Chemicals That Eased One Woe Worsen Another(hydrofluorocarbons)

[RamboLiberal]

Source: Washington Post

This is not the funny kind of irony: Scientists say the chemicals that helped solve the last global environmental crisis -- the hole in the ozone layer -- are making the current one worse.

The chemicals, called hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), were introduced widely in the 1990s to replace ozone-depleting gases used in air conditioners, refrigerators and insulating foam.

They worked: The earth's protective shield seems to be recovering.

But researchers say what's good for ozone is bad for climate change. In the atmosphere, these replacement chemicals act like "super" greenhouse gases, with a heat-trapping power that can be 4,470 times that of carbon dioxide.

Now, scientists say, the world must find replacements for the replacements -- or these super-emissions could cancel out other efforts to stop global warming.



Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/19/AR2009071901817.html?hpid%3Dtopnews&sub=AR

[lindisfarne]

1. DuPont is working on this. Nothing to worry about: "We don't know all of them yet," said Mack McFa

"We don't know all of them yet," said Mack McFarland, global environmental manager for DuPont Fluoroproducts, a division of Delaware-based DuPont.

[Ian David]

2. As soon as their patent has expired on the LAST chemical, they'll have a replacement. n/t

[Wednesdays]

3. K&R

:kick:

[WriteDown]

4. Ah, the old law of unintended consequences.

Figures.

[The2ndWheel]

5. No, it is funny

The funniest part is that we're trying to stop climate change by changing the climate. Not only are we trying to change the climate to stop climate change, but we're doing it to fit our narrow requirements as a single species. If we happen to save a polar bear or two, it's basically accidental.

I'm guessing our end game is to find some perfect state to existence, where nothing ever changes, and globalized humanity can do as it pleases, with not a single consequence for any action. We want to force physical reality to conform to our wants and needs. Since that process works so well within the complexity of humanity itself, how could it not work with an entire complex planet?