Word: protocols
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Humankind doesn't have a great track record when it comes to cleaning up environmental messes, but there was one time we really outdid ourselves. That was back in 1989, when over 190 nations signed the Montreal Protocol, phasing out the use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). The decade before, scientists had discovered that CFCs were blowing a hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica, exposing us to dangerous ultraviolet radiation and boosting the risk of skin cancer. Today, CFCs are no longer in widespread use, and the ozone layer appears to be on the mend...
...agricultural fertilizer and a number of other industrial processes - is now the biggest ozone-depleting gas in the air, and could present a real threat to the ozone layer in coming decades. And worse, unlike CFCs, N2O - which also adds to global warming - is not regulated by the Montreal Protocol, meaning there is no global effort to try to reduce emissions. (See pictures of the world's most polluted places...
...news isn't all bad: the fact that scientists can now turn so much of their attention to the dangers of N2O is in part because CFC levels have dropped so low, thanks to the Montreal Protocol. But N2O is likely to prove much more difficult than CFCs to phase out. While CFCs had a relatively narrow range of uses - and chemical companies like DuPont were able to come up with replacements quickly - N2O is all around us, tied intimately to our industrial way of life. The millions of tons of soil fertilizer used in U.S. agriculture alone...
Facebook amended its policy a few months after Woolington died. "We first realized we needed a protocol for deceased users after the Virginia Tech shooting, when students were looking for ways to remember and honor their classmates," says Facebook spokeswoman Elizabeth Linder. The company responded by creating a "memorial state" for profiles of deceased users, in which features such as status updates and group affiliations are removed. Only the user's confirmed friends can continue to view the profile and post comments...
...Another "protocol" that left me bewildered was the $3,013 charge for the physician's care. It was coded on the bill as Level 5 - the highest, what you would think would be charged for, say, shooting victims or massive coronary patients. While I was admittedly in epic pain during those few hours when the stone drilled its way from kidney to bladder, my case was nowhere near life-threatening. Again, I was simply told, "The doctor determined your care was of the nature reflected by the level that's on the bill...