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Essay on Ozone Depletion and Industrial Output

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Ozone Depletion and Industrial Output

For years, we have heard about the ozone crisis: that because of industrialization and the lack of pollution-consciousness by our industries, governments, and academia, we have put so many environmentally harmful products into the atmosphere that our ozone – the good kind, the kind that protects us from harmful UV radiation – is becoming dangerously damaged. It is becoming thinner and developing holes, like the large hole over Antarctica. Predictions made expected the ozone hole to continue to increase and for the general thickness to get continuously thinner, so that the harmful UV rays of the sun would pass right through our atmosphere and fry our skin if we went outside for ten …show more content…

However, the interaction of CFCs with the relatively unstable O3 that makes up ozone caused a depletion of this molecule in the atmosphere – thus diminishing the total amount of protective ozone. Once CFCs were realized to be destructive and responsible for a great deal of damage to the ozone, measures were put in place to reduce the amount of CFCs in products. These reductive measures are probably responsible for stemming a lot of ozone depletion. Pure chlorine is another particle that is seriously accountable for ozone damage because of the reactions it makes with O3 (Kerr). Bromide and halocarbons are other key damagers (Fahey/Ravishankara and Kerr). A crucial component in the reduction of ozone damage is to decrease the emissions of these and other harmful materials, both in product development and production, as well as in product functioning itself.

One of the measures instituted to reduce destructive emissions was the 1987 Montreal Protocol. This international document provided guidelines for the reduction of ozone-damaging chemicals on a timeline that would be helpful for ozone repair. It seems as though the reductions that have already taken place have had beneficial effects. The importance of continuing to follow the

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