Want to delay global warming? Protect the ozone layer
Remember CFCs? They were the apparently harmless chemicals once used in aerosol cans, hamburger trays, fridges and a host of other everyday objects that once threatened to damage life on earth. For, after doing their job cooling food, puffing up foam and providing spray-on sex appeal, they drifted up into the stratosphere to attack the planet's vital ozone layer.
The cholorofluorocarbons, to give them their full name, are long gone from our lives. They have been banned from industrialised countries by international treaty since the mid- 1990s, and developing countries have followed suit. But because they are particularly long-lived substances, they have stuck around at dangerous levels in the atmosphere, continuing to do their worst.
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