From: Greenpeace via Jym Dyer <jym@mica.berkeley.edu>
Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive,alt.activism,talk.environment
Subject: NEWS: Record Ozone Loss Over Antarctica
Followup-To: talk.environment
Date: 17 Oct 1992 04:51:50 GMT
Organization: The Naughty Peahen Party Line
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu

[Greenpeace Press Release from Greenbase -- Redistribute Freely]
  
RECORD OZONE LOSS OVER ANTARCTICA AS CHEMICALS 
POUR INTO ATMOSPHERE 
  
LONDON September 24, 1992 (GP) This year's Antarctic ozone hole
is deeper than ever before and started forming earlier than ever
before, Greenpeace said today.
  
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
has revealed that satellites and balloons released at the South
Pole measured a drop of stratospheric ozone over Antarctica that
was 15 per cent greater than at the same time last year.
  
Governments are currently in the process of agreeing policies
to take to the next Montreal Protocol meeting in Copenhagen in
November, but it is unlikely they will agree to anything near
the necessary emergency phase-outs of ozone depleting
substances.  "If industry plans to allow continued production of
the so-called ozone-destroying 'alternatives'-- HCFCs -- are not
stopped by the Montreal Protocol, it will be 2060 before the
ozone layer may return to 'normal'. By then it could be too
late," said Dr Bill Hare of Greenpeace International.
  
"Even if Governments agree to an emergency phase-out of ALL
chlorine-based ozone-destroying chemicals by 1995 under the
Montreal Protocol, the stratosphere will not return to normal
until 2045.
  
"We are watching our planet's protective radiation shield shred
before our eyes. Yet the international community continues to
allow ozone-depleting chemicals to be produced, and governments
are allowing them to do it."
  
Information on the ozone hole besides that revealed by NOAA
includes:
  
** The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) has said that
ozone levels above Antarctica began to decline "unusually early"
this year.  This year, average ozone levels had already fallen
by 15 per cent during late August and mid-September.  During the
same period last year the average decrease was 6 per cent.
  
** Measurements from other scientific bases on the Antarctic
continent show that the hole already extends over most of
Antarctica, with the centre of the hole at present lying
directly above the British base at Halley Bay.
  
** Japanese scientists have also predicted that this year's
ozone hole could be bigger than the 1991 Antarctic ozone hole,
which was the worst on record.  They measured a record low in
ozone levels above their base at Showa on September 17, and
have calculated that about 52 megatonnes of ozone is likely to
be destroyed in the stratosphere above Antarctica this southern
spring.
  
Dr Hare said that volcanic eruptions, principally Mount
Pinatubo, combined with record levels of ozone depleting
chlorine, have contributed to this year's record Antarctic
ozone destruction.  But he noted that if the stratosphere
was not already primed with chlorine from CFCs, the Pinatubo
eruption would not have resulted in an ozone hole.
  
"How many more warnings do world leaders need to understand
that we must stop making these chemicals now?"
  
He said the alternatives to any of these chemicals were becoming
available now.  In Germany, a completely CFC-free fridge, using
propane and butane, was about to come onto the market. The
refrigeration sector was a major CFC and HCFC user.
  
"Governments are bowing to the profit-hungry chemical giants
like Du Pont, ICI and Atochem which insist these alternatives
are not available.  It's time they took notice of the scientific
warnings, not the political blackmail of big business."
Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive