Here are a few items that C.J. Carnacchio failed to mention in his article, "The Sky Falls on Environmental Myths." (10/8/97; page 8) Carnacchio states in Myth #2, The Hole in the Ozone Layer: "Ozone levels can valso be affected by the amount of volcanic matter in the stratosphere. Each volcanic eruption emits roughly a thousand times the amount of ozone-depleting chemicals than all the CFCs man has ever produced."
From the Encyclopedia Americana (under VOLCANO) we find that, "The best collections of volcanic gases have been made by T.A. Jaggar at Kilauea volcano. The average composition of samples was: water 70%; CO2 14%; CO .4%; H.33%; N5.45%; SO2 6.4%; (and to be especially noted) CHLORINE .05%."
Most new accounts that I read put Mt. Pinatubo's SO2 amount at a million tons. Since chlorine content is 1/125th that of SO2- the chlorine given off by Pinatubo was no more than 8,000 tons. World man-made production of ozone depleting chemicals (chlorine and CFCs) is well over 20,000 tons PER YEAR, let alone the amount ever produced by man.
The amount of ozone depleting chemicals given off by a large volcano is insignificant compared to man made production. Carnacchio's statement is someone's quantitative chemical lie. In fact, his statement runs exactly verbatim to what a scientific illiterate, by the name of Rush Limbaugh, said on his radio show! Furthermore; "Chlorine from natural sources is soluble, and so it gets rained out of the lower atmosphere", the journal SCIENCE explained (6/11/93), CFCs in contrast, are insoluble and inert and thus make it to the stratosphere to release their chlorine."
Science also noted that chlorine found in the stratosphere- where it can eat away at the earth's protective ozone layer- is always found with other by-products of CFCs, and not with the by-products of natural chlorine sources.
"Ozone depletion is real, as certain as Neil Armstrong's landing on the moon," Dr. Sherwood Rowland, an atmospheric chemist at the University of California at Irvine states. "Natural causes of ozone depletion are not significant."
So it appears that Mr. Carnacchio's statement that, "Volcanic eruption emits roughly a thousand times the amount of ozone-depleting chemicals than all the CFCs man has ever produced" - is a chemical lie or the fantasy of the CFC lobby. Volcanic chlorine does not affect the ozone layer. If it did - the ozone layer would have long since been gone and the food chain so seriously hampered that mankind would have never survived!
Myth #1 Global Warming (burning of fossil fuels) The burning of fossil fuels results in pocket areas of a high concentration of particulate matter and ground level ozone. If anyone doubts this- just get behind a diesel truck in a traffic jam for an hour! If anyone doubts the health effects of particulate matter and ozone- either talk to your doctor or read the 8/97 issue of Consumer Reports. Do not, under any circumstances, ask Mr. Carnacchio about these health effects. If he thought they were important, he would have included them in his article.
As far as Myth #4 (Endangered Species)- I wonder if Carnacchio ever heard of, or has eaten Abalone? Then too, would I expect to get any real factual information on endangered species from a person who asks the question, "Do we really need to save every allegedly endangered insect out there?"- and then can't answer his own question?!
One should also notice that not even the name and credentials of ONE scientist even appears in the article. If any sources for the 'information' in this article had any reputation as researchers -they surely would have (and should have) their names included!
P.S.- According to The Michigan Review, "C.J. Carnacchio is a staff writer for the Review, which is printed on paper made from virgin rain forest wood."
I would like to state that my comments were sent to the Review via e-mail - which I believe is not powered by electricity derived from the burning of virgin rainforest wood. Therefore, I believe that I am showing a little more responsibility than the Review in this matter.
Signed,
Michael Korman
Ann Arbor, MI
1) In a paper published in the July 1980 issue of SCIENCE, David A. Johnson noted that a single eruption of Mount Augustine in Alaska emitted more chlorine into the STRATOSPHERE (where the ozone layer is) than contained in the entire worldwide production of CFCs for 1975. He further states that the chlorine resulting from volcanic eruptions is 20 to 40 times more concentrated than previously believed. He writes, "Volcanic contribution of chlorine to the stratosphere [is] more significant to ozone than previously estimated...Clearly volcanic sources of stratospheric chlorine may be significant in comparison with anthropogenic sources."
2) Two Norwegian scientists, Larsen and Hendrickson, in a January 1990 paper (published in NATURE), noted "that antropogenic gases, such as CFCs, have, up to the summer of 1989, had a negligible influence on the Arctic ozone layer. The general balance between the formation and destruction of ozone has not changed, at least not the extent that it is apparent in the long-term observations." Their research in the region dates back to 1935.
3) In their 1992 book The Holes in the Ozone Scare: Experimentalists vs. Modelers, Roger A. Maduro and Ralf Schauerhammer note that Mount Erebus in Antarctica has been producing 1,000 tons of chloride a day since 1972. It belches forth 50 times more chlorine than an entire year's production of CFCs. This volcano is located just 10 km upwind of McMurdo Sound where ozone measurements are taken. The amount of chloride calculated at any one time is 50 to 60 times more than the chloride derived from CFCs on a yearly basis.
4) In his 1968 book Ozone in the Atmosphere, G.M.B. Dobson of Oxford University concluded that the thinning of ozone over Antarctica was an annual and natural phenomena. He was the first scientist to measure the thinning in 1956 and 1957. In both instances the ozone layer made a healthy recovery in the spring of each year. This was a time before CFCs were in such common and widespread use. Also, Dobson was responsible for creating the instruments and measuring system (Dobson Units) for ozone amounts. He is recognized as the founder of ozone research in the stratosphere.
5) Melvyn Shapiro, the chief of meteorological research at a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration laboratory hit the nail on the head when he told the April 6, 1992 issue of INSIGHT magazine "What you have to understand is that this is about money. If there were no dollars attached to this game, you'd see it played on intellect and integrity. When you say the ozone threat is a scam, you're not only attacking people's scientific integrity, you're going after their pocketbook as well. It's money, purely money." Shortly after saying this he was muzzled. There are scientists who do have a political agenda. They are not above playing with the numbers to advance their cause. Just as academia has become politicized so has science. Today, the great god science is not the holy shrine of empirical data and objectivity as its high priests claim.