Word: layers
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...hearing, Coleman promised to make a decision by early February. His choice will not be easy. A ruling in favor of the Concorde would bring down the wrath of environmentalists, who charge that the craft is too noisy, burns too much fuel and is a threat to the ozone layer. A decision to bar the plane would be considered an unfriendly act by the British and French and could sour U.S. relations with both countries...
...first time, however, concerns about the environment-rather than airworthiness-are playing a major role in determining the acceptability of a foreign aircraft. Some scientists have speculated that the Concorde's high-altitude emissions of nitrogen oxides could contribute significantly to the destruction of the ozone layer that screens the earth from an overdose of the sun's ultraviolet rays. Using these reports, the Federal Aviation Administration estimates that simply granting the pending Franco-British request for six flights a day could lead to 200 additional cases of skin cancer a year...
...study indicated that the environmental impact of the Concorde on New York would be small, its effect on the Dulles area all but nonexistent. Furthermore, he insisted, if Britain and France seriously believed that a limited number of Concorde flights might thin out the ozone layer, they would not be advocating flights that could harm their peoples too. "Your environment is our environment," he told the hearing. "Your ozone layer is our ozone layer...
Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, himself a former military pilot who has flown 153 different types of aircraft, pointed out that military planes have made more than a million supersonic flights without any apparent damage to the ozone layer; he urged the U.S. to let the Concorde land. "If we lock out the Concorde," said Goldwater, "that will be further evidence that the U.S. is becoming a has-been world power...
Concorde's friends have some good points. Most researchers agree that a thinning of the ozone layer would lead to an increase in skin cancer. But there is no hard evidence that the ozone layer has been depleted in recent years, despite both high-altitude jet flight and the widespread use of aerosol sprays; indeed, at least one study suggests that the thickness of the ozone shield actually increased during the 1960s. The Concorde's designers admit that the ship is noisy on takeoff, but they believe that the effects of its noise may be at least partially...