Breathing easier on Earth Day

The polar ice caps are melting, Montana’s Glacier National Park barely has any glaciers left, and in the Pacific Ocean, a trash heap the size of Texas is killing marine life.

With that in mind, can you really say “Happy Earth Day” with a straight face?

Yes - with a few caveats - say scientist-environmentalist types.

For example, remember the ozone debate of the 1980s? It was on everyone’s worried minds and lips. Would we all die from skin cancer? Would the sun scorch the Earth?

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These days, though, ozone and ozone-depleting pollutants don’t make headlines anymore. The pollutants - chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, for example - that were used to cool everything from refrigerators to air conditioners were banned and phased out after the 1987 Montreal Protocol - an international treaty aimed at protecting the ozone layer.

“It’s a true success story,” said Nathan Hultman, an assistant professor in international climate policy at the University of Maryland. “We went from full production to zero in just a decade and consumers didn’t even notice the change was happening.”

We didn’t notice because industry found substitutes for the ozone-depleting substances at a lower cost than expected, Mr. Hultman said.

“The ozone stabilized almost immediately,” he said.

Another big success during the past few decades was a sharp reduction in sulfur dioxide emissions from coal plants nationwide.

By installing scrubbers, plants significantly cut sulfur dioxide emissions, which cause tree-killing acid rain and smog precursors that can trigger respiratory problems.

“It’s a big change,” said Chris Flavin, president of the World Watch Institute, adding that the changes were made in the wake of government regulations that started in the 1970s.

A 1990 amendment to 1970’s Clean Air Act, for example, included a cap-and-trade program that allowed companies to buy the right to pollute as long as the sector as a whole - in this case coal plants - didn’t go over a certain quota, or cap. This allowed companies that could afford to buy green technologies to do so while those that didn’t had to pay to pollute.

“Sulphur dioxide is definitely another success story,” Mr. Hultman said. “It went from being a prevalent problem to almost nothing.”

And, unlike ozone-depleting substances, which can linger in the atmosphere for many decades, sulfur dioxide disappears - or “dies” - within a few weeks, Mr. Hultman said.

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