Ozone depletion
This decade was when a specific climate crisis related to CFCs and stratospheric ozone depletion emerged as a political concern in the U.S.
What is the 1970s?
The use of this was banned in aerosol spray cans in 1978.
What are non-essential CFCs?
This gas, with the chemical formula CO2, accounts for about 76% of global greenhouse gas emissions and is primarily released through burning fossil fuels.
What is carbon dioxide?
The depletion of stratospheric ozone began as a debate over this.
What is a commercial fleet of supersonic transports?
This 1997 international treaty was the first legally binding agreement to set emission reduction targets for developed countries.
What is the Kyoto Protocol?
This is the part of the stratosphere that shields the earth from harmful ultraviolet radiation, at altitudes from about 12 to 50 km3.
What is the ozone layer?
This is the full name of CFCs.
What are chlorofluorocarbons?
This potent greenhouse gas is released by livestock digestion and rice paddies, and has a warming potential about 25 times greater than CO₂ over a 100-year period.
What is methane?
The number of countries who signed the 1987 Montreal Protocol is this.
What is 24?
This major industrialized nation never ratified the Kyoto Protocol, citing concerns about economic impact and the exclusion of developing countries from binding targets.
What is the United States?
An increase of this on the surface of the earth could have significant negative effects on human health, plants, and aquatic ecosystems.
What is UV-B radiation?
This is the lifetime (in years) of a CFC once in the atmosphere.
What is 100 years?
This Asian country became the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases in 2006, surpassing the United States, though its per-capita emissions remain lower.
What is China?
This fact about the Montreal Protocol makes it a landmark agreement and a model for future international agreements.
It is the first international treaty for mitigating a global atmospheric problem BEFORE serious environmental impacts have been conclusively detected.
The Kyoto Protocol divided countries into these two main categories, with only one group having legally binding emission reduction commitments.
What are Annex I and Non-Annex I countries (or developed and developing countries)?
There are multiple human health risks from an increase of UV-B - this is the most significant.
What is skin cancer?
This theory by Molina and Rowland explains how CFCs diffuse upward into the stratosphere, where UV radiation breaks them down and releases chlorine atoms that catalytically destroy ozone molecules.
What is the ozone depletion theory (or CFC-ozone depletion theory)?
This term describes the total amount of greenhouse gases produced directly and indirectly by an individual, organization, or product, usually measured in CO₂ equivalents.
What is a carbon footprint?
This 1985 conference legitimized stratospheric ozone depletion as an international political issue and provided the framework under which the Montreal Protocol would be negotiated.
What is the Vienna Convention?
This market-based mechanism established by the Kyoto Protocol allows countries to trade emission reduction credits with each other.
What is emissions trading (or carbon trading/cap-and-trade)?
This is the continent over which British scientists first noticed a hole in the ozone layer in the spring of 1985.
What is Antarctica?
This is the name of the shared set of characteristics that help explain how the public perceives risks from certain technologies and hazards.
What is dread factor?
This sector is the single largest contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for approximately 25% of the total, primarily through burning coal, oil, and natural gas.
What is electricity and heat production (or the energy sector)?
The Montreal Protocol was ratified in May 1989 by this number of countries.
What is 36?
The Kyoto Protocol's first commitment period ran from 2008 to this year, requiring developed countries to reduce emissions by an average of 5.2% below 1990 levels.
What is 2012?