Ozone Depletion Reversing - Global Warming Needs Similar Attention

The UN has announced that the depletion of ozone in the protective ozone layer in the stratosphere has stopped. This is huge news. It is huge because it shows that we have the capacity to identify a global environmental problem and take effective action to solve it. The Montreal Protocol is a success.

We should be trumpeting this success at every turn because it shows we can use the same international cooperation to confront the bigger threat of Global Warming. Success breeds succcess. Every available avenue should be pursued in the reduction of greenhouse gas emmissions and the scrubbing of CO2 from the atmosphere. This needs to begin in earnest now, because the problem of global warming is more complex than that of ozone depletion.

The debate today seems to be one between the proponents of market-driven technological solutions to the problem versus one of International Accords. I say get busy on both, and do it fast. There is a tipping point approaching where significant climatological change will occur at a more rapid rate. We need to avoid that point if we are to preserve our costal human habitats.

One of the main issues confronting us is that our political institutions are out of sync with the problems we face. So much of politics has historically been about space. The protection and control of space and the activities that happen inside borders. Space now matters less. The things that now matter more are time and scale. Our political institutions don’t match the problems. We need reform.