I’ve been thinking about the ozone hole lately. You don’t really hear much about the ozone hole anymore, but if you were alive in the 80’s you couldn’t not hear about it.
I hadn’t thought about this particular Sword of Damocles for years, until we watched the “Fridge” episode of The Secret Genius of Modern Life the other night.
And now it won’t get out of my head.
Not the ozone hole itself, or the chlorofluorocarbons that were humanity’s contribution to the problem. I keep thinking about the research and scientific testimony in the mid-seventies that drew attention to the risk, the observations in the mid-eighties that focused us and catalyzed action, and the Montreal Protocol that coordinated a global response.
I keep thinking about the scientists, the civil servants and politicians, and members of the public who all had a part to play.
I can’t help but wonder how the same thing would go today.
If that’s not enough to keep you up at night, that’s usually the point where I find myself musing on what imminent calamity we’re currently oblivious to because we are – right now – defunding the basic research that would be our best chance to discover and understand it.
And then I come full circle and wonder how the hell we managed to dodge that bullet when the only evidence that the problem even existed was some false color imagery and scientific papers largely incomprehensible to the general public and world leaders.
And yet, we acted. Globally. And our actions made a difference. And we didn’t abandon the plan, or take our proverbial ball and go home, even when it would have been easy to.
I’ve been trying to imagine what it would take, today, to get the same outcome.
I’ll be honest, I’m not sure I believe it’s even possible.
I hope I’m wrong.