My Speech

For my speech class I have to give a speech, (I know your thinking, wow! Really? A speech in a speech class, I never would have thought that!)

  Anyway, here it is, I can chose any topic and I chose to do it on the Ozone Hole, which has always fascinated me:

  The Ozone Hole is an area of low Ozone concentration over Antarctica. An Ozone Hole would be dangerous because Ozone is a filter for our earth against harmful Ultra-Violet rays.

  Through a series of tests, NASA concluded that the Ozone was being depleted by Chlorine. They found that the Chlorine was caused by chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, in the air.

  Now CFCs are man-made and incredibly useful. They are used for refrigeration, sterilization, air conditioning, and fire-fighting agents. They are much more efficient than what was used before CFCs were made. CFCs are also non-toxic, and chemically inert, so in a few years they were being very widely used.

  When people found that CFCs were to blame for the Ozone Hole, they demanded that they be eliminated. Because of this, many world leaders signed a treaty called the Montreal-London Protocol, which called for the elimination of CFC production by the year 2000. While it is still legal to use CFCs, nobody is allowed to make them, so eventually we will run out.

  There is only a very small benefit to the elimination of CFCs, and the cost far outweighs the benefit.

The benefit for this ban on CFCs is that the Ozone Hole will decrease, which will save lives, right? That’s not exactly right.

  The Ozone Hole is cause by Chlorine atoms under certain conditions; note the part, “certain conditions”.

The Ozone Hole was found by a scientist named Dobson back in 1956, before CFCs were being widely used. During that time, Dobson noticed that the "hole" in the Ozone layer appears over Antarctica each year from August to November. The so called “hole” then fills up again by November, bringing the Ozone layer back to full strength.

  Since CFCs were not being widely used then, the Ozone “Hole” itself cannot be traced back to CFCs completely. Instead it seems to be a natural phenomenon. But over the years the Ozone Hole does seem to be growing deeper during the months from August to November, about 20% so. So something is happening to deplete the Ozone layer.

  It turns out that it is caused by the Polar Vortex, winds in the Antarctica that blow upward. This wind carries tiny drops of water that have been frozen, if these drops of water trap Chlorine in them, then a certain chemical reaction happens to them with the surface of the ice in the Stratosphere. The result of this reaction is that the Chlorine is released from the ice droplets and it destroys the Ozone layer. However, the Polar winds are gone by November, so the Ozone Hole is a seasonal phenomenon that occurs only four months of the year, and only over Antarctica!

  Now the cost of the elimination of these CFCs is that fires will last longer before they can be put out, resulting in loss and death. Surgical procedures will be less sterile, resulting in a greater chance of infection and death. And refrigerators will be so inefficient that Third World food distribution will be reduced, resulting in starvation! Not only is starvation a concern, but so is food spoilage! Robert Watson, a big supporter of the CFC ban admitted that “probably more people would die from food poisoning as a consequence of inadequate refrigeration than would die from depleting ozone”.

  So you can see from this cost/benefit analysis that the ban on CFCs will likely save no lives, and probably end up in loss of human life. The Ozone Hole is a seasonal occurrence, and people who make the laws are very ignorant about real science. If you so not hear the whole story, it is very easy to be misinformed.

 So that's what I think about that!