Uniting to help the environment

What with all the bad news these days---from the Middle East (ISIS) to the NFL (domestic violence) ---it’s nice to hear some good news. This one comes from Mother Nature herself in cooperation with some people intent on helping her.

It seems the ozone layer is getting better.

A team of 300 scientists working for the United Nations has concluded that the ozone layer is showing the most significant recovery since 1989. The ozone layer has been thinning since the late 1970s. That’s because human-made chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) used in refrigerants and aerosol cans released chlorine and bromine into the atmosphere, destroying ozone molecules 30-50 miles high in the air. When scientists warned the public of the danger, countries around the world agreed in 1987 to phase out CFCs.  It took time but voila, it actually worked--- at least partially. The ozone layer isn't completely healed, by any means. Scientists calculate that it’s still 6% thinner that it was in 1980, and a yearly fall ozone hole appears above the extreme Southern Hemisphere.

But this is a sign of hope. It’s not just that we have a healthier ozone layer that can better shield us from skin cancer and crop damage. This news underscores the fact that people working together can halt an environmental crisis.

Professor and chemist Mario Molina, who along with F. Sherwood Rowland won the 1995 Nobel Prize in chemistry for their study on the diminishing ozone crisis, said the news about the improvement in the ozone level is “a victory for diplomacy and for science and for the fact that we were able to work together.”

That should certainly invigorate those heading to the upcoming United Nations Climate Summit next week. Such a meeting is urgent: The U.N. reported recently that atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases surged to another record high in 2013, the increase from  2012 being the biggest one in 30 years.

The U.N. Climate Summit plans to bring in over 100 heads of state, along with CEOs and other leaders from around the world. The U.N. Secretary General is optimistic that the Summit will jump start U.N. climate treaty talks.

The Summit will be preceded on September 21 by what is being called the People’s Climate March. Thousands of demonstrators from more than a  1,000 organizations  representing millions of people will march in New York City, demanding that world leaders  take action to address human-driven climate change. They are hoping the march will do for the environmental movement what the 1963 March on Washington did for the Civil Rights Movement. The demonstrators won’t have a list of demands but simply want world leaders to realize the absolute necessity of taking action against global warming.

The People’s March is a result of grassroots activism. World leaders and big corporations still don’t seem to get that people really do care about the environment in general and global warming in particular. They are wearied with dilly dallying world leaders and governments.

Working together, people can make a difference.

Indeed, they already have.

A few months ago local communities in New York won their appeal over the billion dollar fracking industry. Fracking is a technique used to extract gas from deep within the earth. Some believe fracking has resulted in damage to the environment including poisoned drinking water, polluted air, mysterious animal deaths, and earthquakes.

Dryden, New York’s Town Supervisor Mary Ann Sumner said, “The oil and gas industry tried to bully us into backing down, but we took our fight all the way to New York’s highest court. And we…won.”  Sumner hopes the court’s action will inspire people in other states who are “trying to do what’s right for their own communities.”

Indeed, communities in Colorado, Ohio, Texas, Pennsylvania, and California are taking action to guard against the environmental and public health threats of a deregulated fracking industry.

And in my little part of the world, a group of Catholic nuns, the Sisters of Loretto in Marion County, Kentucky, led the charge several months ago, galvanizing opposition that defeated a proposed pipeline carrying potentially hazardous materials through Kentucky.

Neither the nations that banned CFCs, nor the communities in New York that opposed fracking, nor the Sisters of Loretto were certain their efforts would bear fruit.

But they did it anyway because they believed it was the right thing to do.

Let’s hope the actions of the people gathering for the People’s Climate March and those convening at the U.N. Climate Summit will bear fruit as well.

If nations lose this opportunity to unite against global warming, our earth may, in the not so distant future, have little fruit to bear.