In his post below, Eric Posner asks why ozone depletion and the phaseout of CFCs and other ozone-depleting substances did not produce the same degree of backlash as does global warming.
Where were the Climate Skeptics back then? Or was ozonegate, like asteroidgate, a non-event because the climate is a “complex system” whereas, um…. Why didn’t “hierarchical and individualist” citizens find the Montreal Protocol “threatening to their identities”? (Cf. Dave Hoffman on asteroidgate.) Were scientists more honest in those days? Commentators more sober? The public more credulous?
I would challenge some of Eric’s assumptions. There were climate skeptics back then (indeed, some of the ozone skeptics back then are climate skeptics now) and “hierarchical and individualist” citizens (as represented by right-of-center authors, commentators, and think tanks) challenged the scientific claims. Accepting his implicit assumption that the scientific case for a link between CFCs and ozone depletion at the time was no greater than for apocalyptic climate change today, there was still much less at stake, so the scientific debate had less salience, and there was less political controversy. I’ll briefly expand on each point.
First, there was significant skepticism about initial ozone depletion claims, skepticism that was echoed and amplified by those who opposed government regulation. Questions about ozone depletion were raised in Dixy Lee Ray’s best-selling Trashing the Planet and echoed by Rush Limbaugh. In 1989, National Review published the article “My Adventures in the Ozone Layer” by Dr. Fred Singer, a prominent skeptic of both ozone depletion concerns and climate change. Early on, such skepticism was warranted, but as scientific evidence accumulated, many of those inclined toward skepticism accepted the basic claim that CFCs could and did cause ozone depletion. Ronald Bailey’s 1993 Eco-Scam, for instance, accepted the basic scientific claims and acknowledged that ozone depletion could have been a significant concern. Still, even today there are pockets of skepticism related to ozone depletion, particularly about the contribution of certain chemicals, such as methyl bromide.
Second, policies to control ozone depletion are not nearly as far-reaching or intrusive as policies to limit the emission of greenhouse gases. CFCs and other ozone-depleting substances were always specialized chemicals. They were in widespread use as coolants, but they still don’t compare to carbon dioxide, the most ubiquitous by-product of modern industrial civilization. Buying new refrigerators and retrofitting car air-conditioners may be expensive or inconvenient, but it hardly compares to the sorts of measures contemplated to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. So it’s not surprising that there was less outrage or resistance to the scientific claims. [This also highlights an important difference between climate change and Eric's asteroid example: the anti-asteroid rockets would presumably be financed by general tax revenues and provided as a public good, whereas climate policies will impose disproportionate costs and controls on specific sectors of the economy.]
Third, there’s an important wrinkle in the history of U.S. policy on ozone depletion that Eric omits. Initially, the U.S. government was adamantly opposed to controlling CFCs, beyond the initial 1978 ban on their use in aerosol cans. In the 1980s, however, the U.S. government did not support a CFC phase-out until industry was on board. And industry was not on board until the leading CFC manufacturer, DuPont, faced significant competition for its patented CFC compounds and and was well-positioned to dominate the replacement market. When DuPont joined the call for a complete phaseout in 1988, the CFC trade industry still voiced some skepticism about the science, but DuPont was ready to sell more expensive CFC substitutes — compounds for which there would have been no real market without the phaseout. [For those interested, I summarized this history near the end of my 1996 article, Rent-Seeking Behind the Green Curtain.]
In retrospect, the CFC phaseout was a good idea, but even assuming that the level of scientific certainty was no greater when the CFC phaseout was adopted than there is with climate change today, there are many important differences between the two policy debates. First,there was less reason for skepticism to blossom into sustained political opposition because there was less at stake — the phaseout’s costs were concentrated on a few industries, not spread economy wide, and a CFC phaseout did not threaten regulatory controls on ordinary Americans. Second, the potential economic benefits to dominant industry players meant powerful economic interests supported the phaseout, interests that far outweighed those sectors likely to experience significant costs (and, in these sectors as well, groups rapidly emerged to capture the rents a phaseout could produce). So there were powerful “bootleggers” to support the environmental “baptists.” Third, the most significant effects of a phaseout were likely to be felt overseas, in those nations in which a CFC phaseout would diminish the availability of affordable refrigeration technologies, and those nations could be easily bought off. I also think the nature of the CFC threat — a potential increased risk of skin cancer — generates more political traction than a change in temperature.
Another important difference between ozone depletion and climate change, is that there was reason to believe that a near-total phaseout of CFCs was the only meaningful way to address the threat of ozone depletion, whereas there may be ways to address climate change concerns that don’t involve empowering a massive regulatory bureaucracy. While most climate policy proponents advocate far-reaching regulatory programs, covering everything from industrial emissions and transportation to product design and land-use, there are alternative ways of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, atmospheric concentrations, or the threat of enhanced greenhouse warming (if not all three), ranging from revenue-neutral carbon taxes to technological fixes, to various forms of geoengineering. Because there is a disproportionate emphasis on regulatory controls, some opponents of clmate policies suspect some climate policy advocates are as interested in imposing such controls as they are in saving the planet — as then-Senator Tim Wirth said some 20 years ago, global warming was an excuse to “do the right thing” even if the problem wasn’t real.
To reiterate my own views, I believe that human activity contributes to global warming, and that it is a serious concern (even if I don’t accept claims that global warming threatens human civilization). ClimateGate is a real scientific scandal that may justify increased caution about some of the more definitive or apocalyptic statements about climate science, but I do not see it compromising the essential case for a human contribution to climate change. My policy preference is for measures that do the most to address the actual threats posed by warming while minimizing consequent restrictions on liberty or the imposition of costs on those who have not contributed signficantly to the problem. I think massive regulatory programs are ill-adivsed, and that proposed cap-and-trade programs will provide massive opportunities for rent-seeking while doing little to reduce actual emissions or enhance our capacity to deal with the problem. On the other hand, I would welcome a revenue-neutral carbon tax, combined with other policies to enhance technological innovation, and believe that industrialized nations should help more vulnerable nations adapt to the inevitable, and at this point unavoidable, near to medium term effects of projected warming. I’ve also argued (in this article) that principled adherence to libertarian principles justifies greater action on climate change.
Sara says:
From your history, the lesson seems to be that until we can pay off oil producers and suppliers, we get no where. Interestingly, the Saudi’s demanded such a payoff in 2000.
December 7, 2009, 9:26 amSara says:
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/16/world/opec-states-want-to-be-paid-if-pollution-curbs-cut-oil-sales.html
December 7, 2009, 9:27 amMark Buehner says:
To put it succinctly- the cost/potential benefit of getting away from CFCs was insignificant compared to the unprecedented economic and personal sacrifices we are being told to make due to catastrophic global warming.
Moreover- the risk we are being sold on climate change is said to be a risk to the very survival of the human race (if not life on earth depending who you listen to). Meanwhile the people telling us this aren’t acting as if it were true- ie, opposing nuclear power. There is a large disconnect between their story and their behavior that rightly raises red flags.
December 7, 2009, 9:35 amPatrick216 says:
Paleoclimatology, I am led to believe, is absolutely critical to the case for AGW being a serious cause for concern. It’s the paleoclimatological research that allows global warming folks to attribute the increase in global temperature from 1900 to 2000 to man, rather than to normal long-term fluctuations in temperature (whether caused by sunspots or some other cause).
Like it or not, ClimateGate has called the basic validity of almost the entire body of paleoclimatology into dispute. CRU data was the cornerstone for much of the enormously complex modeling that allowed the field to claim global warming was man-made. Now we find out the CRU’s modeling software was simply awful, and that the CRU has destroyed large amounts of raw data. Some of that data also appears to have been destroyed with the intent of defeating a FOIA request). As a lawyer, you’re surely aware of the doctrine of spoliation of evidence–if you destroy evidence during a case (or just before the case is filed), the other side is entitled to (at the least) an adverse inference instruction that says whatever you destroyed damaged your case. The same inference should apply here.
The prudent course of action at this point is to immediately halt all legislative and other responses to global warming pending a top-level review of the entire field of science. We need to know how big this global warming conspiracy is, how much data is falsified, and how many of the models are reliable. Until someone independent goes in and gives the “all clear,” I’m incredibly disinclined to believe ANYTHING about global warming, and you should be too!
December 7, 2009, 9:37 amTodd says:
I’m curious, what are the ‘actual threats posed by warming’? It seems to me warming is not necessarily a bad thing, whether humans contribute or not. What are the potential benefits posed by warming?
December 7, 2009, 9:40 amEric Rasmusen says:
Good post— and a good question posed by Prof. Posner, too. Half of your reply is that DuPont’s profits went way up as a result of the regulation, so, I suppose, the US benefited financially from it (or did we have to pay off the Chinese, etc. who would otherwise have eroded DuPont’s market share?). The other is this:
Even hypochondriacs do get sick sometimes.
December 7, 2009, 10:11 amwlpeak says:
Jonathan,
December 7, 2009, 10:24 amI’m curious as to why you chose to use the phrase ‘climate change’ as opposed to ‘climate warming’ or ‘global warming’?
gasman says:
Rebranding.
December 7, 2009, 10:54 amSimply put, global warming can say ‘see there’ for half or so of all weather related events. Call it climate change and the advocates can claim any weather effect as supporting their cause.
Patrick216 says:
gasman –
This website catalogues every strange phenomenon that’s ever been attributed to global warming. About half the items are off-the-wall, e.g., an explosion of vampire moths in Norway. But it is absolutely amazing to see how many of the effects are diametrically opposed — “amphibians breeding earlier (or not),” “Antartic ice grows / Antartic ice shrinks,” “beer better, beer worse,” “trees more colorful / trees less colorful.” I realize it’s very tongue-in-cheek, but it does illustrate your point about the “rebranding” of AGW.
December 7, 2009, 11:05 amJoeSixpack says:
Build the chimney!
http://www.superchimney.org/
December 7, 2009, 11:06 amJust Me says:
Just as heliocentrism, evolution, smoking causes cancer, Les Robert’s studies of excess deaths due to the Iraq war, etc., met so much resistance because they challenged a long-standing, powerful status quo, so does the science behind climate change. As Prof. Adler points out, this wasn’t true of the CFC-ozone link. This is so obvious that I confess I haven’t understood Prof. Posner’s point.
December 7, 2009, 11:27 amGordo says:
I dimly remember listening to an NPR story from the 1990′s about a group of ozone-depletion skeptics developing their arguments and holding rallies.
Who were they?
A bunch of old folks in Arizona who didn’t want to convert their automotive air conditioners.
Many of them are probably dead by now. Some probably from skin cancer, although I’m sure factors other than ozone depletion would have had something to do with that outcome …
December 7, 2009, 11:36 amGordo says:
believe that industrialized nations should help more vulnerable nations adapt to the inevitable, and at this point unavoidable, near to medium term effects of projected warming
Are you ready to let millions of Bangladeshis emigrate to Northern Canada?
December 7, 2009, 11:37 amMark Buehner says:
I’m willing to spend 1/10000th of what we are being asked to waste in carbon control to build these industrial wonders called ‘dikes’ to avoid the biblical flood of 3 feet scheduled over the next hundred years.
December 7, 2009, 11:41 amHarryEagar says:
Where does Posner get his idea that there were not ozone deniers? I can lead him to plenty right now. I haven’t done a statistical analysis, but I bet if you herded a bunch into a room, you’d get a high correlation between warming deniers, ozone deniers and people who think the CEI has anything useful to say.
But the reason the CFC ban went forward was that the theory was sound, as revealed by observation. There really are not any credible doubters of Rowland’s work. You cannot say that about GHG theory.
December 7, 2009, 1:02 pmPatrick216 says:
Just Me,
It’s actually curious you mention evolution as an example of science challenging long-held “status quo” beliefs. I actually think evolution is a good example of what might be going on with climate change.
Evolutionary biologists have long felt frustrated by creationists, who they regard as a half a step above barbarians. They’ve been very interested in finding the “missing link” between man and ape to put the final nail in creationism’s coffin. [Disclaimer--I accept most of evolutionary theory.] Several times, paleontologists have come forward with various purported “missing links,” such as the Piltdown Man or Lucy. Each time, the story behind the “discovery” borders on the outlandish–a single, fully intact skeleton is found in the middle of nowhere by a relatively unknown scientist–yet is unquestioningly heralded on the news and in scientific journals. Later, it is revealed to be a hoax.
It’s an example of the confirmatory bias. These scientists so desperately want to stick a needle in the eye of those neanderthal Christians that they’ll latch onto anything that supports that conclusion.
I believe the same is true with respect to climate change. Scientists conceptually believe in climate change and will latch onto any evidence they can to support that it’s real and that we need to do something about it. So, when the snake oil salesmen come by with prepackaged studies of climatic woe that rely on data and models you aren’t allowed to see, everyone latches on without asking many questions.
December 7, 2009, 1:10 pmSoronel Haetir says:
One other thing, the ozone-cfc link did not require nearly as many interactions. The apocalypse warming scenario requires an extremely strong and yet unproven water vapor feedback. There is enough unsettled science regarding that feedback that the range includes everything from cooling to runaway warming.
December 7, 2009, 1:22 pmTweets that mention The Volokh Conspiracy » Blog Archive » OzoneGate and ClimateGate -- Topsy.com says:
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Political Scandals, Eugene Volokh. Eugene Volokh said: OzoneGate and ClimateGate: In his post below, Eric Posner asks why ozone depletion and the phaseout of CFCs and.. http://bit.ly/8TikU8 [...]
December 7, 2009, 1:33 pmAbdul Abulbul Amir says:
Part of the problem of paleoclimatology is the need to create a numerical year by year record of climate long past. Therefore it will based on proxies that can be measured year by year, like tree rings and ice cores. However, evidence for a warmer MWP such as farming in Greenland, vineyards in England, Viking graves in what is now permafrost, tree lines 100 or 200 km farther north, or tree lines hundreds of meters higher on the mountains are all ignored because there is no good way to quantify such evidence.
This is a variation on the syndrome of if your only tool is a hammer every problem looks like a nail.
December 7, 2009, 1:49 pmfwb says:
The phase out of CFCs was pushed by a large chemical company that no longer held the patent on the main chemical. You can still purchase that particular chemical in many foreign countries, ie. Mexico. So if the issue was with the chemical, one would believe that it would be eliminated from use every where. All that happened was that we in the industrialized nations have to spend more to maintain our lifestyle.
The ozone hole is/was a natural phenomenon caused by the physics of the planet. Ozone cannot form without UV light. Yes, it takes UV to turn oxygen molecules into oxygen radicals which then react with other oxygen molecules to form ozone molecules. During winters, the poles do not receive sufficient light to maintain ozone levels. The light received at the poles is filtered (photons of sufficient energy are “used up”) by the atmosphere that the light must pass through before reaching the polar area. Thus ozone production drops off and the “hole” forms. The orbit of the planet and the tilt add up to cause the issue.
The ozone issue was received by scientists the same way AGW has been received so the “discoverer” took it to Hollywood and got them involved. Then those folks, who really know science, got Congress involved.
In order for the claimed process to have occurred, the freon molecule would have to be carried aloft ABOVE the ozone layer. This is needed so that photons of sufficient energy might possibly collide with the freon molecule and cause the formation of chloride free radicals. One problem is that the mass of the particles is such that they are drawn by gravity toward the surface of the Earth and are highly unlikely to ever be carried into the stratosphere.
The ozone hole was BS just as GW is BS.
Any of you calculate how much CO2 belches out of the oceans if the top 100 ft have a 0.1 degree temperature rise? It’s more than the CO2 currently in the entire atmosphere.
December 7, 2009, 2:27 pmHunter McDaniel says:
Perhaps there are some other differences, like:
December 7, 2009, 2:28 pma) people who asked questions about the “ozone hole” were not immediately subjected to ad hominem attacks
b) the scientists who discovered the “ozone hole” were willing to share their data and methods
c) the science behind the “ozone hole” did not depend on speculative reconstructions and unverifiable computer models.
Abdul says:
I think adler’s second point is the strongest. While there was some debate, even acrimonious debate, there was less at stake in the ozone game then there is in the AGW game.
Meaningful change in AGW is supposed to cost at least one to two percent of GDP per year for the next 50 years. If you want us to spend that much, you’d better have a very good reason.
December 7, 2009, 2:50 pmJohn Moore says:
If only life were so simple. I too was initially skeptical of the ozone hole, and some of the claims about it were definitely bogus alarmism. However, the effect seems to have been confirmed by measurement, and the presence of CFC’s in the ozone layer is confirmed by measurement. Diffusion (and convection, in the troposphere) fights gravity, or the earth’s atmosphere would be all oxygen at the bottom, with all the nitrogen above it.
December 7, 2009, 3:07 pmCareless says:
Actually, the NYT ran a story just 6 weeks ago on a new call for the same thing http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/14/business/energy-environment/14oil.html?_r=1&hpw
“Saudi Arabia is trying to enlist other oil-producing countries to support a provocative idea: if wealthy countries reduce their oil consumption to combat global warming, they should pay compensation to oil producers.”
December 7, 2009, 3:18 pmMark Horning says:
Of course in retrospect we know know that CFCs have no measurable effect on ozone depletion. Like so much on this planet it is solar driven. The science was bad at the time, and still is today.
The so called “chemistry” said that CFCs could be broken down into free chlorine radicals that acted as a catalyst for o3 reduction, nevertheless, when massive ammounts of free chloring were deposited directly into the troposphere from volcanic action, there was no corresponding 03 reduction.
The major difference, as has been pointed out, was that Dupont was ready and willing to use the force of government to transform the market to provide a ready made market for their new product
December 7, 2009, 3:21 pmCareless says:
Great, now we have the person who mentions Piltdown Man thinking that Lucy was a hoax.
December 7, 2009, 3:26 pmcirby says:
John Moore:
Except for a couple of other problems…
It turns out that the initial theoies behind CFC/Ozone interactions were a bit on the wrong side, and subsequent attempts by other scientists to experimentally replicate the CFC-catalyzed ozone breakdown haven’t quite worked.
The other big issue is that the theory didn’t have a good prediction record. We were told, repeatedly and loudly, that if everyone on the planet didn’t stop making those horrible old ozone-destroying CFCs, that the ozone hole would NEVER recover, and that even if we did manage to stop making them, it would take at LEAST until 2050 to see the decline stopping, and the trend wouldn’t start to reverse until 2100 (sound familiar, AGW fans?).
As it is, even with a LOT of bootleg CFC production going on, we’ve seen the “depletion” basically stop by 2000. If the theory was correct, this could not have happened (there was supposed to be enough CFCs in the atmosphere already to keep the decline going for at least another half-century). Oddly enough, the alt-theories (about insolation/sunspots) seemed to have predicted this, too (as well as the global temperature changes since 1900 or so).
December 7, 2009, 3:42 pmHarryEagar says:
Well, at least this thread tends to disabuse Posner of the idea that there weren’t any anti-CFC theory deniers around. Seems they are still here.
Like John Moore, I was initially skeptical. I consulted my physics adviser, suggesting the Rowland should get the Nobel for finding a chemical reaction that accelerates when you remove energy.
He laughed. Indeed, it looks that way, he said, but the balance is so delicate that the increase in density of the atmosphere in the cold is just enough to bring the molecules close enough for the catalysis to proceed.
And that’s why the hole is bigger over the south pole. It’s colder there. And that’s why fwb’s explanation is wrong.
December 7, 2009, 4:04 pmbob says:
Given this, do you think it is a bit odd that you have made dozens and dozens of posts tweaking the specifics of global warming (and more recently “climategate”)?
I mean, if it is real and a serious concern, do you think your many, many posts quibbling about minor details help lead to a solution?
December 7, 2009, 4:14 pmAmiable Dorsai says:
Do you have a citation for this? So far as I know, volcanos do not emit free chlorine. HCl and other water-soluble chlorides, yes, but free chlorine is pretty rare in nature. If I’m wrong, I’d love to know the mechanism generating the chlorine.
December 7, 2009, 4:42 pmBen P says:
It’s wikipedia, but it has a halfway decent summary of the chemistry
Edit: that is the basic chemistry of CFCL3 being broken down into free chlorine, not the volcano theory. A quick google turned up this answer to the volcano claim
December 7, 2009, 6:02 pmAmiable Dorsai says:
Thanks, Ben P.
December 7, 2009, 6:13 pmNobody at All says:
Mark Horning wins the Climate Gate.
December 7, 2009, 8:07 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Interesting volcano link.
Mount Tambora, erupting in 1815, caused the Year Without a Summer.
December 7, 2009, 8:32 pmEli Rabett says:
A pretty good summary, with one hole. The patents on the CFCs had long run out by 1980 and all that was left were some process patents but all of the large chemical companies had their own processes. What appears to have made a large difference is that there were still chemists high up in the management of DuPont, Imperial Chemical, etc. and they understood that the mechanisms were correct and their research departments told them that there were substitutes coming down the line.
There are some of the usual misunderstandings here
1. Below 100 km or so the atmosphere is well mixed by winds and the composition, even including very heavy molecules is uniform. Water vapor is the exception because it condenses (rain) and the mixing ratio changes as the temperature decreases at higher altitudes.
2. Volcanic emissions of chlorine containing molecules are almost 100% HCl (there may be a little methyl chloride). HCl is very soluble in water and rains out, never reaching the ozone layer in the stratosphere.
3. While ozone is formed by photolysis of oxygen molecules (shorter than 200 nm) high up in the stratosphere (in the same region where the CFCs are photodissociated), ozone is also destroyed by absorption of UV light at longer wavelengths (200-300 nm). The net is that ozone persists quite happily through the polar winter.
4. The international group formed to study the science was the model for the IPCC and the available data, if anything, is more available for climate change given that we now have public access to the internet.
5. A good resource is Robert Parson’s Ozone FAQ which is easily found by google. A more technical one is the Stratospheric Ozone Textbook http://www.ccpo.odu.edu/SEES/ozone/ozone.htm
December 8, 2009, 12:24 amEli Rabett says:
Oh yeah, your friend Lindgren is out there trashing people and displaying his ignorance. You might ask him to either tone it down or open comments.
December 8, 2009, 12:42 amUlrike Meinhof, for example, or Franz Marc, or Nietzsche says:
This phrase sticks out, “the most ubiquitous by-product of modern industrial civilization,” meaning carbon dioxide. And true it is, too. Even more ubiquitous than wealth and peace and middle class mores.
An interesting thing. The hatred of wealth and peace and middle class mores, a hatred never more widespread than in Germany before and after the Great War, but widespread among middle class moralists everywhere, for evermore, can’t quite surpass this. The hatred of carbon stands in for these things, but surpasses them still. What’s even more evil than a big box store is? Even worse than the lax, lazy, flabby, peaceful, city man? The air he breathes out is destroying the world!
The hatred the middle classes feel for themselves extends even to the carbon breathed out by the nose. Your modern, wealthy, cosmopolitan clerk makes a hero of the foreign, exotic, noble terrorist man, a hell of the city he works and lives and shops for things in, and everlasting redemption of his climate change plan. He sees his salvation in civilization’s end. Fingers crossed for apocalypse. By smashing capitalism, he’ll have redeemed his alienated and homesick, homeless, Romantische soul.
How ubiquitous? You’re 19% carbon, whether you like it or not. You’re 1/5 pollution. You’re toxic inside.
As Jonathan said, “CFCs and other ozone-depleting substances were always specialized chemicals.” But carbon’s inside you. It’s the enemy within.
December 9, 2009, 1:32 amDavid Schwartz says:
This is literally true but essentially meaningless. It matters not how much data and evidence is available when the data that is driving the policy is not available to you. And as we have seen, this is a moving target. Each time the data is made available, it is refuted — and just as fast new data, not available of course, comes up to take its place.
December 9, 2009, 7:36 am