OZONE HOLE BETTER AND CLIMATE CHANGE PROVED

The Montreal Protocol of 1987, is it seems having the desired effect. The Antarctic ozone hole seems to have stopped growing, and 'may' return to normal by about 2060. If so, that is good news. The bad news, of course, is that if we had started trenchant international action in the 1970s or 80s aimed at the far bigger problem of global overheating we could now be overcoming the problem. We didn't. Now it is too late. We attacked the easy problem, we failed to attack the big hard one. Which may mean that the easy one will be negatively affected, because global overheating also affects the ozone layer, due to the fact that as the troposphere warms the stratosphere cools and that makes the CFCs more efficient at zapping ozone. So the Fat Lady of GOH (global overheating) has yet to sing the final ozone aria. It remains to be seen whether it is a song of triumph or doom or an unwelcome mixture.

A huge study across Europe, involving scientists from 17 nations and 125,000 studies over 561 species has proved conclusively that the climate is changing, reports the BBC. Spring is coming earlier (six to eight days than it was thirty years ago--and up to two weeks in Spain). Autumn is coming later. The bad news is species that depend on each other can be pushed out of sync, threatening the survival of some.