Chlorofluorocarbons and the Ozone

By 1970 it was well established that ultraviolet light from the sun contributes to skin cancer. Fortunately, much of the sun’s most damaging ultraviolet radiation is screened out by a thin, diffuse layer of ozone—a toxic to 25 miles above the earth’s surface.

During the 1970s, however, public policy makers worldwide were alerted to the fragility of the ozone layer through the pioneering research and advocacy of two Nobel Prize-winning scientists, Mario Molina and F. Sherwood Rowland. In the absence of pollutants, stratospheric ozone concentrations should remain stable over time, with natural production and destruction chemical reaction, each chlorine atom could destroy as many as 100,000 ozone molecules before becoming inactive.

In 1974 the two scientists estimated that the atmosphere contained the accumulation of five years of global CFC production. This meant that, given the rate of diffusion and breakdown of CFCs in the atmosphere, the depletion of the ozone layer would continue for years, if not decades, even if the production and Congress and was later appointed to the U.S. National Science Foundation Committee on Fluorocarbon Technology Assessment.

Predictably, the work of Molina and Rowland and their advocacy of dramatic policy changes were subjected to attacks by critics, especially scientists with ties to the CFC industry. However, over time their views were corroborated, especially by the discovery of a hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica, and this led to in packaging for consumer spray products and the development of more environmentally friendly refrigerant chemicals.