Word: cfc
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...grim news spurred new public warnings and calls for faster action. In Denmark an Environment Ministry spokesman went on television to urge fellow Danes not to panic -- but to use hats and sunscreen. German Environment Minister Klaus Topfer called on & other countries to match Germany's pledge to stop CFC production by 1995. Greenpeace activists in Britain met with Prime Minister John Major and implored him to halt the manufacture of all CFCs immediately...
...vote, found the evidence alarming enough to justify a faster phaseout. "Now that there's the prospect of a hole over Kennebunkport," Senator Al Gore said, "perhaps Bush will comply with the law." William Reilly, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, said that the U.S. might seek to end CFC production as early...
What also frightens scientists is the fact that CFCs remain in the atmosphere for decades after they are emitted. In their original research, Rowland and Molina estimated that CFCs can last 100 years or more. Even if CFC production stopped today, researchers believe that stratospheric levels of chlorine would continue to rise, peaking during the first decade of the next century and not returning to anything like natural levels for at least a century...
...technical challenge is relatively straightforward. The goal is to find substances and processes that can replace CFC-based systems without doing further harm to the stratosphere -- an endeavor that is well under way. In fact, it may turn out to be easier than anyone expected. Except for medical aerosols, some fire-fighting equipment and certain metal-cleaning applications, there are now effective substitutes for virtually every ozone- depleting chemical. Some cost quite a bit more, and others pose different, if less severe, environmental problems. But in a surprising number of cases, the new processes are actually cheaper and better than...
Replacing CFCs in newly built equipment, however, is only half the job. Virtually every existing refrigerator and air conditioner is a CFC reservoir. The chemicals are not a problem as long as they continue to circulate within an appliance. But if the machine is carelessly drained, junked or damaged, the CFCs can escape to attack the ozone. The real task for those countries that invested heavily in CFCs in the past is to develop systems for recovering and recycling the chemicals they have already used...