Protecting the Ozone & the Earth by City Tech Harrys Houngbedji

Climate Change. When most people think about this topic, they only focus on the rise of the average temperature. Although rising temperatures are part of climate change, there are other aspects that make climate change a big issue. In 1985, scientists discovered a big hole in the ozone layer of our atmosphere. The ozone layer is primarily responsible of protecting us from the sun’s dangerous rays. You might ask why should anyone care? Well without this layer, everything on our planet will dry up, there would be massive droughts, people will develop cancer at a rate never seen before and the drinkable water that we have might dry up as well. When discovered, this hole in the ozone layer was about the size of the continent of America. After this discovery, scientists had implemented steps to stop the depletion of the ozone by banning Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) which is an organic compound of mainly of 3 elements, carbon, chlorine and fluorine. When CFCs are in the upper atmosphere it is broken down by high energy solar ultraviolet radiation. The chlorine that is released from this breakdown of CFCs remains in the stratosphere for many years, where it destroys thousands of molecules in the ozone. It’s been nearly three decades since scientists have measured the ozone and found that it had shrunk in size. The ozone has decreased about 1.5 million square miles. On October 15 2016, more than 100 country leaders signed a deal to ban refrigerant chemicals that still use the CFC and HFC. These type of deals are the first of many to come as we all recognize the effect that climate can have on the earth and take it seriously. If more laws and deals are signed to limit the destruction of our planet, we may extend the period of time future earthlings have and perhaps not everything will go bad or deteriorate.