From Yahoo.com

TOKYO - The ozone hole over the Antarctic is likely to begin contracting in the future and may disappear by 2050 because of a reduction in the release of chlorofluorocarbons and other ozone-depleting gases, according to a team of Japanese scientists.

The findings are based on a series of numerical simulations carried out by Eiji Akiyoshi of the National Institute for Environmental Studies, near Tokyo, using projected emissions of chlorofluorocarbons and other gases blamed for the ozone hole.

According to a report posted Friday on the institute's Web site, the hole is at its largest now but is likely to gradually start contracting around 2020 and disappear by around 2050.

The team's findings are in line with research by other scientists.

Some, however, have suggested the hole won't heal until much later because old refrigerators and air-conditioning systems — many in the United States and Canada — are still releasing ozone-killing chemicals. Both countries curbed those chemicals in newer products.

Satellites and ground stations have been monitoring the ozone hole over the South Pole since its discovery in the 1980s.

Chlorofluorocarbon levels in the earth's atmosphere have been declining since the mid-1990s due to international efforts to reduce emissions.


________


Sometimes we do things alright, even with everyone thinking we can't. The government, along with most of the rest of the world, have been imposing regulations for years to reverse the damage we have done to the ozone. And it is working...

::Cue the flaming remarks.... ...now::

my question is...if all the 1st + 2nd world countries keep progressing but the 3rd world countries never give a shit about regulating things harmful to the earth: are we still fucked?

can we work fast enough to "save" anything?

Most of the problem comes from 1st and 2nd world countries though, like U.S., Canada, China, UK, etc. Lots of 3rd world countries don't have much in the way of air conditioners, refrigerators, and other ozone depleting products like aerosols and things.

i heard of this years ago

retzam said:

I just thought about an ethiopian having a fridge, with no food in it of course, and I'm still laughing about the principle of it.

Last year I was drilling a hole in the bottom port of my air conditioner so that water would drain out instead of water-logging it and getting moldy and shit and the drill hit the piping and punctured it and all the gasses started spraying out.


I felt sooo guilty.

ya know, this could be just a natural thing. The Earth is so old that it could just be a cycle, ozone gets thinner, then thicker, we may have nothing to do with it. Just a thought

i think it's funny that the human race is so full of its' self that we think we can destroy the planet. mother nature is a big girl and can take care of herself.

ya know, this could be a natural thing - japanese people just randomly vaporize, the atomic bomb had nothing to do with it. just a thought.

please please please read books before speaking

give him a break, he's from weymouth after all ;)

tomx nli said:

earth doesn't = people

a giant meteor can't kill the earth(gulf of mexico), what makes you think blowing everything up thousands of times over with nukes will stop everything? because we think so? nature will bounce back even from that.

i don't even know if that was for me, umm sorry if it wasnt'

tomx nli said:

go fuck yourself. I have read books, from both sides of the "global warming" debate, and i came to my own conclusion that no one really knows why shit happens. Humans don't hold that much sway with nature.

If Earth was spelled xEarthx would it be more pure?

And it wasn't random, those people vaporizing, we deliberatly and RIGHTLY dropped a-bombs on them. Ya know why?

CUZ WE COULD, AND CUZ WE RULE!!

Everyone hear needs to shut the fuck up! All this save the earth crap is nothing more than bullshit. I am going to be here long after you fucks are gone. After you're gone my ozone will be replenished and hopefully a better species will evolve. The human race has been a speck on mu history line. Eat, drink, fuck!!! Enjoy yourself because you're all going to die anyway. I, of course, will still be here watching some other lifeform develop. So, don't worry about pollution and all that shit because I'll be here forever.

"Go fuck your mother you stuttering prick!"

Hahaha it's true that we can't destroy the Earth. But on the offchance that we don't destroy ourselves very soon, it would be nice to have a clean environment to live in. But, of course, the Earth will be soooo much better when no humans are around. People look at that the wrong way though. Maybe more people should realize that it is because of our own shittiness that this is the case. Humans could make the world better.

Global warming will slow down or stop the current hole from repairing itself. The ozone hole over Antarctica is three times the size of the United States and growing. More than 60 percent of the ozone layer blanketing the Arctic Circle was lost in the 1999/2000 winter.
NASA reports that by 2030, "climate change may surpass chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) as the main driver of overall ozone loss."


Earth will still be around, and will eventually recover from all the damage, but we won't be here, and we'll take most of the species here with us. Aren't humans great?

Why the fuck is everyone bitching about extinction of animals and humans? Does anyone realize all earth is a huge cycle of mass extinctions, I mean 90% or more of species were wiped out at the end of the era of dinosaurs, a little less were wiped out after the ice age hit, and man has been putting animal species in their death beds since his dawn, the cavemen made both the mammoth and the sabertooth extinct just to name a few. it is true that one species a day disappears from extinction but whatever, give the earth a few more millions of years and there wil be completly different animals here anyways even if we didn't kill them.

bottom line is

get yoahhhhh ahhhhhsss to mahhhsss

Y_Ddraig_Goch said:

Because we're causing it, it's not natural, and it could easily be prevented.




major climate change was also likely to be a huge factor in the extinction of those animals, and it's 75 species a day that are now disappearing, up from around 50 in the early 90's.

Y_Ddraig_Goch said:

noice.

The world is gonna end and theres nothing we can do about it

I love collecting rare animals on the brink of extinction. You would be amazed how much money you can make once you kill them and serve them.

The solution to the problem is wiping out massive numbers of noids

Too many noids and not enough resources

Mo noids, mo problems

sterilize and drop bombs

Keep it real nigga