Reed

(Week 4) __Earth's ozone layer will recover... in ~65 years __ "Experts have warned that the damage to the ozone layer, which shields the Earth from harmful ultra-violet rays, is so bad that it will only attain full recovery in 2075." []  This article talks about the state of the ozone hole over Antarctica following the UN's Montreal Protocol, which phased out the use of chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) compounds, which were commonly used in refrigerators until it was noticed that they react with atmospheric ozone.



The ozone hole is getting smaller yearly, and it lies over an uninhabited area, but the jury is still out on the severity of the repercussions we can expect to experience from it until it is expected to close in the year of 2075. While it is great to see that the problem is being mediated and the UN has demonstrated that international agreements to protect the planet can be effective, it is also very scary that we only recently realized this depletion of ozone was caused by CFCs and that it imposed in immediate threat. Who knows what other undetected problems the human race may be causing right now, and how severe they may be? The topic of the ozone layer and its holes goes hand-in-hand with the idea of sustainability because we have to understand that influencing the environment in any way can lead to huge potentially unforeseen consequences. The damage we have done to the ozone layer shows that for our society to be totally sustainable we need to curb unnatural interaction with the biosphere rather than just try to deal with complications as they arise, because as with the ozone layer, by the time we notice the problem it could have already become a huge threat to our planet and the entire human race.