Topic: Whatever Happened to the Ozone Hole?

[sam]

What would the 1980s have been without big hair and ice-cold wine coolers?

Luckily no one had to find out: Key substitutions in hairsprays and refrigerants allowed such products to exist without chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which were found to be ripping a huge "hole" in Earth's protective ozone layer.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/05/100505-science-environment-ozone-hole-25-years/



WOW! That’s what global co-operation can do!

[Rik]

That's a blast from the past, Sam. 

[Sandra]

Fortunately that could be positively identified and a solution provided so co-operation was easily achieved.
Man made global warming on the other hand is still not 100% proven, so only the most gullible politicians are taxing us for it  

[sam]

Fortunately that could be positively identified and a solution provided so co-operation was easily achieved.
Man made global warming on the other hand is still not 100% proven, so only the most gullible politicians are taxing us for it  

Argh - the some of the same arguments about the Ozone layer can applied to global warming - you know the hand wavy s**te about "not knowing enough about the longer term Earth etc" that people who don't know anything about science use.  The observational evidence suggests that the climate is changing and that oddly correlates with human activity...  lets fix our wrongs and sort it out.

[Sandra]

They could accurately measure the ozone and I think that all the scientists were in agreement with the cause and hpw tp provide an effective solution.
Global warming itself is in some dispute by many scientists and even more dispute that its man made.

Maybe if the UK government didnt make so much tax out of claiming that its man made, then it may seem more plausible. They fixed the ozone problem without taxing us directly, although it did cost us more my replacing the cheap fluerocarbons.

[sam]

They fixed the ozone problem without taxing us directly, although it did cost us more my replacing the cheap fluerocarbons.

give me some examples of direct tax?

From WIKI (not that I truly trust it as resource):

In 1993, the UK government introduced the fuel duty escalator (FDE), an environmental tax on retail petroleum products. The tax was explicitly designed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the transport sector. Since carbon is in fixed ratio to the quantity of fuel, the FDE roughly approximated a carbon tax. The transport lobby in the UK was extremely critical of the FDE. The FDE, which was the UK's only "real" carbon tax, failed because of the political criticism it provoked, and the automatic increase of the FDE was cancelled in 1999.[38] Increases in fuel tax have since been discretionary.

The politically-damaging fuel protests in 2000 contributed to the government decision to reduce the real rates of fuel tax. At the time, tax and duty represented more than 75% of the total pump price. In money terms, the past increments of the FDE remain in force, but in real terms, increments have been reduced by the rate of inflation. In 2006, tax represented about ⅔ of the pump price

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_tax#UK

Global warming itself is in some dispute by many scientists and even more dispute that its man made.

No scientists I talk dispute global change. The term global warming is misleading and the press use it wrongly all the time in the UK when its cold... "look global warming, pah its 0C" - well yes the UK is affected differently to other places.

You know what, I don't know what I even bother discussing this, though I have a PhD in physics and understand a few things about radiation transfer and hydrodynamics ... there is just no point - especially when I believe I don't know enough to have a properly informed discussion. Eventually though 'you' have to believe what the informed scientists who have spent the lives understanding this tell you. Otherwise, what's the point in having highly trained people... just go ask anyone what they think. If you can't explain to me a log-log plot then there is just no point.

[Rik]

Eventually though 'you' have to believe what the informed scientists who have spent the lives understanding this tell you. Otherwise, what's the point in having highly trained people

The only problem I have with that, Sam, is the the logical extension is that we have to believe the highly trained experts in Government or the Church.

[Simon]

What about highly trained experts in medical fields?  I think you have to have some belief in some things.  If you never believe anything anyone says, because it doesn't fit with your own views, that must form a very blinkered outlook on the world. 

[Rik]

You could say that if you believe what you are told by others, then you have a very blinkered view.

[Simon]

But how can you learn if you never believe what you are told?  Do you distrust everything Jolly tells you?

[Rik]

There's no simple answer to that. I do my own homework, but I'm not qualified enough to give a definitive answer, so I then take expert opinion and check for anomalies. In just the same way, I've listened to what various religions have told me about their beliefs, then checked 'their book' to see how much of it is in there and how much has been decided by the men in power over the years. Of course, when it comes to politics, I don't believe a word anyone is saying.

[Simon]

Sorry, I didn't mean to be personal.  I was just wondering how one makes informed decisions, if one doesn't believe most of what one is told.  You just sometimes have to trust people, in my opinion. 

[Rik]

You do, though they have to earn it. I trust Jolly implicitly, but I still like to do my homework so I can ask all the right questions.

[sam]

yes, I agree with that sort of approach - however the vast majority of people who don't believe in climate change aren't asking questions, aren't doing their home work and are just flying off the handle over it.

[Sandra]

If you can't explain to me a log-log plot then there is just no point.

I may not be able to interpretate a graph as easily or quickly as you do Sam but thats a bit like saying that if you cant play a C minor chord with an augmented 5th and suspended 4th that you cant understand which music sounds good.

As you pointed out the fuel escalator was a direct tax and the payable tax is variable depending on the amount of CO2 produced when buying a new car. Also the road tax is now directly proportionate to the amount of CO2 a car produces rather than the sensible way of taxing it on the mileage driven, size and weight of car which causes the most or least damage to the roads. Congestion charges in London and other place when it is introduced are another direct tax, as electric vehicles and hybrids are exempt from paying it even though they still create the same amout of congestion.