-hockey and any scientist worth his salt researching ozone, if honest, will admit that it's created by sunlight) is significant here in relationship to the "hole".

Dobson, I'm sure knew of the ozone-oxygen cycle and ozone creation at the time of both the publishing of the above paper and the 1956-58 Antarctica results since the cycle was discovered in 1930 by Sydney Chapman (referred to as the "Chapman Cycle"). His failure to include it as part of his explanation of the low readings is something I find odd (although that was just one small section of an overall article and maybe he wasn't shooting for an exhaustive explanation for those particular observations). Therefore I will include it now as part of the explanation of the hole in Antarctica.

The "hole" has ALWAYS "appeared" in the September-October time frame. This is at or near the end of the Antarctic winter. What is absent during the Antarctic winter class?... anyone?? anyone??? That's right Johnny it's fraking sunlight!!! Since we've established that sunlight creates ozone, then one should EXPECT a reduction to be occurring all throughout an Antarctic winter and along with the antarctic vortex Dobson offered up, culminates in the NATURALLY OCCURRING PHENOMENON that Dobson documented in his above article occurring in the years 1956-1958.

Of course this is all academic since just the single eruption of mount Pinatubo in the Philippines spewed many times more ozone depleting chemicals into the atmosphere in a single eruption than man has ever even produced:


It's just too bad that pesky Dobson had to come along and hold up the sky you claim to be falling, huh chicken little?? And isn't it just a little curious that the widespread panic erupted over the "hole" in 1985, nearly 10 years after Dobsons death and certainly beyond the time most people familiar with his work still had it fresh in their minds?

The truth of the matter is that ozone is being continuously made by the sun at the rate of 12% of the entire volume of the earths ozone each day. Therefore, the only way to truly destroy the ozone layer is to build a big fraking flying fire truck and go put out the sun while simultaneously extracting all the oxygen from the earths atmosphere. For as long as there is sunlight and oxygen, there will always be ozone. And of course, the natural causes for any "depletion" are on the order of exponential magnitudes greater in any given SINGLE YEAR (think volcano's and evaporating seawater) than man has EVER produced in his entire history on the fraking planet...

So, I'm sorry to disappoint you chicken little (tamckissick), but the sky is not falling despite your protestations otherwise. It would be far wiser for you to re-direct these environmental passions of yours to more fruitful endeavors, like the cause of liberty and freedom. Because all you're doing with your passion at the moment is helping to further the global cabal's use of these scare-mongering phantom issues to establish more control over us leading to de-facto slavery. And all of this support for the statits/globalists tactics makes your presence here, on an overwhelmingly libertarian site like the Daily Paul, extremely puzzling.


Paul C. Hanson

You didn't even read my post, did you? (reposted as well)

You talk about me being a troll? You call me names? I'm sorry to break it to you, Mr. Luddite Ostrich, but you failed again. This makes what, every time now, that you have managed to get off topic and whine about some other topic, only to justify it by quoting long sections of irrelevant text that makes you sound intelligent. Sure hope your university doesn't monitor your discussions or you'll probably lose tenure.

I'm not even going to address your conspiracy crap because while it may or may not be true (I personally don't care enough to research it), if the science stands on its own, the conspiracy status can't change it.

I'm not going down the 'more corrosive' path either. It's just an extension of the former.

Other than crossing paths of research, Ozone research has nothing to do with global warming. Therefore, you claiming it's more BS from the GW 'dolts' is simple name calling and ranks right up there with a 3 year old saying "did too!" all day. Exactly how old are you anyway?

Ok, on to your direct point which was anything but. Honestly, I'm pretty pissed at you for making me read a dozen pages of your link (to get the context) just to see what you were trying to say. Guess what? Your point was nothing more than 'the ozone levels breath with seasons and other cyclic variations'. Wow, that's earth shattering! NOT. What an idiot. Of course it does. It's well known and expected. It's a well studied process and you're just figuring it out?

Got a great laugh out of your melt-down over the units being named after Dobson. I'm guessing you think James Watt originated all the three phase power factor calculations too. (Hint: 3 ph wasn't invented for 60 years after he died.)

I love the "7 times heavier than air" bit. That was cute. It really sounds impressive. Unfortunately, I can't find anything related to this conversation that has a density of 8.4g/L. (Air's density is 1.2g/L) What's really humorous is that you actually think there's no CL free radicals in the stratosphere. I'm guessing you also think that all the N2 gas (@ 14 MW) is buoyantly sitting on top of all the O2 gas (MW of 16)? Let us know so we can safely climb a mountain and not die from breathing pure nitrogen.

If you had simply read Wikipedia on this topic (which you obviously didn't) you'd know that Ozone is created by combining UV sunlight with O2 and that leads to a process which in turn makes O2 again and heat. This does 'turn around' 12% of the O3 each day but that's not really the question, now is it? The question is what effect does Cl and Br radicals have on this process. That answer couldn't be answered any better than Wiki again:

"3. Removal: if an oxygen atom and an ozone molecule meet, they recombine to form two oxygen molecules:
O3 + O· → 2 O2
And if two oxygen atoms meet, they react to form one oxygen molecule:
2 O· → O2
The overall amount of ozone in the stratosphere is determined by a balance between production by solar radiation and removal. The removal rate is slow, since the concentration of O atoms is very low.
Certain free radicals, the most important being hydroxyl (OH), nitric oxide (NO) and atoms of chlorine (Cl) and bromine (Br), catalyze the recombination reaction, leading to an ozone layer that is thinner than it would be if the catalysts were not present.
Most of the OH and NO are naturally present in the stratosphere, but human activity, especially emissions of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and halons, has greatly increased the Cl and Br concentrations, leading to ozone depletion. Each Cl or Br atom can catalyze tens of thousands of decomposition reactions before it is removed from the stratosphere."

Clear enough?

Oh, and HCFC does not remove the Cl but just adds a diminishing factor of Hydrogen which makes the Cl leave the atmosphere faster. So, obviously this isn't the perfect solution to the problem but it's a step to mitigate it until HFCs can be made to work better.

And lastly.... I didn't claim the sky was falling. The OP asked what happened to the ozone hole issue in recent times and I answered exactly what happened. It was not hyperbole or conjecture. It wasn't even opinion, as others have cited on this thread (and not gotten personally attacked - not cool!). Just because someone else has a different opinion doesn't give you the right to go after them personally. You might find out that either they're right, that they are making a different point than you're arguing or both.