Green Options » cfcs

Laughing Gas: The Latest Environmental Threat

Lisa Wojnovich — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 10:30:50 +0000

Nitrous oxide, more commonly known at your dentist’s office as laughing gas, is now the most prevalent man-made substance damaging the ozone layer. And it’s a greenhouse gas. Sadly, the joke’s apparently on us.

How Nature Fights Greenhouse Gases

Michael Ricciardi — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 20:36:09 +0000

World-wide distribution of discovered or inferred gas hydrate deposits in sediments, USGS, 1996

Nature is not entirely defenseless against rising greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. A class of elements called halogens (fluorine, chlorine, bromine, iodine, etc., often occurring in pairs) are emitted into the atmosphere via ocean spray, where they destroy ozone (O3), a significant greenhouse gas and aerosol that promotes warming.

The removal or destruction of certain gases/chemicals in the atmosphere is referred to as “scrubbing”.

Ozone in the outer ionosphere actually protects the planet’s biosphere from harmful solar radiation. But in the troposphere (as tropospheric ozone) it bonds with other particles and acts to trap heat in the atmosphere. At ground level, O3 is a main constituent of smog.

CFCs Remembered: Oil Wells are Silenced.

Pem Charnley — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 13:02:16 +0000

This story contains additional media. Click here to view the media.

Remember CFCs? They had the power to flavour teenage armpits and work wonders on refrigeration.

There’s two things I remember from when I was growing up. Well, not two things literally. That would suggest a woebegone adolescence. No, two things of environmental importance.

At 15, Chernobyl. A complete nuclear meltdown causing Europeans to duck for cover to avoid the prevailing winds.

Yeah, so plants are safer now, aren’t they? Well, look, personally, when you play with atoms, I still think of Hiroshima and Chernobyl, once smiling communities now nothing but cancerous shells of their former selves. Higher safety standards lead to greater complacency. No-one reading this can guarantee that another nuclear disaster won’t happen, so please, let’s leave that one alone. I’ve heard it all before.

(I don’t like things that glow in the dark really. I have innate misgivings.)

And as well as Chernobyl, we had an enormous hole in the ozone layer recognised for the first time.