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Remember a few decades ago when scientists told us if we quit destroying the ozone layer of the atmosphere that, in time, it could heal itself? A new United Nations-backed study says it is happening, and the ozone may be totally healed in a few decades if we don’t do anything dumb.
Among the authors of the study are the World Meteorological Organization, United Nations Environment Programme, NASA and the U.S. Department of Commerce. A total recovery is called total column ozone, or TCO. The report says:
Actions taken under the Montreal Protocol continue to contribute to ozone recovery. Recovery of ozone in the upper stratosphere is progressing. Total column ozone (TCO) in the Antarctic continues to recover, notwithstanding substantial interannual variability in the size, strength, and longevity of the ozone hole.
Outside of the Antarctic region (from 90°N to 60°S), the limited evidence of TCO recovery since 1996 has low confidence. TCO is expected to return to 1980 values around 2066 in the Antarctic, around 2045 in the Arctic, and around 2040 for the near-global average (60°N–60°S). The assessment of the depletion of TCO in regions around the globe from 1980–1996 remains essentially unchanged since the 2018 Assessment.
The ozone layer absorbs most of the sun’s ultraviolet radiation before it hits the earth’s surface. Scientists warned that holes in the ozone layer would result in increased cases of skin cancer.
In the 1980s, scientists started warning that chlorofluorocarbons, which we call CFCs, were causing the holes. Those gases were commonly found in refrigerants, aerosol sprays and solvents.
It took a decade and a half after the discovery that the ozone was in trouble to get an international agreement to control CFCs. An agreement called the Montreal Protocol took effect in 1989. It stopped the use of 99% of the CFCs in the world. Even after the international ban, the hole over Antarctica kept growing until 2000, and then the atmospheric healing began.
(European Environment Agency)
As you can see from the findings, ozone protection could be back to pre-1980s levels for most of the world by 2040. For the more vulnerable Arctic and Antarctic regions, full recovery could happen around 2045 in the north and 2046 in the south.
The scientific journal Nature also says that controlling CFCs has a positive effect on global warming.
Read more:
Why some states are not going to keep widening highways to deal with traffic problems
Automobile traffic jams Route 93 South, Wednesday, July 14, 2021, in Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
The New York Times gives us a timely and thoughtful piece on why widening highways sometimes does not lighten traffic clogs. Widening highways can provide temporary traffic congestion relief, but often wider highways invite more traffic and, soon, they are just as clogged as they were before.
One study found that when you increase the road capacity by 1%, you can expect a 1% increase in traffic.
Now, with $350 billion in federal highway funds about to wash through the economy, some states are rethinking how they will spend money to fight traffic jams. The Times observed:
Some communities and government officials are pushing back on widening plans. In Los Angeles, this opposition had an impact. After $60 million was spent on design and planning over two decades, the Route 710 expansion was canceled last May.
“We don’t see widening as a strategy for L.A.,” said James de la Loza, chief planning officer for Los Angeles County’s transportation agency.
It remains to be seen if the cancellation is the start of a trend or an outlier. Widening projects are still in the works for highways in Texas, Oregon and Maryland, to name a few. New York City is even considering re-widening the traffic-choked Brooklyn Queens Expressway.
The Times included one especially good example of why widening roads is not always a long-term answer:
For critics of widening projects, the prime example of induced demand is the Katy Freeway in Houston, one of the widest highways in the world with 26 lanes.
Immediately after Katy’s last expansion, in 2008, the project was hailed as a success. But within five years, peak hour travel times on the freeway were longer than before the expansion.
Transit ridership is down in many cities; work at home changed habits
The pandemic changed, maybe for the long term, mass transit systems that are still operating with far fewer riders. Governing.com says:
Transit ridership across the U.S. has been sitting steadily at about 65 percent to 70 percent of pre-pandemic ridership across transit networks, according to data from the Transit App. This is an improvement from a year ago, when ridership hovered around 55 percent of pre-pandemic ridership.
Governing, a news service that caters to state and local officials, says transit systems are increasingly building schedules that are less focused on rush hours and more focused on getting people to destinations that are not just workplaces.
“Riders are depending on transit more for essential trips and daily errands, and younger people are less likely than ever to get their driver’s license. All the while, we’re faced with transit driver shortages and unpredictable commuter patterns due to remote work,” said Nithya Sowrirajan, Via’s chief product officer. “That said, it’s crucial for transit agencies of all sizes and settings to have access to smart, simple scheduling software that helps networks remain flexible and nimble.”
Agencies are also putting in place more programs and opportunities to reduce or remove fares altogether. The programs are modeled on account-based fare-payment systems which allow agencies to offer special rates for low-income and other qualified riders.
Public schools are facing an enrollment problem
The National Center for Education Statistics tells us that during the period from fall 2019 to fall 2020, a million students left the nation’s public schools (50.8 million down to 49.4 million). And the trend for the rest of this decade is downward.
(National Center for Education Statistics)
Some school systems have lost enrollment due to lower birth rates, while Texas schools gained enrollment because of a surge in immigration. New Hampshire and Michigan lost the biggest percentages of public school students. Ohio, Illinois, West Virginia and New York also have lost public school enrollment.
The Wall Street Journal reports:
The school board in Jefferson County, Colo., outside Denver, voted in November to close 16 schools. St. Paul, Minn., last summer closed five schools. The Oakland, Calif., school board last February voted to close seven schools after years of declining enrollment and financial strife.
Axios reports that charter schools gained even more students than public schools lost:
Widespread teacher and staff shortages exacerbated the problem. Students rapidly fell behind. That pushed frustrated parents to pull their kids out.
As a result, private schools and charter schools gained students. The number of homeschooled students doubled to about 5 million.
