The Montreal Protocol.
When we listened to science.
There was a time when we listened to scientists. Believe it or not, it actually happened in the 1980s. Under Ronald Reagan. (Don’t get me wrong, he’s still a quasi-villain in this story.) When set against the backdrop of Cop28 being run by an oil and gas executive, that time we banned a whole bunch of products and chemicals in the 80s will make you wistful. When scientists discovered a hole in the ozone layer, the world came together to pass the Montreal Protocol and then something even more miraculous occurred: it worked. In 2017 scientists noticed that the hole had started to repair itself and was shrinking. Here’s the story of how it all came together.
Show Notes
Clips
Episode Timestamp + Link | Clip Link
- 00:06:37 | CBS In The News: Ozone - 1986
- 00:06:56 | 1988 Thinning Ozone Layer PSA / Advil Commercial
- 00:07:21 | 80's Flashback: Ozone COMMERCIAL
- 00:07:49 | Blazing Saddles: Quicksand
- 00:08:33 | The Shawshank Redemption: This is a Conspiracy
- 00:08:56 | South Park: No Shit, Sherlock
- 00:11:33 | PBS News Hour: Antarctic ozone hole believed to be shrinking
Resources
- The Guardian: Cop28 president says there is ‘no science’ behind demands for phase-out of fossil fuels
- European Central Bank: A new age of energy inflation: climateflation, fossilflation and greenflation
- National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
- Time: Reagan Administration Officials at First Dismissed the Ozone Hole. Here's What Changed
- UNIDO: HCFC Phase Out
- Los Angeles Times: Op-Ed: Reagan made a massive environmental mistake. Trump is repeating it, only worse
- NOAA: 4 facts you might not know about ozone and the Montreal Protocol
- Goldman Sachs Publishing: Lithium: The short trade must go on
UNFTR Quick Links