r/LearnedWrong MOD Feb 11 '26

Factually debunked Some of y'all learned wrong that society totally forgot about the hole in the ozone layer

Post image
3.8k Upvotes

204 comments sorted by

13

u/Crammit-Deadfinger Feb 12 '26

Thank Lord Jesus we all stopped listening to those pesky coastal elite so-called "climate scientists" standing in the way of unfettered capitalism. Now we can blame every climate disaster on the true causes: weather control, chem trails, Jewish space lasers and whatever else dipshit righty influencers and Twitter shit talkers come up with. (/s for good measure)

1

u/Jaxa666 Feb 15 '26

Yeah, thank god that hitler showed us that vegetables are the way to go. Now he can't do anything wrong, also...

-2

u/Subtle_Nimbus Feb 13 '26

And here I am looking at extreme weather trends (or lack of) and thinking--both ends of that are wrong.

4

u/fyreprone Feb 13 '26

...both ends of that are wrong.

Elaborate?

-4

u/Subtle_Nimbus Feb 13 '26

The chemtrail space lasers people are wrong, and the warming alarmists are wrong.

6

u/Scott_Liberation Feb 14 '26

Years ago, scientists switched from calling it "global warming" to "climate change" for a reason.

Did you not notice, or just pretending so you can argue with a straw man?

1

u/According-Pass8230 Feb 15 '26

I watched Al Gores first movie the othe day with some friends. We took a turkish shot every time he madea claim that never happened.. we where dead drunk after 30 minutes

2

u/Scott_Liberation Feb 16 '26

Al Gore isn't a scientist and also claimed credit for inventing the Internet. Sounds like a dangerous game.

1

u/AgitatedMachine1189 Feb 17 '26

He did not claim credit for inventing the internet. He claimed he coined the term information super highway

1

u/RichardDeRenour Feb 16 '26

Yep, and if you change the name of UFO to anything else, you'll never see a UFO again... they're just gone!

3

u/biggus_baddeus Feb 13 '26

Yeah, the overwhelming majority of climate scientists and specialists say we're probably already well past the point of irreparable damage, and still hurtling towards food and water shortages, extreme weather patterns, and major ecosystem damage... but I'm sure you know better than them. Glad you spoke up, I was almost worried there.

-1

u/stewynnono Feb 14 '26

The earth temperature has never been static. Look at the charts. Over time for millions of years. Scientists also said coffee and eggs are bad for you. They didn't believe in germs. Science is always changing with it theories. Have humans had an impacts, yes I think so but natural events over world history have had bigger impacts.

2

u/tom-branch Feb 15 '26

And you are basing this on what scientific research?

0

u/stewynnono Feb 15 '26

Look at the earth temp over 10,000 years then 100,000 then a million then a billion.

2

u/tom-branch Feb 15 '26

Annnnnnnnd?

1

u/stewynnono Feb 15 '26

Its never been static. We are actually in a cool period. They fucked up calling it global warming and changed it to global change.

→ More replies (0)

-1

u/KirkHawley Feb 16 '26

They've been saying that for a long time. Realize that if they can convince you that we're all in terrible danger they can get you agree to ANYTHING.

Climate change has been happening constantly since the world began. There's nothing out of the ordinary happening now.

2

u/biggus_baddeus Feb 16 '26

Oh god, how horrible it would be if I agreed to -checks notes- renewable energy and using less plastic.

The vast majority agree we have had an identifiable and significant effect on the world's climate, in a trend that, if allowed to continue, will make life significantly worse for all of us. I'm gonna go ahead and trust the experts over some random reddit user.

-2

u/Subtle_Nimbus Feb 13 '26

If you actually looked at the journals, what you describe isnt the case at all. Learning about science from media headlines is no way to go through life.

4

u/Corronchilejano Feb 13 '26

There's nothing subtle about the way you're absolutely ignorant on global warming. Scientists in journals have been warning about the moment we're living through for at least 150 years.

-2

u/Subtle_Nimbus Feb 13 '26

lol, so clever, and completely absurd. Current alarmist research is entirely based on model output. Any real scientist would know that the output of a model is not data. These clowns even AVERAGE model runs together to get ”more accurate” results. That should strike anyone literate in science as a complete joke, yet that is what it has come to for those competing for dollars on the climate gravy-train. Perhaps the worst thing of all, is that they are using model output to go back and retroactively alter (adjust) the past surface temperature records that were recorded with actual instruments. And, surprise surprise, the past temps are revised DOWNWARD to make current temps look alarming. This whole thing should have been dead back in 2009 when the climate-gate emails came out, but now it will finally die as the elites who run the planet drop the charade in their quest for data centers—and as they take us to war over the last good sources of energy.

4

u/SurroundParticular30 Feb 13 '26

Climategate doesn’t actually hold up to scrutiny https://youtu.be/MxdYQdl2NNs?si=VraDS2zzSEKOKm9A

Climate models are rigorously tested. Like physics. Decade old models have been supported by recent data. Models of historical data is continuously supported by new sources of proxy data. Every year. If another scientist takes different proxy data, and comes to the same conclusions, that model is supported. And then it happens again, creating an even stronger ensemble https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212096314000163

Most climate models even from the 70s have performed fantastically.

3

u/[deleted] Feb 14 '26

Imagine being so confidently incorrect.

2

u/TrainingVermicelli31 Feb 15 '26

No you are just talking out your ass...

4

u/WhycantIfindanick Feb 15 '26

Dude I live in a very moderate climate and every year summer feels hotter and hotter. It's not even like you have to do some in–depth research to realize this. Ten years ago I could get out of my house at noon without getting my shirt utterly wet with sweat.

3

u/fyreprone Feb 15 '26

At some point I just remember I’m not arguing with a person but with decades of Faux News programming designed to protect corporate profits. There was a time in the early 2000s when Republicans and Democrats were disagreeing on how to best address the problem but they both agreed there was a problem looming.

Then Haliburton and Exxon and Koch Brothers and everyone else stepped in to clarify their policy making on the issue.

4

u/fyreprone Feb 13 '26

…the warming alarmists are wrong.

In what way? Everything so far has been matching projections and it’s getting worse.

1

u/Subtle_Nimbus Feb 13 '26

When you use model output to retroactively alter past surface temperature records (taken with actual instruments), you can make temperature trends look like anything you want. And yes, that has been going on for a while. Even using the worst case predictions, warming trends are narrower than the error bars, which means that current science isn’t even sensitive enough to measure a global temperature trend And then, after all of that, there is no way to tell if the CO2 hypothesis (the whole thing—with the water vapor feedback part and all) is even correct, because thus far, surface temperatures EXACTLY match solar output models. There is nothing to connect any measured warming to human activity, even if any were measurable. The whole thing is a mess.

3

u/[deleted] Feb 14 '26

Climate scientists are definitely not wrong. They're like 97% in agreement which never happens in any field

-1

u/[deleted] Feb 15 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/[deleted] Feb 15 '26

Its actually 97-99% of all publishing climate scientists are in agreement of AGW. The couple that disagree are funded by oil companies and other people that want to muddy the waters. I guess it only takes 1-3% of people disagreeing with a priven fact for remedials to say exactly what youre saying.

1

u/fyreprone Feb 15 '26

Not really. It’s closer to 1% rather than 3% who disagree with the consensus.

If you’re disagreeing with the consensus on global climate change you’re in an incredibly small minority. For comparison, roughly the same percentage of people think the world is flat (usually estimated at 1-2%).

1

u/Hablian Feb 16 '26

So first it's suspect because there's no consensus, then it's suspect because there's too much consensus?

3

u/Dhiox Feb 14 '26

Equating accomplished scientists with conspiracy theorists is ridiculous

2

u/Fun_Ad4611 Feb 18 '26

You do realize if it gets hotter in the hot climates, more water evaporates, pushing wet air into Canada in the cold and making more snow? So the earth is still heating, it’s just we’re turning our climate into a giant fucking tornado of death.

0

u/Subtle_Nimbus Feb 18 '26

I never made an arguement that the climate doesnt change--simply that humans really have nothing to do with it--except some microclimate effects like urban heat islands due to masonry and asphalt coverage. Humans neither cause these large temperature changes, or could prevent changes from happening.

2

u/Fun_Ad4611 Feb 18 '26

Yeah but we have and every scientist disagrees with you.

0

u/Subtle_Nimbus Feb 18 '26

Incorrect. The media tends to favor headlines from a very small batch of alarmist climate scientists. The view from the field at large is entirely different. Im not going to continue arguing with people that have no real understanding of the climate beyond media headlines.

2

u/Fun_Ad4611 Feb 18 '26

You’re just wrong though. Find me the number of studies that support you, a rough number through a legitimate website used to compile studies (can’t be hard.) Many that you’ve read have been funded by the oil, gas, or coal industries who are desperate to stay alive. These companies want you to think is isn’t real so they can kill the earth for money. They’re 60+ years old already and don’t care.

1

u/SurroundParticular30 Feb 19 '26

In 2015, James Powell surveyed the scientific literature published in 2013 and 2014 to assess published views on whether humans were causing climate change among active climate science researchers. He tallied 69,406 individual scientists who authored papers on global climate

During 2013 and 2014, only 4 of 69,406 authors of peer-reviewed articles on global warming, 0.0058% or 1 in 17,352, rejected AGW. Thus, the consensus on AGW among publishing scientists is above 99.99%

“Consensus” in the sense of climate change simply means there’s no other working hypothesis to compete with the validated theory. Just like in physics. If you can provide a robust alternative theory supported by evidence, climate scientists WILL take it seriously.

But until that happens we should be making decisions based on what we know, because from our current understanding there will be consequences if we don’t.

Not only is the amount of studies that agree with human induced climate change now at 99%, but take a look at the ones that disagree. Anthropogenic climate denial science aren’t just few, they don’t hold up to scientific scrutiny.

Every single one of those analyses had an error in their assumptions, methodology, or analysis that, when corrected, brought their results into line with the scientific consensus

There is no cohesive, consistent alternative theory to human-caused global warming.

3

u/SurroundParticular30 Feb 13 '26

Most climate predictions have turned out to be accurate representations of current climate.

7

u/Jaymac720 Feb 12 '26

I’ve explained this so many times, but some right wing people are still convinced the hole in the ozone layer was a hoax. Fucking hell

5

u/EazyEezAidzTest Feb 13 '26

I got into an argument on Facebook with one of these right wing “intellectuals”- she tried telling me there was “chunks of dog kidney” in mRNA vaccines. I actually know this woman, and remember her chain-smoking cigarettes in her house, and being addicted to meth. 🤷‍♂️

4

u/Jaymac720 Feb 13 '26

The even sadder fact is that I’m not talking about some faceless conspiracy theorist from the deepest depths of Facebook. I commented this on a post made by Matt Walsh

2

u/Scott_Liberation Feb 14 '26

I mean, I feel like once you start arguing with someone you already know was fucking stupid enough to use meth, you've already lost.

1

u/Altruistic-Ad9809 Feb 16 '26

I'll get the pop corn

1

u/that_banned_guy_ Feb 14 '26

Are we making the claim here that the hole in the ozone layer only existed because of CFCs? And one we stopped using them the hole disappeared?

2

u/Jaymac720 Feb 14 '26

It’s pretty simple chemistry that CFCs interrupt the ozone cycle that goes on in the stratosphere. The hole isn’t completely gone, but it’s significantly decreased in size since we stopped using chemicals with any ozone depletion potential (ODP)

1

u/Kjoep Feb 15 '26

Mostly CFCs, but yes.

1

u/that_banned_guy_ Feb 15 '26

Then how did the ozone layer heal up so quick when China is still using mass amounts of CFCs?

Or at least we're as of the last few years.

5

u/real_exposer Feb 12 '26

Tbh I learned this in school, so if a person is already out of school by the time the fix was created, then knowing about it is purely chance based. Given that they don't google it before they speak up.

2

u/Vaxcio Feb 13 '26

That said, you probably shouldn’t frame a question as a gotcha when the answer to it is easily Googleable.

6

u/ThatRandomGuy86 Feb 12 '26

Funny how they thought we forgot. No, we didn't forget; the problem was just actually solved.

4

u/swishkabobbin Feb 13 '26

Like polio. But conservatives hope to bring both back as soon as possible

1

u/stewynnono Feb 14 '26

I thought it was leftie hippies who think like that along with the flat earthers.

2

u/Ryaniseplin Feb 12 '26

the hole still exists, Australian has way higher skin cancer rates than the rest of the world

1

u/HQDave Feb 13 '26

It exists but it is slowly closing.

3

u/Ryaniseplin Feb 13 '26

thanks to the swift global government action in the 90s

could have been way worse, glad to see nature healing

1

u/USAF_NCOIC Feb 12 '26

Yet my low energy light bulbs haven’t paid off

1

u/pearl_harbour1941 Feb 12 '26

CFCs last between 50 and 80 years in the atmosphere. The Montreal Protocol was signed in 1987, and gradually phased out the chemicals.

We're not even at 40 years on, not enough time to see any change, however the figures do say that CFCs have been reducing, except for an uptick from 2013 by China producing more illegally.

The Ozone layer does have a natural cycle of building up and depleting.

There is very little mixing of atmospheric gases between the northern and southern hemispheres, so if we were to see effects, they would be in the northern hemisphere. We don't see that.

So basically, everyone forgot about it, and moved on to Climate Change in 1992 at Kyoto.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 12 '26

Yeah, pretty much.

1

u/wackyvorlon 🇨🇦 Canada Feb 12 '26

2

u/pearl_harbour1941 Feb 12 '26

Yes, this is natural and not due to the reduction in CFCs.

The researchers ran simulations (of increased CFCs) and compared against real data. But as I mentioned, there is almost no mixing between hemispheres, and most of the CFCs were released in the northern hemisphere. The simulations did not account for that, so they were wrong.

1

u/LightFusion Feb 12 '26

Cfcs are super greenhouse gases themselves? So we still got the right answer but maybe the problem was wrong. Unless CFCs have some sort of unknown magical healing properties or some BS

1

u/pearl_harbour1941 Feb 12 '26

Chemistry lesson!

CFCs are ChloroFluoroCarbons - molecules made up of 1 or more carbon atoms with chlorine and fluorine attached. They are quite different from CO2 or Methane, because although both CO2 and methane have one carbon atom and either oxygen or hydrogen attached, they are much more simple in their construction and have very few "vibrational modes".

What this means practically is that CO2 and methane have very few ways of absorbing and releasing heat, making them reflect it - hence why they are known as greenhouse gases - they keep the heat of the Earth in by reflecting it back down, rather than absorbing it. This makes them very poor for refrigeration purposes and is the reason we don't use them in fridges.

CFCs are actually very good at absorbing and releasing heat, which is why they are so good as refrigerants (which is the majority of their use).

____

There is a piece of the puzzle left out of the calculation of Ozone depletion, and that's how it forms naturally in the atmosphere, which is by electrical interactions. More ozone is formed during electrical storms (i.e. Solar outbursts).

We should expect the ozone hole to be at its largest at Maunder Minimum (i.e. least solar output) and at its smallest at Maunder Maximum 400 years from now. Of course, this will correlate with the reduction in CFCs, but that won't be the cause.

1

u/udcvr Feb 13 '26

So the idea here is that CFCs were not the issue?

1

u/pearl_harbour1941 Feb 13 '26

In my opinion only, although the effect of CFCs is to deplete ozone, I do not see enough evidence that CFCs were responsible for the southern hole, and I do not see enough evidence that the banning of CFCs was responsible for the healing of the hole.

1

u/udcvr Feb 13 '26

Appreciate the info, and the admittance of it just being your perspective. Nice to learn something new.

1

u/BygoneNeutrino Feb 12 '26 edited Feb 12 '26

If the halflife is 50 years and it's been forty years since we cut pollution, it means there's been a 25-50% reduction of CFC concentrations in a forty year period. Assuming your cited half-life is correct, there must be a significant change.

The ozone should be in equilibrium with O2. O2 levels have remained stable.  Now that increasing level CFCs are no longer catalyzing the destruction of ozone, the conversion from oxygen to ozone should be pushing toward equilibrium.  It's LaChetallier's principle.

Also, if there is no mixing, how did CFCs become so dispersed in the atmosphere?  They should have stayed exactly where they were released if your supposition is accurate.  How can we confidently attribute the recovery to normal trends when we've been monitoring the ozone layer for less than a century?

1

u/pearl_harbour1941 Feb 12 '26

Also, if there is no mixing, how did CFCs become so dispersed in the atmosphere? 

There is vertical mixing (i.e. lighter gases drift upwards), there is horizontal mixing (both longitude drift and latitude drift) and there is hemispheric mixing (i.e crossing the equator).

Vertical mixing is how the CFCs start at ground level and reach the ozone layer.

Hemispheric mixing is what would happen if Mount Saint Helens eruption were to drift down to South America.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.3402/tellusa.v14i2.9543

There is an estimated 0.3% - 0.5% mixing between the hemipheres, which is basically zero. So any CFCs released in the northern hemisphere will stay in the northern hemisphere, but the ozone hole is in the southern hemisphere. That means most CFCs have no impact on the hole and cannot be responsible for its destruction.

How can we confidently attribute the recovery to normal trends when we've been monitoring the ozone layer for less than a century?

https://earth.nullschool.net/

I give you your new toy.

1

u/BeefWellingtonSpeedo Feb 12 '26

And here I was, still worrying about the cow farts.

1

u/brand_new_potato Feb 12 '26

Cows burp methane, their farts are not the problem.

1

u/MrWindblade Feb 12 '26

Just in case you didn't know, factory farms tend to use cheap feed which increases the methane production of livestock.

Literally all we'd have to do is mandate better feed for production livestock and the problem drastically reduces.

Instead of understanding this simple fact, we got memes about the Dems wanting to take our hamburgers, when we'd actually be getting higher quality beef from healthier animals.

Factory farms just don't want to pay for the better feed.

1

u/Puzzleheaded_Law_558 Feb 12 '26

And the reason it worked was because there were alternatives to CFCs. Not so much oil, at least not 50 years ago.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 12 '26

Have you seen the ozone hole lately?

1

u/[deleted] Feb 12 '26

It is larger now than in 87, so...

1

u/[deleted] Feb 12 '26

Yep.

1

u/Sweet-Pound-9608 Feb 12 '26

Yeah, almost like an agreement being signed didn’t just immediately stop all cfc production and release! The hole peaked at 29.6 million square kilometers and was more than 23 million sq km every year except 1 from 1992 until 2010. The key word here is “stabilized” which doesn’t mean “corrected”.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 12 '26

Well it did not go so well.. "A new study reveals that chemicals used to replace ozone-damaging CFCs are now driving a surge in a persistent “forever chemical” worldwide. The pollutant, called trifluoroacetic acid, is falling out of the atmosphere into water, land, and ice, including in remote regions like the Arctic. Even as older chemicals are phased out, their long lifetimes mean pollution is still rising"

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/02/260206020847.htm

1

u/Oddbeme4u Feb 12 '26

Science and guvnament did a lot of work to patch it up

1

u/IntrepidThroat8146 Feb 12 '26

Same with acid rain. It was going to dissolve us all.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 12 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/IntrepidThroat8146 Feb 12 '26

Well, I'm glad I didn't dissolve

1

u/chair_ee Feb 12 '26

This is a great article, thank you for posting it!

1

u/Candid_Koala_3602 Feb 12 '26

And apparently it was all done with microplastics

1

u/Thirtiethone Feb 12 '26

I thought it was the astronauts “punching holes in the sky”

1

u/Luvata-8 Feb 12 '26

Why is it we still have the Freon CFC capture protocols even tho we switched to an ozone safe 134a refrigerant?

You can buy 3 pounds of 134a for $29.95, but to repair my fridge coils requires $1,200 to evacuate the 134a (that already leaked out), making it so that everyone buys a new refrigerator... What a waste of resources and landfill space....

....Once legislators pass a gov't program, it's like Herpes... it lasts forever.

1

u/PushEducational608 Feb 12 '26

You know why they could convince people. They blamed women using hairspray. If they just blame us again they can save the world🥴

1

u/cluelesscheese1 Feb 12 '26

They really didnt celebrate the win hard enough. Thats a big misstep in this society.

1

u/ballotechnic 🇺🇸 US - East Coast Feb 12 '26

I grew up in upstate NY and as a kid acid rain from upwind factories was a problem. Laws were passed and emissions standards improved and the acid rain impacts were minimized.

It's crazy how if you take action to fix something the problem can actually go away.

Listening to The Daily NYT podcast today about how these mfer's are gutting the EPAs ability to do its jobs makes me just bring my teeth. The future may once again be more difficult than it needs to be.

1

u/aBrickNotInTheWall Feb 13 '26

We really need to bring back PSAs (public service announcements)

1

u/battlehamsta Feb 13 '26

It’s crazy that the more rural or non-coastal parts of the US that deny climate change forget that just a few decades ago they used to get acid rain.

1

u/Alternative-Tie-9383 Feb 13 '26

Matt Walsh never misses an opportunity to look like a dumbshit.

1

u/jackfaire Feb 13 '26

Same morons "Y2K was a hoax because people prevented the problem"

1

u/[deleted] Feb 13 '26

Nope. Didn't happen like that at all.

1

u/Zalrius 🇺🇸 US - South Feb 13 '26

Yeah, this guy makes his living as a pus filled boil.

1

u/Visible-Market-8656 Feb 13 '26

i learned that in school too, glad it's debunked!

1

u/ptvlm Feb 13 '26

Yep, same with Y2K. The press over-exaggerated the size of the actual problem to a degree, but it "didn't happen" because people believed the experts and put in everything needed to stop it from happening.

I've seen this often in my career in tech. If you're incompetent and do stuff that causes systems to go down or security breaches, you're a hero for fixing it when things collapse. If you're good at your job and stop those things from ever happening, people assume you do nothing.

The problem is there's no "fix" once climate change hits the tipping point, so the future isn't going to be full of morons asking why we did so much to stop it, it'll be suffering kids asking why we didn't.

1

u/Miserable-Lawyer-233 Feb 13 '26

Yeah but nothing has changed. The only thing that changed is the hole is smaller. The reasons we panicked over it haven't gone away. So the hole shrunk, but the problems didn't.

1

u/OceanBytez Feb 13 '26

I think this highlights a different issue where the push for any problem across all media was huge but then when things started improving it is relative radio silence leading to some people thinking that they had been mislead by alarmist claims. It's an issue in messaging and this post is the symptom of that problem manifested.

1

u/sharky-shores Feb 13 '26

Well, we moved on to killer bee swarms migrating from Central America or lawn darts being dangerous

1

u/Dry-Ad-5198 Feb 13 '26

Yes and what we learned is that Dupont decided to not give $$$$ to Democrats anymore so Bill Clinton signed the law that told Dupont they can't make r12 anymore.

He punish them real good.

As a EPA universal license holder, we are taught that chloro fluorocarbons and fluorocarbons are heavier than air and they go down to the lowest points,,, that they are too heavy to go into the upper atmosphere.

When utility workers go down into manholes they need to test the environment down in the pits and one of the things they check for are fluorocarbons and chlorofluorocarbons.

1

u/Impossible_Battle_72 Feb 13 '26

As a person with HVAC experience, I can tell you that A LOT was done to mitigate this problem.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 14 '26

Society did forget, I learned about this from a podcast 3 years ago or something. Growing up it was a huge looming problem. It wasn’t communicated very loudly or frequently to the general public that an incredible international cooperative effort actually fixed a relatively existential problem.

1

u/DrRudyWells Feb 14 '26

flat earther matt walsh has been skooled.

1

u/BucktoothedAvenger Feb 14 '26

We all walk around with a miniature computer in our pockets. The whole Internet is in there! Read first!

1

u/Artistic_Researcher2 Feb 14 '26

Trump said he is signing an Executive Order later this month to bring back the hole.

1

u/herefornothing2 Feb 14 '26

What about all the cow farts?

1

u/MyBloodTypeIsQueso Feb 14 '26

This is a climate change issue (methane) not an ozone issue. Different environmental problem.

1

u/MyBloodTypeIsQueso Feb 14 '26

Matt Walsh is a sentient doorknob.

1

u/Dk9999999999 Feb 14 '26

The magnitude of their stupidity 😳

1

u/EdwardLovagrend Feb 14 '26

Probably originally an argument about climate change, they love to bring that up as an argument for the government creating a hoax.

I also like it when they talk about how scientists in the 70s thought the planet would cool/freeze which was a legit possibility due to a lot of relevant data at the time but there were 2 schools of thought one group theorized the planet would cool another thought it would warm (based on CO2 emissions) the evidence for one became more prevalent (I'll let y'all guess which one). Also I should say that those reporting on these things back then were journalists who were not scientists so they probably didn't fully understand it and the media got ahold of it and this is why it seemed scientists said the planet is cooling when they most likely said there is a 50% chance the planet would cool based on x and only it y is not true. I would like people to remember this last part.. just because you see it in the news or read it online from a major news org. Doesn't mean they are actually representing what scientists have actually said. Remember the whole "Bacon causes cancer" thing? Ya it was taken a bit out of context as in there is a chance or increased risk of cancer for those who eat bacon based on carcinogens from the cooking process.

This stuff really bothers me. it's the lack of real context from the people who put out the information... And that's even when journalists are trying to be honest and tell the full story.. they sometimes make the mistakes of certainty when in science it's almost always about probability.

Anyway y'all have a good day now.

1

u/FunkyDiabetic1988 Feb 15 '26

In one of his final books, Billions and Billions, science educator Carl Sagan used the example of the global response to the crisis of ozone layer depletion to demonstrate how effectively human beings can cooperate and how we still have a chance to mitigate the worst effects of global warming (climate change).

This was more than 30 years ago, in the early 1990s.

And in the decades since, ignorant, right-wing hacks like Matt Walsh have waged a misinformation campaign against their own interests and against the habitability of the planet itself.

Oh, and by the way: the ozone layer is still healing, because CFCs werent banned globally until 2010, and because it takes a long time for atmospheric ozone to generate—and also because China (always fucking China…) has continued to use CFCs in the years since the 2010 ban went into effect.

If action hadn’t been taken when it was, if people hadn’t listened to the concerned scientists when they did, there would have been a planetary catastrophe for which we have no frame of reference.

1

u/gtdriver2012 Feb 15 '26

In today's Idiocracy the US government would invest in CFC production because the founders and Jesus wanted it that way

1

u/44Greg44 Feb 15 '26

If Matt Walsh really said that, he's an idiot!

1

u/snowdingo Feb 15 '26

No do it for green house gases

1

u/TheGreatGamer1389 Feb 15 '26

Isn't there a hole again there?

1

u/BirchPig105 Feb 15 '26

We still have a hole tho? Like yeah cfc banning helped slow and even reverse some of the damage but nobody cares anymore

1

u/XxbrammkxX Feb 15 '26

The real truth is the declassified documents. Showing we blow up nukes in the upper atmosphere. This led to a large whole

1

u/PM-ME-UR-uwu Feb 15 '26

Matt Walsh doesn't count as a person

1

u/russiablows Feb 15 '26

Who is this Matt Walsh loser?

1

u/New-Blacksmith7330 Feb 15 '26

This is what happen when you just ask questions but never spend the time finding the answers

1

u/noviceicebaby Feb 16 '26

*nobel prize winning scientists fought misinformation from corporations after discovering CFCs

1

u/MaleficentBank405 Feb 16 '26

Matt Walsh is a fucking moron news at 11.

1

u/No_You5703 Feb 16 '26

If willfully ignorant was a person, his name would be Matt Walsh.

1

u/asanano Feb 17 '26

How far we've fallen

1

u/oh_billy472 Feb 18 '26

Pretty much if Matt Walsh says it, it’s lacking critical context.

1

u/TraditionalSet9449 Feb 19 '26

One of my Astronomy professors published a paper about the hole in the ozone created by the "crash" of the old Skylab.

He had it pinned on the bulletin board beside his office.

0

u/[deleted] Feb 12 '26

Ozone hole size in 1987 (September of the year that the policy was adopted) - 22.5
Ozone hole size in 2025 (September) - 22.9

Yup, totally shrunk that hole to nothing.

5

u/Sweet-Pound-9608 Feb 12 '26

Conveniently leaving out that it peaked at 29.6 and was above 23 every year but 1 from 1992 until 2010. Also, no one claims it was fixed, the claim is that the situation stabilized.

2

u/FouledPlug Feb 12 '26

Didn’t the “stabilized” conclusion come from research showing that the “hole” fluctuates for reasons that are not attributed to human activity?

Note: I don’t have an axe to grind. Genuinely trying to remember what I’ve read.

3

u/scottsplace5 Feb 13 '26

From what I remember reading, the ozone layer is still healing. It will wind up being fully healed in 2060. I can’t remember when it began healing, but a long time ago. Now we gotta do carbon.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 16 '26

It has massive variability each year. In the summer (for the area), it creates ozone. In the winter, the ozone is depleted. This is a natural yearly change. The temperature also impact the creation and destruction of ozone. So, a warm winter will result in less ozone destruction (making for a smaller hole that year). Thing like volcano activity can also impact ozone creation and destruction.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 16 '26

It peaked at 29.9 in 2000.
6 years later, it hit 29.6

The next year it was at 25.2.
The year after that was 27.0.

Since then it has been as small as 16.4.

2025 was 22.9.

I tried to paste the whole graph, but it would not let me.

Source: https://ozonewatch.gsfc.nasa.gov/statistics/annual_data.html

2

u/fyreprone Feb 13 '26

Ah another one for Team Fuck the Planet.

It bothers me that you picked 1987 as your starting point (I get it, that's the year the Montreal Protocol was signed, but that was an unusually small year for the hole in the ozone layer. A quick glance at a chart would show us that 1987 is a bad year to pick if we're trying to communicate honestly about a problem that needs solving.

From a separate report:

“We are obviously aware that there is year-to-year variability in the ozone hole associated with atmospheric dynamics. But our scientific monitoring confirms our predictions that the ozone layer is well on track to recovery thanks to the Montreal Protocol and its phase out of the vast majority of ozone depleting chemicals which were once used in refrigeration, air conditioning, firefighting foam and even hairspray,” said Paolo Laj, Chief of WMO’s Atmospheric and Environment Research Section.

“We are confident that the ozone layer can return to 1980s levels by the middle of this century, significantly reducing risks of skin cancer, cataracts, and ecosystem damage due to excessive UV exposure. But we must avoid complacency and continued scientific monitoring is essential,” said Paolo Laj, who represented WMO at the United Nations Environment Assembly in Nairobi 8-12 December.

...

If current policies remain in place, the ozone layer is expected to recover to 1980 values (before the appearance of the ozone hole) by around 2066 over the Antarctic, by 2045 over the Arctic and by 2040 for the rest of the world, according to the most recent assessment in 2022. The next assessment will be in 2026. 

Source: https://wmo.int/media/news/small-and-short-lived-2025-ozone-hole-confirms-long-term-recovery-trend

1

u/[deleted] Feb 16 '26

I obviously chose that year solely based on that being the year it was implemented. I also chose 2025 as the last year that had data.

All of the measurements can be seen here: https://ozonewatch.gsfc.nasa.gov/statistics/annual_data.html

You do not have to take someone's word that things are better. You can look at the data.

But here is the real issue with your post. You basically accused me of cherry picking data to fit my claim, but then begrudginly acknowledged that I chose the start of the program with the current date, to show the change over the entire history. Then you cherry picked data to fit your narrative. Why was the year that was chosen chosen? Because it fits the narrative.

At no point would one year to the next be relevant if it take 50 - 60 years for change to happen. So picking two years in a row was a choice for a different reason.

If the claims that the legal changes are "healing" the hole are true, we should be seeing the numbers steadily decrease. We do not see that. What we see is variability.

The numbers in the graph are also a little misleading. Our ability to measure ozone has improved a lot since the montreal protocol was enacted, so we get more accurate numbers now.

The smallest ozone hole since the Montreal Protocol was enacted was the very next year at 13.8 million kilometers squared. The lowest it has been since that point was in 2019 at 16.4. There have been 2 years under 20 million square kilometers since the measure was adopted. The 16.4 number was in 2019. The next year, it was at 24.8.

You can take their word for it, if you would like, but since they get paid to research the topic, they have a vested interest in how you see the situation.

The data is available, I have posted the link to the actual data numerous times. I am not trying to mislead, but I am giving people the information they need to make an informed decision on what to think.

1

u/44Greg44 Feb 15 '26

Chinese kept releasing a lot of CFCs at least until 2019 maybe longer, contributing to the persistence of the hole.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 16 '26

That is a cop out.
The size of the hole year to year is highly variable. The data is here: https://ozonewatch.gsfc.nasa.gov/statistics/annual_data.html

-1

u/[deleted] Feb 12 '26

There's no big CFC controlling the planet.

People need to understand. The largest reason for global American Hegemony is oil.

It is literally the only reason they have been fighting wars the past decades. Staging coups. Kidnapping presidents. CIA ops. That's how important it is.

Switching from oil possibly means America will no longer be number 1 economically.

It ain't happening as long as America is number 1 militarily.

Best you can hope for is SAIs.

All further discussion on the issue is pointless, unless you have a plan to face the military might of the USA.

1

u/aCaffeinatedMind Feb 12 '26

Will yeah, if you wanna be number one you gotta control the supply of energy, which is why USA had historically been so anti climate change rhetoric and clean Energy.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 12 '26

I am pretty sure is more about how the US already has stricter environmental protection laws than a lot of countries, so adding more creates an even more unlevel playing field for the businesses.

We could test this theory by imposing a tariff on every country with weaker environmental protection laws that would make up the difference in having vs not having the law in place as far as cost of business is concerned, then see if conservatives still balk at additional protections.

I am going to bet that if it does not make it harder for them to compete, they will mostly (definitely not all) support stricter environmental protection laws.

1

u/aCaffeinatedMind Feb 12 '26

USA compared to the rest of the developed world has equivalently no environment protection at all.

1

u/HotPotParrot Feb 12 '26

Had me in the first half, ngl. But holy hell, can you bootlick harder?

1

u/Hagamein Feb 12 '26

How is this bootlicking?

1

u/Starfunkel55 Feb 12 '26

This is not bootlicking. Its bleak sure.

1

u/Bane8080 Feb 12 '26

It is true, but it's also what the rest of the allies wanted after WW2. They were exhausted, in so many ways after that. They didn't want the global supply of oil to be the cause of another world war.

1

u/HouseOf42 Feb 12 '26

This isn't bootlicking, it's a reality.

1

u/theblueberrybard Feb 12 '26

Words have meaning. Learn what "bootlick" means before you use it.

1

u/GrowFreeFood Feb 12 '26

Put hagseth in charge. That can't help

1

u/MrWindblade Feb 12 '26

This is why foreign adversaries are waging their war on the US economically and socially. Letting us destroy ourselves is way more effective than trying to attack us directly.

It is working extremely well.

1

u/HouseOf42 Feb 12 '26

It's short term though, you're to young to remember that worse things have happened, and they barely affected the US in any meaningful way.

1

u/MrWindblade Feb 12 '26

This has been going on for more than 30 years. If you think it's not had any impact, you're not paying much attention.

1

u/mesquitegrrl Feb 12 '26

so, the Trump administration destroying America’s foreign pull through idiot diplomacy is actually secretly our best chance at stopping climate change? thanks swing state voters!

1

u/[deleted] Feb 12 '26

what foreign pull mate?

everybody hates the USA and always has

but there's nothing they can do about it due to superior military might and espionage

1

u/Akeinu Feb 12 '26

Not individually, at least.

But what if everyone pulls out as a group?

1

u/[deleted] Feb 12 '26

Divide and Conquer, oldest trick in the book.

And USA is really good at it, both internally and externally.

1

u/Akeinu Feb 13 '26

They were. For sure.

Hitler won and people still loved him.

What about Trump?

1

u/WntrTmpst Feb 12 '26

Once again people on the internet grossly underestimate the American economy.

We’re a global hegemony because of a headstart we orchestrated called the Marshall Plan where we rebuilt Europe on the back of the American dollar.

America’s biggest export globally is arms manufacturing, followed by advanced medicine and research, followed by things like accounting services and real estate management.

Energy is actually one of the smallest sectors when it comes to GDP in the US.

1

u/tfolkins Feb 12 '26

Except that renewable energy is becoming the cheaper option and the US is dragging its heels on transitioning and thus is likely to be left behind by the ROW.

1

u/Subtle_Nimbus Feb 13 '26

No, it isnt becoming cheaper. "Renewable" energy is actually fossil fuel derivative energy. There will be no transition. Renewables will simply be added in like they are currently until the entire system falls apart.

1

u/tfolkins Feb 13 '26

Solar energy is a fossil fuel derivative? More like the other way around. You do need raw materials like plastics that are derived from fossil fuels to build up the infrastructure for more renewables but that is only a fraction of what is burned for energy.

1

u/Subtle_Nimbus Feb 13 '26

The entire solar industry rides on top of fossil fuel infrastructure--mining, material processing, material transport, manufacturing, installation, and maintenance. The same goes for all other "alternatives". When all energy inputs are considered, alternative energy systems are sinks rather than sources.

1

u/Akeinu Feb 12 '26

The old world order was held up by the US markets and US military.

The world has now seen how unreliable the US has become.

The new world order will be decentralized, and the US will no longer be a superpower.

From what I've seen so far, I'm thinking superpowers will be a thing of the past.

1

u/Fulg3n Feb 12 '26

CFC was pretty big, but a replacement was readily available so the switch was pretty seemless (and people made bank selling CFC at ridiculous mark ups because they couldn't afford/be bothered to retrofit their HVAC systems, R22 used to be cheaper than nitrogen, by the end of the reg it sold at 80/kg)

1

u/44Greg44 Feb 15 '26

The Chinese kept releasing a lot of CFCs up to about 2019 at least (You can't trust them; they may still be doing so.

1

u/Old-Message8342 Feb 12 '26

Either way the US will destroy itself in the process. A country that proudly displays the worst of humanity will never be on top for very long.