The Earth is still dying

According to Stephen Leahy in his article "Climate Change: Chemical Lobby Weakening Ozone Treaty," the ozone hole is much bigger than before, and there are more and more people who get skin cancer. The Montreal Protocol plays an important role to protect the ozone layer. Also, the CFC refrigerants were changed to HCFCs and HFCs, which is successful to decrease the damaging chemicals for the ozone layer. But HCFCs and HFCs are very strong greenhouse gases. Right now, 40% of refrigerators in the world are "greenfreeze" refrigerator. They are widely used in many countries but "the U.S. and Canada have banned them." There are many countries that are trying to develop new refrigerants to protect the ozone layer, but that is very difficult in an economic downturn.

The article tells us several ways to protect the ozone layer and the danger of UV rays, but I don't agree with the author. That is because these ways just decreased the destruction of ozone. They didn't address the problem. Also, more and more problems will be found because of the change of refrigerants. I think the government should work on a new chemical, even in an economic downturn.

First of all, I think people didn’t find a way to stop the ozone-destroying. People try to change CFC to HCFCs and HFCs. By this way the ozone-damaging has declined. But as we know, the HCFCs also destroy the ozone; it is about five percent the rate of CFCs. It seems like people fix the problem; in fact people just slow down the destruction of ozone. This is not the way to fix the problem. I think people should find some new chemicals in place of CFC, and make sure that the new chemical will not hurt the ozone layer at all.

Second, I think use HCFCs and HFCs as new refrigerants is a bad idea. They can fix the ozone problem, at least they slow down the damage of the ozone. But they are powerful greenhouse gases. These chemicals can emit billions tons of carbon dioxide. They will make global warming far worse. We cannot only focus on the ozone layer and ignore the global warming problem, because global warming also is a big problem in the world. As I know, there is no more spring in my hometown because of global warming. All of these problems are important to our planet. Maybe we can fix the problem by changing refrigerants, but global warming will kill us. This is not the result that we want. People cannot ignore this leak, because it’s too dangerous for people.

Finally, I think the problem is global, and can no longer be solved by individual nations. According to the article, “U.S. chemical companies are working on a new ozone-friendly chemical, German car manufacturers facing tough legislation in Europe have developed a new carbon dioxide refrigerant that could replace current HFC use by 2011.” These are many countries working on the ozone problem. But it seems it hasn’t worked very well. I think the countries should change their way to keep working. The countries and companies should working together for solution just like the globalization of the economy, because this is the problem for all over the world.

In conclusion, the author didn’t give people a good way to protect the ozone layer, because the HCFCs still hurt ozone, HCFCs and HFCs are greenhouse gases, and people didn’t fix this problem as a global problem. I think the best way to protect the ozone layer is that the world should fix the problem together and find a new ozone-friendly chemical.

Reference

Leahy, S. (2009, May 19). Climate change: Chemical lobby weakening ozone treaty. Inter Press Service. Retrieved May 20, 2009, from http://www.ipsnews.net/print.asp?idnews=43888.