there's a huge hole in our ozone layer and we're all going to die of skin cancer are the kind of
headlines I remember reading about as a kid in the 80s and 90s ozone layer is being threatened
as never before were all at risk but fast forward to today and you almost never hear about the ozone
layer so what happened did we figure it all out and problem solved are we all doomed or we just
don't know it yet or something in the middle that's what I wanted to talk about today and
what have we learned and actually stay tuned to the end when I'll give you my thoughts and
Analysis on what this means there's some really interesting takeaways to this whole thing today on Two Bit da Vinci
this video is sponsored by Masterworks let's start by talking about how
we got into this mess the real culprit here the ozone destructive substances like CFCs or
chlorofluorocarbons now these started to see a rise in popularity in the 50s 60s 70s with
things like aerosol cans spray paint for example or hairspray I get flashbacks of the 70s with the
big hair movement and all the hairspray being used but that was aerosols because it holds the second
big culprit are refrigerants now these are the working fluid in things like refrigerators and
air conditioning systems so your car's AC your home AC refrigerators all have refrigerant and
back in the days they used CFCs and if these leaked out of your system they wreaked havoc
on the ozone layer now before we talk about how exactly this destroys the ozone layer let's talk
about the two Shields that we have that make life on Earth really Pleasant and lovely the
first is the magnetosphere so the magnetosphere is a magnetic field that surrounds the Earth and
protects it from solar winds okay if you look here down at this diagram from NASA you can see what
it's doing this is deflecting the mag all the charged particles that are coming off the Sun
and as a result our planet stays safe planets that don't have a magnetosphere get bombarded by these
charged particles and it does a lot of damage to both the atmosphere and also to living organisms
on the surface now this is really important because while other planets like Saturn Mercury
Jupiter Uranus and Neptune have magnetospheres the Earth has the largest of any terrestrial
planet and other planets like Mars don't have one that has led to some really big problems
the sun's solar winds would completely strip off our atmosphere and that's why Mars has only about
one percent of the atmosphere that we do here on Earth that ties into the second Shield that we
have which is our ozone layer so our atmosphere is made up of nitrogen and also about 21 oxygen
and the oxygen that we breathe and we think of as oxygen is actually O2 and diatomic form an outrope
that has two oxygen molecules bonded so this is the oxygen that we breathe and that we know and
love ozone is actually also oxygen but it is a different outrobe that has three oxygen elements
bonded together now the ozone layer lives in the region the stratosphere between 9 and 18 miles or
15 to 30 kilometers off the surface of the Earth and what it does is it blocks ultraviolet light so
infrared is lower energy than we have the visible light spectrum and then we have ultraviolet light
now the higher the energy the more potentially damaging it could be all the way up to gamma
rays which are really destructive so even within ultraviolet we have three categories UV a b and
c well UVA actually does reach us here on Earth and that's what causes aging UVB is what causes
sunburns a little bit higher energy and the ozone layer does block some B but it blocks almost all
of the UVC and that's really important because marine life plants even humans a lot of life on
Earth would be very detrimentally impacted if the UVC from the Sun actually reached us but thanks to
our ozone layer it doesn't so how do these CFCs and other ozone destructive materials do damage
to it well as we mentioned we've been using it in aerosols and in refrigerants and it's okay on the
surface it's actually pretty safe and inert but when it rises into the atmosphere when ultraviolet
light hits it it breaks off the chlorine and just one chlorine atom can destroy up to a hundred
thousand ozone molecules and that's the problem as these things are introduced into the world the
number of people using these products increases it goes up it's destroying the ozone layer faster
than it can rebuild and as a result we have a big hole especially in Antarctica so then the ozone
layer is as critical to life on Earth as the food we eat or the water we drink and if you've bought
food recently you know just how high the prices have gotten and it's not just food but most other
necessities like fuel energy use cars even if you're making six figures nowadays chances are
there's nothing left for saving after paying off expenses even if you made all the right choices
years like 2022 force you to reassess your entire Financial strategy which is why over the last year
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huge thanks to Masterworks and you for supporting the show so the first actions were taken in 1985
at the Vienna convention for the protection of the ozone layer and this would create a
framework of how we would tackle this as a nation as a world to reduce the chlorofluorocarbons and
other destructive materials from breaking down the ozone layer then two years later the mom Trail
protocol was established now this is really what had the enforcement component it wasn't
just a framework now we knew how we would phase out materials and switch to using less harmful
stuff for aerosols and for refrigerants and the most amazing part is that every country
on Earth signed on to follow suit and to abide by these rules this is the only time in the history
of the UN that the entire world ratified a treaty universally in just 14 years 1973 to 1987 we went
from identifying a problem figuring out how we could Solve IT alternate materials that could do
the same things without being as harmful and made the change and did the Montreal protocol in 1987
truly amazing stuff so problem solved we're good ozone's back everything's okay not exactly because
even if we continue on with Montreal protocol and we continue to ban the use of things that
could harm the ozone most scientists believe it'll be around 20 40 before the ozone returns to most
parts of the world and it'll be the 26 60s before it entirely recovers over Antarctica another
reason why the ozone layer doesn't get talked about more is because it's complicated like for
example why is the hole over the Antarctic that's not where the chemicals are being released these
chemicals that get released as they approach the equator they get sucked into the polar vortex and
pull down closer to the poles especially the South Pole where it's colder when you have the perfect
combination of cold weather which means more ice crystals in the clouds combined with these
chemicals you have further ozone depletion and so while we are improving you can tell that the ozone
layer is recovering it's not linear and gradual there are ups and downs for example 2020 was kind
of a record year because of Colder Weather over the poles but yet remember that these chemicals
that we released even though we banned them and stopped releasing them further they are still in
the atmosphere and they will continue to be there for decades to come just in a few decades we did
so much damage that it's going to be nearly 50 60 years to recover but the Earth can recover and the
reason why is oxygen O2 as a is hit by UV light often will break up and it can go and form more
ozone so ozone regenerates naturally as long as we don't destroy it quickly it regenerates will
be okay now let's talk about why all this matters first of all can we take a moment to celebrate
that for once may be the only time hopefully the last time we came together as a planet to figure
things out that we're listening to scientists and we made decisions to move on to still have
air conditioning but do so in a more sustainable way this is an amazing story and I hope it gives
you a little bit of optimism that we can solve some of the other challenges of our time things
like the overuse of plastic that don't biodegrade and are littering our planet and our oceans or
how about decarbonization it's not all good news though right because the one thing that we had
working for us is there wasn't a big Lobby there wasn't like a CFC Lobby that was fighting tooth
and nail to prevent any change from happening no not not at all people were completely content to
move on right if you made refrigerators or air conditioners you just moved from using harm
harmful materials to more environmentally friendly refrigerants it's not going to
be quite so Rosy for every situation for example decarbonization and removing a Reliance on fossil
fuels natural gas and oil gasoline that will be trickier because there are billions and billions
trillions of dollars at stake companies that make money selling oil and gas are not going to want to
give that up because they have a customer for life as long as you own an internal combustion engine
car and that's why the uptake of EVS has taken a while but we are entering an age where we can
make that transition so if you follow the money a little bit you can kind of tell which Industries
are easier to change and which ones are going to be more difficult but if nothing else at least we
now know we can solve big problems I don't think it's too late I think we can turn things around
the earth will heal if for a hundred thousand years all mankind just turned to stone the Earth
would be humming and high as healthy as can be the problem is not cutting down trees to make
paper the key to all things in engineering is sustainability because if you plant trees and
you cut trees at an even rate then the net zero is actually pretty neutral and don't forget trees
are big carpences they capture carbon dioxide from the air and hold it so if you go build
a table out of it you're actually taking carbon dioxide and converting it into Furniture I know
I was shocked to hear just how far we've come and why doesn't the media cover this more when it was
Doom and Gloom and we're all going to die from skin cancer it made the news and then when all
the scientists and the politicians of the world came together and solved it ah okay we're moving
on what's the next outrage story and that part frustrates me I think it's important to celebrate
the victories and this was unilaterally a major major victory and I think it should give us all
a little bit of optimism and if you think that's uplifting and amazing check out this video next