The Angry Sky

The sky has had it and is not going to protect you from the sun anymore. And, since you live in sunny Hawaii, you may have a real problem.

 

Imagine this. Your friends all have skin cancer or cataracts. Your favorite beach is under water. Everything you own that goes outdoors has yellowed and faded. Heat wave after heat wave pummels you. You can’t remember when you last had fish for dinner. When there isn’t too much rain, there’s not enough.

 

All of this and more is very likely to happen in Hawaii over the next hundred years as we feel combined effects of both ozone depletion and global warming. If you think you know all you need to know about ozone depletion and global warming, read this article—you may be in for a few surprises. If the terms have elicited nothing but yawns in the past, take a seat and hang on tight. The effects of ozone depletion and global warming threaten your health, your lifestyle and your pocketbook. You need this information.

 

Our story begins 19 kilometers up, in the frosty regions of the stratosphere, where we find our friend—

 

The Ozone Layer. Ozone, a.k.a. O3, is simply three atoms of oxygen clumped together in a single molecule. The stuff is naturally created when high-energy ultraviolet radiation hits the atmosphere. New ozone is made all the time, mostly in the tropics. The wonderful thing about the ozone layer is that it absorbs ultraviolet light coming at us from the sun—nearly all of the UV-C, which is lethal, and most of the UV-B, which is what causes sunburns.

 

Tiny amounts of naturally occurring gases have always eaten away at the ozone layer, but never beyond its ability to regenerate. The term ozone depletion refers to the process of manmade chemicals destroying ozone faster than it is produced. The chief culprits are chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, and are probably best known by a DuPont trademark for a particular CFC—Freon. Freons CFC-11 and CFC-12 are synthetics that have only been around for 60 years. Most CFCs have been used in air conditioners, refrigerators and other cooling systems, and have also found widespread use in blowing foam shapes (like foam cups) and cleaning electronics. In the 1970s, concern about the ozone layer led to a ban on CFCs, but only in aerosol sprays, such as deodorants and hair sprays.

 

How do CFCs damage the ozone layer? CFCs were originally thought to be safe for people and the environment. The reason for this, and the reason CFCs are perfect for the jobs they do, is that their molecules are totally inert at sea level. They don’t react with anything. So you can fill a closed cooling system, such as an air conditioner, with Freon and leave it in there indefinitely, without it rusting out the pipes.

 

However, once an inert CFC molecule leaks into the atmosphere, it’s not so harmless. Eventually, atmospheric circulation takes it into the stratosphere, where the trouble begins. The same high-energy ultraviolet radiation that makes ozone out of oxygen also breaks apart the CFC molecule, releasing a single atom of chlorine. When this chlorine atom runs into an ozone molecule, it rips off one of the oxygen atoms for itself and becomes a chlorine monoxide molecule, leaving just O2, which does nothing to absorb UV radiation. And the damage doesn’t end there. A loose, single oxygen atom then pulls the stolen oxygen atom off the chlorine atom, again forming another O2 molecule and leaving the chlorine atom untouched. In other words, these loose chlorine atoms are extremely destructive because they are not themselves consumed by the process of breaking apart ozone molecules. According to Dr. Alan Teramura, dean of UH College of Natural Sciences and an international expert on the effects of ozone depletion on plants., it’s estimated that a single chlorine atom can break apart about 100,000 ozone molecules. And it has all the time in the world to do so, since some CFC’s can last as long as 110 years in the atmosphere.

 

The much-discussed hole in the ozone layer over the South Pole isn’t really a “hole.” It’s more like a bald spot, a region of greatly pronounced ozone depletion, which expands in the winter and contracts in the spring. It’s caused by a complex set of conditions. For one thing, the air over the Antarctic is naturally isolated from the rest of the atmosphere in the wintertime by a wind structure known as the polar vortex, so ozone-depleting chemicals do their thing without any fresh ozone drifting in from the tropics. Also, the extreme winter cold creates ice crystals, which speed the breakdown of ozone molecules. As CFC levels have increased, the bald spot in the ozone layer has increased, now reaching the southern tip of South America.

 

But this bald spot isn’t the only region where ozone is disappearing. A satellite called Nimbus 7 has recorded a 0.5 percent loss of the world’s ozone supply per year, every year from 1978 to 1985, and slightly more every year since 1985. Because of the way the atmosphere circulates, though, this thinning is uneven, a kind of ozone pattern baldness. Unfortunately, according to Teramura, one of these thin spots is right over the Central Pacific.

 

Right over us.

 

Of course, even with a flawless ozone layer, Hawaii would still receive more UV radiation than the Mainland. This is because rays coming at Hawaii cut straight through the ozone layer, while rays headed for the Mainland travel through the layer at an angle and so have a greater chance of being absorbed. Then there are our beautiful, clear skies and lack of air pollution, conditions which also allow UV to pass unimpeded.

 

Which brings us to the effects of ozone depletion. Radiation is serious business, causing serious effects. And, according to Teramura, UV levels in Hawaii are the highest they’ve been in 20 years, due to the ozone thinning that has already happened, and is bound to get worse before it gets better. (See “What Are Our Chances?” at the end of the article). Here are a few things you can expect in Hawaii as a result of ozone depletion:

 

More skin cancer in humans.  According to the United Nations Environment Program report Environmental Effects of Ozone Depletion: 1994 Assessment, edited in part by Dr. Teramura, it’s estimated that every 1 percent thinning of the ozone layer results in a 2 percent increase of non-melanoma skin cancer (treatable, nonmalignant skin cancer) in light-skinned people.

 

According to the Hawaii Medical Journal (May 1993), the incidence of malignant melanoma “has consistently increased 6 percent a year and the death rate has increased 2 percent a year since 1950. The highest melanoma incidence in the United states is found in Hawaii.”

 

It’s estimated that 70 people a year in Hawaii are diagnosed with malignant melanoma and that 20 of them will die. Non-melanoma skin cancers strike more than a hundred every year—852 melanomas were diagnosed in Hawaii between 1985 and 1991. While most of these cases involved Caucasians, no race is immune. In a Cancer Research Center of Hawaii study of melanoma patients, Hawaiians and part-Hawaiians were the second largest group, right behind Caucasians. On top of all this, the sun’s ability to make your face look like wrinkled leather is well documented.

 

Because of these effects, the National Weather Service started announcing a daily UV index forecast for Hawaii in 1994, on a scale of 0-10. On a day in June 1994, while most Mainland cities had indexes of 6 or 7, Honolulu was right at 10, along with San Juan.

 

Wear sunscreen, SPF 15 or higher.

 

More cataracts. The UN report also notes that every 1 percent thinning of the ozone layer can result in 0.6 percent to 0.8 percent increase in cataracts, which are already the leading cause of blindness in the United States. UV exposure has also been linked to age-related nearsightedness.

 

Wear sunglasses.

Studies show that exposure to UV-B radiation can weaken the immune system in humans. Experiments in animals show that UV exposure weakens their immune response to skin cancer as well as infectious diseases. While skin cancer from UV generally threatens light-skinned people more, UV affects the immune systems of all races equally.

 

Ultraviolet radiation affects more than our health. Chances are, it’s burning a small hole in your wallet. Look in your closet for the quickest example—shirts that are dark and vibrant at the tails, where they are tucked in, but faded and thin across the shoulders. Ultraviolet radiation reacts with all materials that see the light of day, and as UV levels have increased, the wear and tear on materials has, too.

 

No one has even begun to calculate the economic cost of replacing materials worn out by UV exposure, or the added cost of having to replace them faster because UV levels have increased. But consider this list of materials affected by ultraviolet radiation from a 1994 UN assessment:

Pipes, water storage tanks, window and door frames, siding, gutters, roofing, wood used in buildings; outdoor furniture, such as stadium seats, park benches, beach furniture and artificial turf; natural and synthetic textiles and fibers (including your shirts); plastics and other composite materials used in cars, planes and boats; car tires; paint on outdoor surfaces including houses, buildings, cars and artwork; highway pavement markings; road signs; and more.

 

The UN report also describes how high temperatures and UV combine to further speed the breakdown of materials, noting that for areas near the equator, “even a very small increase in UV-B levels can translate into significant increases in the rate of degradation.”

 

Of course, the effects of UV radiation are not confined to humans and their belongings. We know that UV-B increases can damage crops. Rice plants, for instance, produce fewer and smaller grains of rice as a result of UV exposure. This may not have so direct an effect on Hawaii, where agriculture is waning, but native plant species may become even more vulnerable.

 

“Several native plants are affected by UV,” says Teramura. “Even small effects on long-lived plants, which may show no change from year to year, could build up. Then it’s possible that a more resistant plant species could take its place.”

 

You think sashimi is expensive now? UV also affects marine life, including the tiny plant organisms called phytoplankton, which are the basis for the entire ocean food chain. Also, many species of fish and crustaceans spend their formative years as larvae, floating on the surface of the ocean—and soaking up the rays. Increasing levels of UV make it harder for these larvae to survive. “Reduce the amount of floating plant and animal material in the ocean and it hits everything down the line,” says Teramura. “Eventually, it could affect commercial fishing.”

 

Contrary to popular belief, ozone depletion does not cause global warming. It’s easy to get the two concepts confused, since they are often mentioned in the same breath. But they are not interchangeable. Many people are under the impression that all the extra UV coming in through a weakened ozone layer is what raises the temperature of the Earth. Not so. Ultraviolet rays are radiation, but they are not heat.

 

However, the gases that cause ozone depletion—chemicals like CFCs, halons (used in fire extinguishers), methane and nitrogen—do double-duty as greenhouse gases. Even ozone-safe substitutes for CFCs are greenhouse gases. And as greenhouse gases, these substances do contribute to global warming, independent of their effect on the ozone layer. Which brings us to our friend—

 

The Greenhouse Effect. A little greenhouse effect is a good thing. Millions of years before humans arrived on the scene, carbon dioxide and other gases in the atmostphere started the natural greenhouse effect. It works like this: Solar energy that isn’t absorbed in the stratosphere or reflected back into space by clouds gets absorbed by the surface of the Earth, then radiated back out as infrared radiation—heat. But this heat doesn’t escape back out to space. Instead, it’s trapped by the water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane and other naturally occurring gases in the atmosphere. That’s why the Earth is such a cozy place to live. Without the natural greenhouse effect, says Dr. Fred Mackenzie, UH professor of oceanography and author of the global climate change textbook Our Changing Planet, the Earth would be a ball of ice with surface temperatures of minus 20 degrees Celsius.

 

So if the greenhouse effect is natural and good, what’s the problem? The problem, as Mackenzie explains it, is an enhanced greenhouse effect. Enhanced, that is, by human-produced greenhouse gases, namely the 6 billion tons of carbon dioxide dumped into the atmosphere every year as a by-product of burning fossil fuels, followed closely by CFCs, then methane and nitrous oxide, which are byproducts of agriculture. This enhanced greenhouse effect is what causes the global warming that everyone is talking about—warming above and beyond what the natural greenhouse effect produces. The argument is simple: If naturally occurring amounts of these gases trap just enough heat to keep us comfortable, billions more tons of these gases will trap even more heat. Maybe more than we can stand.

 

The question of the day, as Honoluluans break into sweat on even shortest walks outdoors, is, Are we seeing enhanced global warming already? For most scientists, the answer is a qualified Yes. Mackenzie is a contributor to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of scientists and policymakers from 120 different nations dedicated to studying climate change. In December 1995, the IPCC announced that “the balance of evidence… suggests a discernible human influence on global climate.”

 

Coming from any other group of people, such a statement would sound like waffling. Coming from scientists, it’s nearly a shout. “Scientists are very conservative,” says Mackenzie. “We don’t like to alarm people. What the IPCC is saying is that there have been climate changes over the past 200 years that cannot be explained entirely by natural processes.”

 

In fact, the evidence seems irrefutable that man is warming up the planet. The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is now higher that it’s been in more that 160,000 years, and is 20 percent higher than it was just 200 years ago. One of the climate changes observed, and attributed to the added greenhouse gases, is that the mean global surface temperature has increased by 0.3 to 0.6 degrees Celsius since the late 1800s and half of this increase has occurred in just the past 40 years.

 

If population and energy use continue to grow as they have in the past, we will double the amount of carbon dioxide we produce by the year 2050, from 6 to 12 billion tons per year. Not surprisingly the IPCC projects that the Earth will get hotter—1.5 degrees to 4.5 degrees Celsius hotter over the next century in this scenario—and that we have ushered in an age of climate instability likely to cause “widespread economic, social and environmental dislocation over the next century.” This warming could have some serious consequences for Hawaii over the next 100 years:

Atlantis Submarines to replace The Bus? Sea levels could rise as much as 3 feet by the year 2100. That’s not enough to flood the streets of downtown Honolulu, but all our beaches as we know them, and beachfront roads and property, would all be affected. It might become harder to sell Hawaiian vacations if we have to erect sea walls where all the sand used to be. “Sea-level rise can have a number of negative impacts on tourism, ports and harbors, human settlements, and natural freshwater systems in coastal areas,” as one IPCC document puts it, in a nicely understated, scientific way.

 

The projected sea-level rise is not caused entirely by melting polar ice caps, as many people assume. Seawater itself actually expands when it warms. There is also a slight chance that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet could disintegrate in a warmer world, which would also significantly raise sea levels. Exactly what circumstances could bring this about aren’t known, but in a disturbing development, a 1,000-square-mile iceberg did break loose from the Larsen Ice Shelf a year ago—10 years earlier than predicted—while sections of three other ice shelves disintegrated into smaller pieces.

 

Wacky weather? General warming can lead to hotter and more frequent heat waves, so that this past winter’s record breaking high temperatures could become much more common. It will also change the frequency and heaviness of rainfall, though it’s difficult to say whether this will mean more rain or less for Hawaii.

 

The trickiest part of global warming science is trying to predict weather changes for small regions. As the IPCC points out, there haven’t been any global trends for any particular kind of weather catastrophe, but there certainly have been regional trends toward weather chaos. To many climatologists, the fact that Oregon had its worst flooding in 32 years, after the East Coast endured the blizzard of the century, while Honolulu broiled in its hottest December ever recorded, is exactly the face of global warming.

 

“The models show both increasing and decreasing precipitation for this region,” says Mackenzie. “We could get more El Nino, resulting in a drier climate.” Or, a warmer climate could lead to more evaporation, therefore more cloud-building and presumably more rain.

 

Mackenzie and other scientists also suggest that global warming will bring stronger and more frequent hurricanes to Hawaii by warming the surface of the seas. The book is not closed on this subject, though. According to Oahu Civil Defense data, there hasn’t been any consistent increase in the number of hurricanes in the Central Pacific, and Tom Schroeder, of the UH Department of Meteorology, says the 1979 record for intensity in hurricanes has yet to be beaten.

 

“People predicting more or stronger hurricanes as a result of global warming are only looking at increased sea temperatures,” says Schroeder. “But it takes six different requirements for a tropical storm to occur, and warm water is only one of them. It’s not clear what effect global warming would have on the other five.”

 

Warming would also endanger native plant species, especially those at high altitudes. The silversword, for instance, is perfectly suited to the chilly peak of Haleakala, but there’s nowhere for it to grow if that climate warms. Coral reefs, coral atolls and reef islands are especially vulnerable to even slight warming, resulting in coral bleaching, coral death and increased coastal erosion.

 

Other effects of global warming are less of a direct threat to Hawaii. For instance, there are the bugs. Termites and roaches ran amok in New Orleans over the past few years as that city went without a killing winter freeze. There is evidence that malaria and yellow fever are already spreading further north and to higher altitudes as warming allows disease-carrying insects to go beyond their usual ranges.

 

“My concern is not for the developed, industrialized world,” says Mackenzie, “but for the developing world. We can do a lot to adjust here in Hawaii. We have First World-quality healthcare and engineering to deal with sea-level rise, disease or increased storm activity. But the Pacific region is very vulnerable. Flooding, the spread of disease—we could be seeing the mass migration of people trying to escape these problems.”

 

It’s not at all impossible that Hawaii could receive a surge of immigration over the coming century, a social cost of global warming that few have anticipated.

 

By now, you’re probably wondering how much worse things could get. In fact, you look like you could use some good news. Now is a great time to ask—

 

The good news is that ozone depletion can be fixed, and greenhouse gas emissions can be decreased to avoid the effects of global warming. Take the Montreal Protocol, for instance. Though it sounds like the title of a spy thriller, the Montreal Protocol is actually an international agreement to ban worldwide production of CFCs. The total ban on CFCs in developed nations, including the United States, just went into effect in January, while undeveloped countries have a few years’ grace period to catch up. “If the Montreal Protocol is consistently adhered to, CFC levels (and, consequently, UV exposure) will peak at the turn of the century, then gradually subside,” reports Teramura. “By 2050, the ozone layer will be completely restored. In the meantime, people can do a lot to protect themselves from UV radiation, with sunscreen, hats and sunglasses.”

 

How about that? Just 50 years without CFCs and the ozone layer bounces back, like nothing ever happened!

 

Unfortunately, consistent adherence the Montreal Protocal is unlikely. Russia has diplomatically annoused that it will have a hard time meeting the Progocol’s timetable. And American industry still has an appetite for CFCs, resulting in a brisk black-market trade. Federal agencies estimate that as much as 30 percent of U.S. demand for CFCs is being met by illegal imports from Russia, India and China. This doesn’t mean the ozone layer won’t ever be restored. As the demand for CFCs dwindles, so will the chemical. But it does mean that ozone depletion won’t peak as early as the turn of the century, and that the ozone layer won’t recover as early as 2050.

 

Policy decisions about ozone depletion and global warming, after all, are based on the attitudes of policymakers. In America, for example, the environment is just one of many footballs being punted back and forth over the fence across party lines. Both Clinton Democrats and Gingrich Republicans seem more interested in scoring points on each other than winning the game. Environmentalists, however, do worry that the Republican-dominated Congress will be too quick to dismiss the problems of ozone depletion and global warming. Even on an issue as seemingly clear-cut as ozone depletion, conservative attitudes range from skeptical to complete denial, and Republicans briefly reconsidered America’s own adherence to the Montreal Protocol. At its most extreme, the conservative viewpoint can be distressingly at odds with science.

 

“Perhaps the biggest environmental frauds perpetuated [sic] on us in recent years are the notions that Earth is heating up and that the ozone layer is disappearing because of man’s abuse of the environment,” writes Rush Limbaugh in his 1993 book, See, I Told You So. “It’s a hoax. Listen to the scientists—the experts in their field—not the crackpots who preach doom and gloom.”

 

Among those Limbaugh would consider crackpots are Dr. Paul Crutzen and his two associates, who won the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1995 for their work on stratospheric ozone depletion. Fortunately, not all conservatives are as rabid in their skepticism. California Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, for example, believes that CFCs do pose a threat to the ozone layer and that we should abide by the Montreal Protocol. This is a good thing, since Rohrabacher is chairman of the House Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment, under the House Committee on Science. On the other hand Rohrabacher things global warming is “scientific nonsense… unproven… liberal claptrap.”

 

Such reactions are an almost instinctive reflex in Republicans, says Democratic Rep. Neil Abercrombie: “They are fixated on the free market. Whenever someone talks about ozone depletion or global warming, Republicans reject the science because solving the problem means, to them, placing restrictions on the free market.”

 

Admittedly, it’s harder to come up with tidy cost-benefit comparisons for global warming remedies than it is for, say, banning CFCs to rebuild the ozone layer. Consequently, it’s harder to say whether government will act to aver the effects of global warming. Right now, 90 percent of the 6 billion tons of carbon dioxide produced every year comes from energy production, and one-fourth of that comes from transportation—two things no one is eager to do without.

 

But you should know that at a 1994 IPCC conference, it was the small Island nations of the Pacific that cried out loudest for a worldwide, 60 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions, lest rising sea levels literally put them under. Only a twist of history separates our concerns from theirs. Unfortunately, neither energy-hungry America, first in CO2 emissions, nor energy-starved China, a close second, were interested in any such sacrifice, and the rest of the world followed suit.

 

Larry Hart, on the professional staff of the House science committee and an associate of Rohrabacher, puts the global warming question this way: “Climate change is forever. But what effect will it have if we hurry some massive change in lifestyle? Will it really make a difference?

 

Actually, a global change in lifestyle doesn’t have to be either disruptive or immediate to avert global warming. For instance, the IPCC points out that the world’s entire commercial energy system will be replaced at least twice over the next century, providing two painless opportunities to switch to more efficient technologies or to phase in alternative energy sources. But again, whether this happens depends on policymakers, who may or may not be interested in problems that can’t be solved within a given term of office, and the willingness of the fossil fuel industry to be flexible.

 

This last point is crucial. The petroleum end of the fossil fuel industry alone reaps one trillion dollars a year in annual sales and carries tremendous political clout worldwide. It’s no surprise that oil industry groups are downplaying the effects of global warming. The Global Climate Coalition, just one of many such groups, spends about a million dollars a year doing so. Demand for oil and coal is only going to grow—what’s to be gained by troubling that market with dark omens?

 

Between the political ball-playing, the clout of the most vested interests, and the sheer weight of the world’s appetite for energy, it’s doubtful that anything as sweeping or concrete as the Montreal Protocol will be established to deal with global warming. In the meantime, it’s tempting to believe celebrity pundits and a handful of dissenting scientists (many of them associated with petroleum industry groups like the Global Climate Coalition), who grab headlines and sell books based on the comforting idea that there is no problem with the ozone layer, no peril from impending global warming. It’s tempting because, after all, when a doctor says you aren’t sick, you don’t go get a second opinion.

 

But, you might want to check again, Hawaii. You’ve been getting a little too much sun, and it feels like you’re running a fever. Must be something in the air.