· 6 min read
Not sure if I should allude to this as a postcard from the past or one from the future.
It was 1993, I had just arrived in HK for a new assignment. Flipping through the May 17 issue of Time, I was drawn into a two-page essay titled "Ozone Slayers" by Eugene Linden. No piece of prose has influenced me on the subject of global warming (aka climate change) as this.
I clipped and preserved it for future reference. And forgot about its existence once it was time to wind up from Hong Kong.
However, the influence lingered and strengthened with time. Well before concluding the four- and half-year stint, I had begun to pen my thoughts on the subject.
Ironically for much of the time the now yellowing and cracking piece of paper has been sitting inside a Munich Re publication - "Flooding and Insurance", dated 1997. Having rediscovered it in a recent spring cleaning, I have wondered about the meaning of this "nexus"!
How the world waited too long to rescue the shield that protects earth from the sun’s dangerous ultra violet (UV) rays - is Eugene Linden’s narrative. It does not stop there. He also alerts us about global warming. I generously draw from the essay and leave the text in present tense. No guarantees we will get a second opportunity to reverse a tipping point.
Hubris
Hailed as the greatest success yet in the defence of planet earth - many a President and Prime Minister present themselves as the saviours of the ozone layer. This airbrushed view of history starts in 1985, when scientists realised that an ozone hole had opened over the South Pole. Resulting from human-caused chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), commonly used in refrigerators and air conditioners.
Linden reminds: There is only one problem with this fabled success story: the rescuers may have arrived too late. No matter how quickly manufacturers halt the production of CFCs, billions of kilos of the chemicals already produced will continue to seep into the atmosphere and rise inexorably to attack the ozone layer. Worse, measurement after measurement since the mid-1980s has shown that ozone loss has been greater and more rapid than scientists predicted.
Did the world really act as fast as possible to meet the threat? The answer - says Linden - unfortunately, is no…
Corporate and regulatory capture
For nearly a decade before the 1987 ozone treaty, nations were warned of the danger but did nothing. In the U.S. those who had the power to take action instead engaged in self-delusion: the Reagan Administration at first dismissed the ozone threat as a non-issue, while Du Pont and other manufacturers underestimated future sales of CFCs, making the hazard seem minimal.
Global warming
What happened with ozone is a cautionary tale that is relevant to how countries manage other global environmental issues, such as the scientific forecasts of global warming. So far, leaders have put off dealing with that danger, warned Linden back then, just as they did with the ozone problem. This brings us into the present and nowhere near future readiness.
The alarm first sounded back in 1974, when Sherwood Rowland and Mario Molina of the University of California at Irvine warned about the destructive impact that CFCs could have on the atmosphere. Before banning these important industrial chemicals, however, scientists had to confirm that CFCs did in fact attack ozone and that society produced enough of the chemicals to create a problem - narrates Linden.
Within a few years, most scientists accepted that CFCs were a real threat, though uncertainties remained. In 1978 the U.S. banned the use of CFCs in aerosol sprays and began pushing for international controls, under the leadership of President Jimmy Carter.
Trump 2.0
The election of Ronald Reagan abruptly interrupted these American efforts. The EPA was taken over by a pro-business team that did not like regulations and distrusted international agreements. Will the EPA survive dismantling this time around - post Trump 2.0 inauguration?
Du Pont spokespeople meeting after meeting argued that the CFC market was "mature". With these assurances some scientists felt less immediate need for further regulations. Doesn’t this sound familiar? Enough of the coverup and denialism by the oil and gas industry.
The industry vociferously countered that the CFC market was, in fact, growing. Thereby drawing "personal attack" from Du Pont. The actual production had indeed outpaced predictions: growing roughly 7% a year.
"At a time when environmental policy-makers are being accused of wasting resources on exaggerated threats, such as dioxin contamination, the ozone story shows what can happen when the world underestimates problems. It also underscores the difficulty of imposing environmental regulations that clash with economic interests, especially in the face of scientific uncertainty. If policymakers wait until there is unarguable evidence of danger before they act, it may be too late to prevent serious environmental damage."
Prescient
Linden was prophetic three decades ago. Today we are on the verge of breaching the seventh of the nine planetary boundaries. The Paris Agreement is nobody’s baby.
"This dilemma is now being faced on a related issue, that of carbon dioxide emissions and the global warming they could cause. Even though scientists are still debating how bad the warming trend might be, President Clinton has pledged that the U.S. will draw up a plan to get emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases back to 1990 levels by the year 2000. But will the plan, which may be opposed by utilities, automakers and a host of other business interests, make it through Congress?"
Does it matter which party holds the sway? The U.S. raced ahead of the rest in fossil fuel production with President Obama blessing fracking.
In conclusion
Other than someone who wrote for Time, I had no clue who Eugene Linden was - till I rediscovered the invaluable piece of paper. A LinkedIn search opened up the world of hope and scholarship he has been creating over these decades. We finally connected. I recently heard him talk about his latest book Fire & Flood, thanks to the internet - that arrived in the interim.
Yes, Eugene calls it climate change. Fondly credits the phrase to James Lovelock. He bemoans that Jimmy Carter did not get re-elected for a second term. What we are experiencing today, he explains, is the "tragedy of the last 30 years" of inaction.
The good part - businesses and finance which regarded climate change as a threat to profits now see climate change itself as a threat to viability of the global economy. We have to move faster past the politicization of the issues and need every type of weapon to move away from fossil fuel. We need to recognise climate change as a clear present danger not something in the future, reminds Linden.
Nor was it some 31 plus years ago!
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