Ozone Layer Essay, Research Paper

Society has been widely addressed with the many problems that we are

having in our environment today. A major problem is that of CFCs. CFC

stands for Chlorofluorocarbons which are found in many of the aerosol spray

cans. In December of 1973, Rowland and Molina discovered that CFCs can

destroy the ozone in the stratosphere.

In June 1975, the Natural Resources Defence Council (NRDC) sued the

Consumers Product Safety Commission for a band of CFCs used in aerosol

spray cans. United States’s fifth largest manufacturers of aerosol sprays

announced that they will reduce the amount of CFCs used in there products.

But as things started to get better, The Consumer Product Safety Commission

rejected NRDC’s law suit in July stating that there was insufficient

evidence towards the amount of harm the CFCs were doing to the ozone layer.

On September 1976, a report was released which re-enforced Rowland and

Molina’s hypothesis, but also stated that the govern- ment action on CFC

regulations should be postponed. This report also stated that the CFCs can

initiate climatic changes and contribute to the warming of the earth’s

atmosphere, i.e., the greenhouse effect.

May 1977, several government agencies announced joint plans to limit,

but not eliminate uses of CFCs in aerosol spray cans. But on February of

the following year, the government decided to postpone the regulations on

CFCs used in refrigeration, air conditioning, solvents, and other

industrial processes. With all the new regulations taking affect and being

postponed, nothing was getting accomplished, but finally, on October 1978,

aerosols where banned in the United States.

August of 1981, satellite pictures showed that over one percent of the

ozone was lost due to CFCs. Then, in October of 1984, research groups

found a forty percent loss of ozone over Antarctica. In August of 1985,

satellite photos confirmed the existence of an ozone hole over Antarctica.

Even though many were trying to reduce the amount of CFCs in their

products, there were still some out there who wanted to make the fast buck.

February 1988, three US senators asked Du Pont to stop making CFCs but the

chairman denied the requested. Three weeks later, the chairman agrees to

ease manufacturing of chemicals, but only when substitutes were available.

Eight in a million of the widely scattered molecules are ozone in our

atmosphere–this is what is responsible for the rising of temperature.

Ozone takes in ultra-violet rays when they come from the sun and converts

the radiation to heat and chemical energy. The ozone layer also seals

earth from the many of the other powerful radiation rays that the sun gives

off. Splitting of oxygen molecules depends upon the intense radiation,

therefore, the greatest ozone production is over the tropics. The ozone is

dangerous to us because is causes many types of skin cancer such as

malignant melanoma–a very deadly cancer which causes death to forty

percent of all recorded cases of cancer. Many people predict that the ozone

layer would cause thirty thousand skin cancers just in the United States

alone, and over five hundred-thousand world wide. Cancer, though, is only

one of the few problems that the ozone layer causes. For example small

organisms such as plankton in the sea which is the aquatic food which

serves as the basic food chain would be destroyed and therefore destroying

the food chain–not only the sea food chain, but also the land. Nobody

knows what exact reaction there may be if the ozone continues to break down

as it is now.

Besides rays from the sun, photon can also come in the Earth and be

destructive. Outer portions of the atmosphere, i.e., the thermosphere, the

energy from the photon is used to photodisociate (break down) oxygen

molecules.

Ozone is an unstable compound, if it is left to itself it will turn

into O2, but this takes place very slowly in the presents of light.

Air pollution increases ozone destruction as show below. NO, nitrogen

oxide, is air pollution.

The troposphere has too much ozone and ozone is harmful to us if is

too close. Ten to fifteen molecules per million of ozone in the atmosphere

is enough to kill small animals. Since the number is eight per million

already, it is not long until it will get extremely destructive. Shown

below is how ozone can be created, ozone being O3 and NO2 being pollution.

The hole in the ozone layer is become bigger every day. If we do not

do anything to stop it, it will eventually kill us. There is so much we can

do–but we must be willing to do it. Time is what we have not of.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Auliciems, Andris and Ian Burton. Perception and Awareness

Of Air Pollution In Toronto. Working Paper No. 3. Univer-

sity of Toronto, 1970.

2. Fishman, Jack and Robert Kalish. Global Alert: The Ozone

Pollution Crisis. New York: Plenum Press, 1990.

3. Mainwaring, S. J. and W. Strauss. Air Pollution. Balti-

more: Edward Arnold, 1984.

4. Oxtoby, David W., Norman H. Nachtribe and Wade A. Freeman.

Chemistry: Science of Change. Toronto: Saunders College

Publishing, 1990.

5. Roan, Sharon. Ozone Crisis: The 15-Year Evolution Of A

Sudden Global Emergency. Toronto: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.,

1989.

6. Young, Louise B. Earth’s Aura. First Edition. New York:

Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1977.