Swiss Town Obliterated As Glacier Melts

Just to be clear, the reasons we don't have a huge acid rain problem anymore is because in the 80s we put in a cap and trade system that was very successful at controlling SO2 from power plants. Also, it is more of a "local" issue, meaning China's coal burning doesn't impact the US with regards to acid rain.

For the ozone layer, most of the civilized world passed a ban on the refrigerants that were responsible for damaging the ozone layer, as well as required better controls on how they were used.

The problems didn't just go away on their own. We acted like adults and addressed the problem rather than politicize it and pretend it was made up.

 

The "issues" that went away, smog, are "short lived" issues like ozone and fine particulate. Longer term issues like CO2 didn't see much if any impact.

Ozone has a half-life of a few hours in the lower troposphere. Cut off the pre-cursors that feed its formation (nitrogen oxides from cars being the one that dropped the most during the shutdown), and you will see very fast reductions, as we did.

On the flip side, CO2 has a half-life of around 100 years.

 

I understand that but whether I was young and maybe too impressionable or im just misremembering the events, the message was taught as though we were on the verge of a cataclysmic event that was unlikely to be avoided.

 

I didn't mean to say you didn't, I just wanted to stop anyone from reading your post and thinking, "See those scientists don't know what they are talking about."

 

Yes exactly. The anti science movement is disconcerting and im not sure public trust will ever recover. At least not by a certain contingent...

 

Glacier had been receding since the Little Ice Age, Trump policies pushed it down the mountain …