NU's Charles King adds that electric deregulation has also forced NU to become more bottom-line conscious. Instead of full-size EVs, NU recently conducted a trial of ZAP electric bicycles, lending them to police departments and campus security offices. The predicted recovery depends, of course, on some serious behavior modification, specifically full implementation of the landmark Montreal Protocol, including its ultimate goal of a total ban on ozone-destroying chemicals in the 165 countries that are parties to it. Developing countries are slated to begin their own phase-outs of these chemicals this year. Chlorofluorocarbon sprays are on the scrap heap in the U.S., but it will take 50 or more years for the ozone layer to fully recover.
Researchers say to expect more ozone loss in the near future, though.
The CFC phase-out will not be felt immediately, because it takes time for chemicals to reach the stratosphere, where ozone depletion occurs. John Passacantando, executive director of Washington, D.C.-based Ozone Action, agrees that the problem has still not been solved. A study released last summer by Columbia University and NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies uses computer models to predict that the ozone hole will keep growing until 2020. Indeed, last September the hole over the Antarctic was determined to be both bigger and deeper than ever previously measured, says Kymberly Escobar of Ozone Action. Increases in ultraviolet-B radiation have also been measured in Alaska, the first major evidence of ozone depletion in a populated area.