It was funny at the time — but rereading Ben Elton’s 1989 bestselling satirical novel Stark today is profoundly unsettling.
Temperatures are warming faster in the Arctic than anywhere else in the world. Water and sewer pipes in Iqaluit, Nunavut, are cracking during the winter as the ground shifts.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
For several years, emissions of CFCs have been rising, in apparent defiance of a global ban in place since 2010. A new global detective effort has traced the source to two eastern Chinese provinces.
Pollution in Shandong province, source of much of the ozone-depleting gas.
Wu Hong / EPA
Almost 30 years ago the world responded to the realisation that our ozone layer was in trouble. The resulting Montreal Protocol was a rare example of global cooperation, but there’s no room for complacency.
False-color image of ozone concentrations above Antarctica on Oct. 2, 2015.
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Earth’s ozone layer shields us from harmful ultraviolet radiation. Nations have been working to reduce ozone-depleting chemicals since the 1980s, but recent studies show that there is still work to do.
There is an environmentally friendly option.
from www.shutterstock.com
As if having asthma wasn’t bad enough news, your health condition is probably contributing to climate change.
Sunrise over the Earth. Hydrofluorocarbons were created to protect the ozone layer, but their stable nature makes them an extremely potent greenhouse gas.
NASA
Australia has ratified an agreement to phase out hydrofluorocarbons, a manmade compound once hailed as the saviour of the ozone layer. What went wrong?
The Montreal Protocol is finally closing the hole in the ozone layer.
Clouds over Australia’s Davis Research Station, containing ice particles that activate ozone-depleting chemicals, triggering the annual ozone hole.
Barry Becker/BOM/AAD
The treaty to limit the destruction of the ozone layer is hailed as the most successful environmental agreement of all time. Three decades on, the ozone layer is slowly but surely returning to health.
People gather outside the White House in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, June 1, 2017, to protest President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate change accord.
AP Photo/Susan Walsh
While many people are willing to happily gamble with pharmaceuticals, which may offer the most trivial of benefits, they are not ready to believe the facts on climate change.
A wide range of industrial processes have released greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
Paulo Resende/Shutterstock.com
While the gases most responsible for global warming - carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide - continue to climb, other industrial greenhouse gases are being brought gradually under control.
Ban on CFCs in aerosol sprays and refrigerants has led to a steady shrinking of the ozone hole.
PiccoloNamek
What the Montreal Protocol has done for the ozone hole threat other international accords could do for climate change – if we all agree.
Conventional wisdom says Barack Obama will hit political obstacles on the way to fulfilling his climate ambitions. But they might be easier to sidestep than you think,
EPA/Michael Reynolds/AAP
Much has been made of the domestic political roadblocks between US President Barack Obama and climate action. But by using existing treaties he can get around the hostile Congress and help cut global emissions.