Greenhouse gases
Greenhouse gases have become flatulently front and centre on the list of perils with which humanity must deal or suffer dire consequences.
Twenty years ago we were told we could reduce greenhouse gases many fold if only we would operate cars with catalytic converters. So we switched to catalytic converters and our men of science now tell us the situation is so much worse it was necessary to spend millions on an international conference in Kyoto, Japan, to promise reductions in emissions.
Fifty years ago if you sniffed the air in any Canadian city on a cold winter day you smelled coal burning. Coal, we are told, contributes to greenhouse gases. Now the majority of homes and industries use natural gas, which is supposed to be relatively clean.
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Our oil refineries on the Prairies were given an ultimatum some years ago to install scrubbers. At great expense, they installed them.
A few decades ago the cry was to get rid of spray cans containing fluorocarbons. Most of these disappeared from the market. Now the freon in refrigerators is being targeted.
Then there were suggestions the belching cows might be blowing a hole in the upper atmosphere. This seems a bit far-fetched since bison in approximately the same numbers occupied the same land space for hundreds of years before we messy agrarians arrived.
I think it is clear we’re completely befuddled by the whole process governing the ozone layer.
We don’t even know if we get rid of coal, cars, industry, fluorocarbons, freon and cows it would make one iota of difference to the hole in the ozone layer.
That’s as reassuring as we can be today.
But we’re working on it.
