TFFF! TFFF!

There are some other points to be added to the ozone layer disap-pearance theory, or what's left of it after you look at seasonal and geographical variations.

The most accurate measurements come from an instrument aboard the Nimbus 7 satellite launched in 1978. The total ozone decrease it measured since then (which also includes other effects than the alleged CFC effect) amounts to under 0.5% per year. But there is nobody in the world who can say how much of this, if any, is a genuine decrease in ozone, and how much is due to the measur-ing instrument drifting away from its original calibration nine years ago. Ground-based observations are not accurate enough to decide.

But assume the satellite readings have a zero error (an im-possibility) and that the ozone decrease is genuine; who says that it is due to CFC pollution? Every Tom, Dick and Harry in the media malediction does; but scientists know about a number of other causes that may affect the density of the ozone layer.

But there is another category of effects that could change the ozone back to oxygen: chemicals that stray into the stratosphere. And now the fun starts. There are no less than 150 simultaneous chemical reactions involved that could do the trick if the culprit is the chlorine, though not necessarily that from CFCs (there is plenty of chlorine from natural sources). But there are other possibilities. Nitrogen oxides from both natural sources and fertilizers could do it. Methane could do it. Carbon dioxide could do it. There is not a soul on earth that knows which of these have what effect (if any) in removing ozone compared with orthodox dissociation by solar radiation. But there is no shortage of souls who have a pet theory and want more taxpayers' money to prove it, and there is an over-supply of souls who already have the precise answer and puke it all over the Sunday supplements.

Yet some things are known very definitely, though not to the media monkeys. For example, here is a secret, strictly for insiders: the vast majority of spray cans never did contain any CFCs (which are mostly used in refrigerators and air conditioning equipment); they contained the far cheaper carbon dioxide, the stuff that goes into the bubbles of Coca-Cola. To put hand-pumps on window-cleaning sprays, for example, is not at all objectionable, but to sell them under the label "Protect the environment" to the "ecology-conscious" is a pure and simple fraud.

And here is another secret: the effect of nitrogen oxides, methane and carbon dioxide, if any, would diminish the effect of the CFCs. Therefore, if the panicmakers' unlikely predictions should prove true after all (and in our present ignorance they cannot yet be ruled out), our duty to the planet is clear. Armed with carbon-dioxide charged spray cans, we shall march resolutely forward in grim determination, and tffff! tffff! we shall save the Species of Man.