Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
turn destroyed ozone molecules to the tune of 10,000 per chlorine atom.
19
These authors drew attention to the threat to life on the planet from the
destruction of the protective ozone layer (Rowland 1995, 1997).
At first, and for more than a decade, the response from the chemical
industry was belligerent and obscurantist. They tried to impugn the
credibility of those scientists. There seems to be a deplorable pattern in
the attempts from the chemical industry to smother criticism with per-
sonal attacks and the setting of artificial controversies, with its salaried
scientists toeing the party line. Similarly disgraceful treatments were
meted out to F. Sherwood Rowland as had been to Rachel Carson many
years before.
20
James Farman's report of the ozone hole over Antarctica in 1981 was
the turning point. The major producers of CFCs (companies such as Dow
and DuPont de Nemours), a $9 billion business with annual growth rates
of 10% (Thomas 2000) then espoused the worldwide concern. That
would finally result in the Montreal Protocol in 1987, banning CFCs,
stopping their production, and promoting substitution by HCFCs.
In 1976, the Seveso accident appeared on the front pages of newspa-
pers worldwide: 2 kg of 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzoparadioxin had been
dispersed by a Givaudan plant in the neighborhood. This industrial spill,
which did not cause any human casualties (cattle grazing on nearby
meadows were killed in large numbers as a safety precaution) nor had
any long-term effects on human health, nevertheless raised the level of
consciousness about dioxins and their release by papermaking mills and
municipal waste incinerators, among other sources. As a consequence,
careful controls were instituted in industrial countries, leading within a
couple of decades to at least halving the amount of dioxins discharged in
the environment in France, for instance.
The chemical community was the butt of unrelenting criticism from
the public and the media,
21
who regarded it the chief culprit of environ-
19
The devising of highly sensitive detection of CFCs by Lovelock was an important
part of the story (Dronsfield & Morris 2002).
20
To be fair, the position from industry was sometimes stated in a temperate manner
(Anon. 1962).
21
Such hostility to chemistry from the public can be dated back to the publication of
Rachel Carson's masterpiece,
Silent Spring
, in 1964. This topic drew the public atten-
tion to the inconsiderate use of pesticides such as DDT by farmers, with dramatic ef-
