Re: Freon!

[Delores Broten <dbroten@rfu.org>]

  >Sam wrote
  >
  >>The plots were not evil - though in many cases they were not well thought
  >>out.  ........ We didn't have to go back and declare those who discovered 
  >uses for
  >>freon evil - we just needed to prevent CFCs from getting into the
  >>atmosphere.  In this case, we should be looking at those ways to REDUCE our
  >>waste (recycling is only a partial answer and also creates waste).
  
  What an interesting example! Of course the INVENTORS of Freon were not
  evil. But the history of CFCs is very revealing.
  
  ...............
  
  WAY WAY back in the 1970's the environmental movement fought AND WON to get
  CFCs out of spray cans. I well remember, she mused, the day in 1975 Johnson
  and Johnson announced they would voluntarily stop using CFCs in their
  products. What a victory that was! By 1978 the USA had banned the use of
  CFCs as aerosol propellants in spray cans. 
  
  CFC use declined sharply and globally, by 25%. By 1982, however, production
  and release had leaped upwards again, because the CFCs were being used for
  other purposes, such as refrigerants and solvents. We enviros, unaware,
  thought that problem was solved and moved on to other issues. 
  
  Now, surely the people making the CFCs, the government, the marketing
  agents, were all well aware of the 1970's movement to save the ozone layer,
  especially given the legal prohibition? We would not be on the ozone
  "cliff-hanger" we have been for the 1990's, if those people had not
  continued to promote the increasing use of CFCs throughout the 1980s. 
  
  Draw whatever conclusions you want about their morality. I personally am
  waiting for the Environmental Nuremberg Trials. I believe there have to be
  CONSEQUENCES for this kind of behaviour, or it will never stop, especially
  since the monetary rewards are so high.  
  
  A good source on this is Donella Meadows, Beyond the Limits, 1992,
  especially the graph on page144, which breaks out aerosol/nonaerosol
  production.  See also Makhijani & Gurney, Mending the Ozone Hole. Another
  really excellent account is Dave Kershner's "the Ozone Hole" in the Berkley
  Ecology Centre Terrain, April 1992.
  
  
  Delores Broten, 
  Reach for Unbleached! Foundation,
  Box 39, Whaletown BC Canada V0P 1Z0
  Ph/fax: (250) 935-6992
  
  http://www.rfu.org
  
  dbroten@rfu.org