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Why Nobody Talks About the Ozone Hole Anymore — Transcript

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0:00In the late 1980s, there was only one
0:02thing everyone was talking about. It
0:04wasn't Madonna's latest single, leg
0:06warmers, shoulder pads, or even big
0:09hair. It was ozone.
0:12Or more precisely, a vast, hulking great
0:15hole that had opened up in our planet's
0:18life support system, the ozone layer.
0:20>> [music]
0:21>> And the culprit, supervillain gases
0:23known as chlorofluorocarbons,
0:26or CFCs, found in everything from
0:28fridges to deodorants, and they were
0:30destroying the precious ozone in [music]
0:32the stratosphere. By the late '80s, the
0:35hole was reaching sizes of around 22
0:37million square kilometers. By 2040, the
0:40hole would have gone global. By 2050,
0:44the ozone layer could have collapsed
0:45entirely. Harmful UV radiation would
0:49come flooding through, causing huge
0:51increases in skin cancer, cataracts, and
0:54compromised immune systems. Plants and
0:56crops would be failing. The word
0:58"uninhabitable" was being used by
1:00leading [music] scientists.
1:03Before climate change, this was the
1:04greatest environmental apocalypse of our
1:07age. And yet,
1:09we don't seem to talk about it anymore.
1:11Is it because we actually fixed it?
1:17I'm James Shaw, and you're watching
1:18Astro Earth. Join me in this video as we
1:21discover the truth about the hole in the
1:23ozone layer. We'll get to the bottom of
1:25what it is, why it's there, and how
1:27humanity managed to fix it. And I'll
1:29explain why we might not be out of the
1:31woods just yet. For those of you that
1:34might be late to this ozone party, and
1:37even for those of you that aren't, it's
1:38worth going back to the basics to start
1:40things off. What actually is the ozone
1:43layer? Well, Earth's atmosphere is like
1:45a jacket, or several jackets for our
1:47planet. There are five main layers. The
1:50bit we're most familiar with is the
1:51troposphere. This is where we live. The
1:54troposphere starts on Earth's surface
1:56and extends up to around 20 km. Now,
1:59this actually varies depending on where
2:00you're standing. And no, I don't mean
2:02like on a mountain. It's around 18 to 20
2:05km at the equator, but only 6 km at the
2:08poles. The troposphere is a hard-working
2:11layer. It provides the air we breathe,
2:14contains 99% of the atmosphere's water,
2:16and is where you'll find pretty much all
2:18of our weather. As you climb, the air
2:20gets thinner and colder.
2:23Next up is the stratosphere, which
2:24extends from around 6 to 50 km above the
2:27Earth's surface. The only clouds that
2:30usually venture this high are
2:31cumulonimbus thunderclouds, whose tops
2:34just scrape the lowest part of the
2:36stratosphere, which is why they've got
2:38their distinctive anvil-shaped caps.
2:40They're sort of squashed against the
2:42ceiling of the atmospheric boundary.
2:44Commercial passenger jets fly in the
2:46lower stratosphere, trying to stay above
2:48the weather for a smoother ride. In the
2:51troposphere, temperatures fall as you
2:54climb, but in the stratosphere, they
2:55actually increase with altitude. And
2:58there's a reason for this, and it's
3:00actually the reason you're watching this
3:01video. This is where the ozone layer is.
3:07Beyond that is the mesosphere, the
3:09thermosphere, and the exosphere. And
3:11past that, well, that's space. And we've
3:14actually got a whole other channel for
3:16space. So, if that's your thing, why not
3:18check it out after this video?
3:20Anyway, back to ozone. Every layer of
3:22the atmosphere has a specific job to do.
3:24And the ozone layer is possibly the most
3:27important of them all.
3:29But to understand why that is, we need
3:30to understand a bit more about what this
3:32vital layer is actually made of.
3:35We're all familiar with oxygen, O2. It's
3:37what we're all breathing in right now.
3:39Well, ozone is O3. That's three oxygen
3:42atoms combined to form a pale blue gas.
3:46You know that sort of sharp, fresh smell
3:47you often get just after a thunderstorm?
3:49Well, that, that is ozone.
3:52Ozone can be both a hero and a villain,
3:54and whether it's good or bad depends on
3:57where it is.
3:59Bad ozone is tropospheric or ground
4:02level. It's a harmful air pollutant and
4:04often the main ingredient in smog. But
4:07good ozone is stratospheric. It hangs
4:09out around 15 to 35 km above the Earth's
4:11surface and basically acts like a
4:13sunscreen for the planet. This is the
4:16ozone layer we've all heard of and it
4:18blocks an incredible 98% of all harmful
4:21UV radiation. Yeah, 98%. It It works
4:25hard. The vast majority of sunlight is
4:27what's known as visible light, the light
4:29we can see, with wavelengths of 400 to
4:31700 nm. Ultraviolet radiation is
4:35actually only 8% of all light and it's
4:37invisible to the human eye, though some
4:40insects, like bumblebees, can see it.
4:43Visible light consists of different
4:45colors that you can see in a rainbow and
4:47UV is no different. It also has its own
4:50spectrum, UVA, UVB, and UVC. They're
4:55classified by wavelengths, so UVA is the
4:57longest and UVC is the shortest. You may
5:01have even seen UVA and UVB on sunscreen
5:03labels. They're what causes sunburn and
5:06can cause skin cancer.
5:08UVB and UVC are not only incredibly
5:11damaging to us, but they mess with all
5:12sorts of stuff, including photosynthesis
5:14and the productivity in plants and
5:16crops. They damage DNA, suppress immune
5:20systems, and can even reduce survival
5:22rates. In fact, UVC radiation is used to
5:25disinfect hospitals. The reason being is
5:28because it can quite literally kill
5:30nearly everything.
5:32And here's where the ozone layer comes
5:33in because it screens all of the most
5:36harmful UVC radiation and the vast
5:39majority of UVB. [music] Quite simply,
5:42without it, the radiation would
5:43literally sterilize the Earth's surface.
5:46But here's the thing. Ozone is what's
5:48known as a trace gas. That means there's
5:51not a lot of it, basically. In fact,
5:53even in the stratosphere, ozone
5:54concentration is only about 15 parts per
5:57million.
5:58If you took all the ozone in the world
6:01and spread it across the Earth's surface
6:02like a kind of ozoney jam, it would form
6:05a layer only 3 mm thick. That's the same
6:08as two tiny pennies.
6:11And if you did that same thing with the
6:13rest of the atmosphere, that atmosphery
6:15jam would be 8 km high and very sticky.
6:19So, what happens when you discover some
6:21of that precious ozone is missing? This
6:24animation on your screen shows the
6:25actual hole in our ozone layer tracked
6:28over two decades.
6:30The blue and purple mark the area with
6:32the least ozone. Now, technically, this
6:34isn't a hole, I know, in shape. It's a
6:36region of exceptionally depleted ozone.
6:39But, hole was snappier and more
6:41importantly, more concerning to the
6:43general public. Now, in 1979, there was
6:46no significant hole at all. And then it
6:49just grew and grew and grew and grew,
6:51covering not just Antarctica, but
6:53occasionally stretching as far as South
6:55America or even New Zealand. By the year
6:582000, it measured 28.4 million square
7:02kilometers, almost seven times the size
7:05of the EU or three times the size of the
7:09United States.
7:11Looking back with hindsight, it seems
7:12pretty obvious that this was a
7:14planetary-scale emergency. But, how did
7:17we even realize we had a problem in the
7:19first place?
7:21The answer, as with so many things, is
7:23science.
7:25We first started measuring ozone to try
7:27and understand more about how our
7:29atmosphere worked. By the late 19th and
7:32early 20th centuries, scientists had
7:34already established that stratospheric
7:36ozone acted as a vital shield against
7:40harmful radiation.
7:42In the mid-1920s, Gordon Dobson, a
7:45British scientist, invented a new type
7:48of spectrophotometer,
7:50an instrument that monitors UV levels
7:52from the ground to work out how much
7:54ozone there is in the stratosphere.
7:56More than a century later, and the
7:58Dobson spectrophotometer is still the
8:01foundation of the global network for
8:03monitoring atmospheric ozone even today.
8:07In fact, what are known as Dobson units
8:10are now the gold standard for monitoring
8:13the ozone hole. So, 300 Dobson units is
8:17the ideal amount of ozone. It's what
8:19gives us that metaphorical 3-mm layer I
8:22mentioned before. Less than that, and
8:24you're in trouble.
8:26And we started spotting signs of exactly
8:28that kind of trouble in the 1970s and
8:30the 1980s.
8:32British Antarctic Survey scientists Joe
8:34Farman, Brian Gardiner, and Jon Shanklin
8:37took the world by storm when their
8:39groundbreaking paper, "Large Losses of
8:42Total Ozone in Antarctica", published in
8:44Nature in 1985.
8:47Working through a backlog of data from
8:49the Dobson spectrophotometer
8:51and the Halley base in Antarctica,
8:54Shanklin discovered a systematic and
8:56rapid decline in the amount of
8:58springtime ozone. In 1979, it was
9:01relatively fine, but by 1984,
9:05the stratospheric ozone layer over the
9:07Halley base was only around 2/3 as thick
9:10as in previous decades.
9:13Something was happening to our ozone,
9:15and it was happening fast.
9:17Between 1986 and 1987, the race was on
9:21to find out what exactly was causing the
9:23loss. Scientists from the hunt for
9:26ozone-depleting substances, or ODS, the
9:29BAS team had theorized that possible
9:32chemical causes must be considered, and
9:35they weren't the first.
9:36If you've heard of the ozone hole, then
9:38you already likely know that
9:39chlorofluorocarbons
9:40or CFCs were eventually found out to be
9:43the culprits, but they simply weren't in
9:46the public consciousness back then. They
9:48were an invisible part of our daily
9:49lives using aerosols and fridges, a sort
9:52of killer lying in darkness waiting.
9:56But way back in 1974, scientists Mario
9:59Molina and F. Sherwood Rowland published
10:02a paper theorizing that
10:04chlorofluorocarbons could destroy ozone
10:06in the stratosphere, although their
10:08paper focused on chlorofluoromethanes
10:10only. Now, at the time their theories
10:12were shot down by the industry and they
10:14were denounced as scaremongers. Their
10:16work was literally called pure science
10:19fiction.
10:20As a side note, and I do quite enjoy
10:22this, Molina and Rowland were later
10:23awarded the Nobel Prize in 1995 for
10:27chemistry, so they did win
10:28>> [music]
10:28>> in the end. Anyway, in 1986, Susan
10:31Solomon, a researcher at NOAA, led a
10:33team to McMurdo Base to find out exactly
10:37what was going on. See, Solomon had
10:39theorized that if CFCs were responsible
10:41for ozone depletion, then there would be
10:43high levels of chlorine oxide radicals
10:46in the stratosphere. And guess what?
10:49There were. Molina and Rowland had been
10:51right all along. So yes, there was a
10:54hole, and yes, it was caused by humans.
10:57Shock.
10:59But one question still remained, how
11:01exactly did CFCs do all of this? Before
11:04we get into the chemistry, if like me,
11:06you're quite enjoying a rather more
11:08positive climate news story for once and
11:10you fancy some more like this, well then
11:13I've got more good news. I've been a
11:14member of Planet Wild now for quite some
11:16time. I think of them like crowdfunding
11:18but for nature. So every single month
11:21their community of over 25,000 members,
11:24including me, fund a mission to restore
11:26nature around the world. They are making
11:29good news like this happen every single
11:32day. They also document their amazing
11:34work on YouTube, so we can see the
11:35impact of our contributions in real
11:37time. In a world of bad news, it really
11:40does give me some hope cuz we can
11:42actually see the impact on the ground.
11:45Recently, they funded a breakthrough
11:46that could stop plastic before it ends
11:49up in our oceans. Just a great example
11:51of some of the work they do. It's
11:52incredible. And actually, I'm such a big
11:55fan of their work that I also kind of
11:57wanted to share it with you. So, in this
11:59video, I've got a treat for you. The
12:01first 100 people to sign up using my
12:04code Astrum 8 will get their first month
12:07paid for by me. Yeah. All you have to do
12:11is scan the QR code on screen right now
12:13or click the link in the [music] video
12:15description. You'll get to see the
12:16result of your contribution in less than
12:1830 days. And if you want to see them in
12:20action right now, check out that mission
12:22fighting ocean plastic with the link in
12:24the video description. So, why don't we
12:26keep the good news going a little bit
12:27longer and head back to Ozone?
12:30Let's do some chemistry, shall we? So,
12:31ozone is produced when oxygen molecules
12:33absorb UV light from the sun and split
12:36[music] into two single atoms. One then
12:40reacts with an oxygen molecule to become
12:41O3. Now, ozone is pretty unstable. If
12:45you add a bit more sunshine, it can
12:46split back into O2 with one lonely
12:49oxygen atom left sort of spare, allowing
12:52the cycle to begin all over again. It's
12:54like a self-replicating planetary
12:56sunscreen whenever you need [music] it.
12:57Until you throw some chlorofluorocarbons
13:01into the mix. Then things get messy.
13:04CFCs are one of those things us humans
13:06thought we were inventing to make life
13:08better, easier, and cheaper. They first
13:11popped up in the 1890s and came into
13:14widespread use in the 1930s.
13:17Primarily used as coolants in
13:18refrigerators and air conditioners to
13:21replace toxic gases like ammonia and
13:23methyl chloride. They were also pretty
13:26effective in aerosols like deodorant and
13:28hairspray, making perfect propellants in
13:31the pressurized cans. It's important to
13:33remember when we look back at these
13:34things and obviously hindsight's a
13:35beautiful thing that at the time CFCs
13:38were considered perfectly safe. They
13:39were wonder chemicals to some,
13:41non-toxic, non-flammable and stable.
13:45CFCs are halogenoalkanes,
13:47which are molecules consisting of
13:49carbon, fluorine and chlorine atoms. The
13:52carbon-chlorine bond is long and
13:54relatively weak. Now, these molecules
13:57can float up into the stratosphere where
13:59the UV rays from the sun provide enough
14:01energy to break that carbon-chlorine
14:04bond.
14:05Bonds like the one between carbon and
14:07chlorine are called covalent bonds and
14:10they consist of two electrons.
14:13When it breaks, one of those electrons
14:15goes to the carbon and one to the
14:17chlorine, giving them an unpaired
14:19electron each. Species like these are
14:22called free radicals and they are very
14:24reactive.
14:26chlorine radicals collides with an ozone
14:29molecule, it breaks one of its
14:30oxygen-oxygen bonds, creating oxygen and
14:34a chlorine monoxide radical, ClO. This
14:37can react with another ozone molecule,
14:40producing oxygen and another chlorine
14:42radical, which goes on to react with
14:44more and more and more and more. In
14:47fact, just one chlorine radical can
14:49break down more than 100,000 ozone
14:51molecules into oxygen.
14:54Now, given that it's necessary for life
14:56on our planet, you could be forgiven for
14:57thinking that more oxygen would be a
14:59good thing, right? Well, it's good if
15:01you're on Earth's surface and you need
15:03to breathe, but it's not so good in the
15:05stratosphere, where you'd rather have
15:07the ozone keeping those UV rays at bay.
15:10The ozone-munching part of this story is
15:13one most people already know, but what
15:15most people don't realize is that while
15:17chlorine radicals do ultimately destroy
15:20ozone, they don't necessarily do it
15:23immediately.
15:24They require a very special set of
15:27conditions, and this Well, this is where
15:29Antarctica comes in. You may have
15:31noticed that the hole in all of these
15:33satellite images is always mostly over
15:35Antarctica, and there's a very good
15:36reason for that. Antarctica is the
15:39highest, driest, windiest, and coldest
15:41place on Earth. It's a continent with no
15:44countries and no permanent population to
15:46speak of, unless you count the penguins,
15:48which I do.
15:50So, this can't be CFC ground zero. How
15:52many penguins are using fridges and air
15:54conditioners and hairsprays? Well,
15:56here's what's happening. The Earth's
15:57atmosphere is continuously being stirred
15:59by winds. So, ozone-depleting gases
16:02could end up anywhere.
16:0490% of CFCs and halons, their bromine
16:07equivalents, have been released in the
16:09northern hemisphere, Europe, Russia,
16:11Japan, and North America. But, they rise
16:14up to the stratosphere in the tropics,
16:16and they are then blown polewards. And,
16:19as we mentioned, Antarctica is cold,
16:21very cold. In the long months of winter
16:23darkness, a whirlpool of winds called
16:26the polar vortex traps super cold air
16:29over this region, allowing the formation
16:31of polar stratospheric clouds. Now,
16:34these clouds are perfect for CFCs to
16:37start breaking down into those chlorine
16:39radicals.
16:41When the sunlight returns in the
16:42Antarctic spring, that chlorine that's
16:45been building up all winter starts to
16:47kick into gear, shredding through the
16:49ozone at an incredible rate.
16:52The hole just keeps growing bigger and
16:54bigger and bigger until it stabilizes
16:56with the weakening of the polar vortex
16:58as summer arrives. And then, next year,
17:00the cycle begins again.
17:03This is why the hole is seasonal, and
17:05that is why it's nearly always over
17:08Antarctica.
17:09But, just because it's all the way over
17:10there in Antarctica on a largely
17:12uninhabited continent doesn't make the
17:14ozone hole any less dangerous. It just
17:16means it's further away.
17:18Plus, what are called finger extensions
17:20can shift and expand the hole over
17:22cities in New Zealand and South America.
17:25I mean, back in 2000, residents of Punta
17:28Arenas in Chile were warned to stay at
17:30home during one of the largest seasonal
17:33ozone holes on record. UV levels had
17:36skyrocketed into the danger zone.
17:39Quite simply, without action, this hole
17:40would have kept growing, not just over
17:42Antarctica, but everywhere. The warnings
17:45were stark. By 2040, the hole would have
17:48gone global. By 2065, the UV index in
17:51the US would be 30. Usually, it's just
17:54nine. Strong enough to cause sunburn in
17:56cities like Washington, D.C. in just
17:59five minutes. DNA-mutating UV radiation
18:03would be up 500%.
18:05There would be more cancers, more
18:06cataracts, more compromised immune
18:08systems. Plants, animals, and crops
18:10would struggle. Entire ecosystems would
18:13collapse.
18:15And it wasn't just harmful UV radiation
18:17that was the problem. By the late 1980s,
18:20scientists were already seeing
18:21wide-ranging climate impacts.
18:24Jet streams were changing. Australia got
18:26drier, while parts of Uruguay, Brazil,
18:28Paraguay, and Argentina got more rain.
18:31The nature of the chain reactions meant
18:32that our atmosphere was already loaded
18:34with decades of CFCs yet to even make
18:37their impact. CFCs have a long
18:40atmospheric lifespan. They can hang
18:42around in the stratosphere causing
18:44trouble way after they were used down on
18:46the surface. CFC-11s can last 55 years,
18:50and CFC-12s,
18:52140 years.
18:54Something needed to be done, and
18:56quickly. And surprisingly, well, it was.
19:00For once, the entire world quite
19:02literally came together to act.
19:05And it worked.
19:06In 1987, 197 UN member states adopted
19:11the Montreal Protocol, or to give it its
19:13full title, the Montreal Protocol on
19:16Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer.
19:19How grand. It was the only UN treaty
19:22ever to be ratified by every single
19:24country on the planet.
19:26This landmark global agreement
19:27introduced a plan for phasing out and
19:29eventually banning CFCs, with other
19:32ozone-depleting substances like HFCs or
19:35hydrofluorocarbons
19:36being added as they were discovered.
19:39Montreal was a real turning point, a
19:41plan to save the ozone layer.
19:44And guess what? All these decades later,
19:46it's still working. CFC emissions have
19:48fallen by an incredible 99%
19:51since the Montreal Protocol was
19:53implemented, and ozone-depleting
19:56substances in the stratosphere, well,
19:57they're falling too. Since peaking
19:59around the year 2000, levels have
20:01declined by about a third relative to
20:04pre-ozone hole levels.
20:06Yeah, as you probably already guessed by
20:08now, things had to get worse before they
20:10got better. All of those chemical
20:12reactions were baked into the system,
20:14but it could have been a whole lot
20:16worse. And this is where it becomes a
20:18proper good news story, because the
20:20ozone layer hasn't just stopped growing,
20:22it's actually started healing.
20:25The Antarctic ozone hole has been slowly
20:27improving in area and depth, if you
20:30remember those Dobson units, since the
20:31turn of the millennium. Now, full
20:34recovery is still decades away, but it's
20:36tantalizingly within reach. It's
20:38predicted we'll see a return to 1980
20:41values by 2040 for the global average.
20:44That stretches to 2045 for the Arctic
20:47and 2066
20:49in the Antarctic, because, yeah, those
20:51polar stratospheric clouds, well, they
20:53really make a difference.
20:54A recent MIT-led study published in the
20:57journal Nature added the cherry on top
20:59of the cake. Ozone layer recovery has
21:01been observed in the past, but this,
21:04well, this is the first study to confirm
21:05healing as a direct result of global
21:08actions rather than natural influences
21:11like weather.
21:12The team borrowed what are known as
21:14fingerprinting techniques from climate
21:16science, matching the specific pattern
21:18of ozone changes across different months
21:20and altitudes against what models
21:22predict. It helped researchers confirm
21:25and quantify the role of us fridge
21:27buying hairspray using pesky humans.
21:30Basically, we broke it
21:33and then we fixed it. And this is all
21:35obviously great news, but what's more is
21:37fixing the hole in the ozone layer is
21:39even helping us with things like climate
21:41change.
21:42Another study published in Nature found
21:43that if CFCs hadn't been banned in the
21:461980s, they could have raised average
21:48global temperatures by another 2.5° C,
21:52which if you've seen this channel, you
21:53know we really can't be doing.
21:55We can't get complacent though. In 2025,
21:59the ozone hole was only the fifth
22:01smallest since 1992
22:03and it was still on average 18.71
22:07million square kilometers. That's still
22:10twice the size of the contiguous United
22:13States. In a cruel twist of irony,
22:15climate change isn't helping.
22:17Temperature, weather, shifts in the
22:19polar vortex, they can all cause ozone
22:21depletion. Extreme wildfires can be
22:24doubly devastating, producing
22:26pyrocumulonimbus clouds funneling a
22:28cocktail of chemical components into the
22:31upper atmosphere.
22:32Those compounds contain, yep, you've
22:34guessed it, chlorine, which reacts with
22:36the ozone to break it down again.
22:39It's also hard to account for rogue
22:41actors who might be ignoring the ban by
22:43still using CFCs illegally. In 2017, a
22:47crack squad of scientists at Bristol
22:49University noticed rising emissions of
22:52CFC-11, banned since 2010, and turned
22:55detective to trace it back to China. The
22:59factories were eventually shut down and
23:00the emissions did drop, not just in
23:02China, but globally. Someone else had
23:05been breaking the rules, but exactly who
23:08still remains a mystery.
23:10It's tricky because we all still want to
23:11have fridges and aerosols and foam
23:13insulation, but they all need some sort
23:16of chemical cocktail to make them work.
23:19Replacements for CFCs can have their own
23:22consequences. For a while,
23:24hydrochlorofluorocarbons,
23:26or HCFCs, looked like they might do the
23:30trick, but they were also found to
23:31destroy ozone, so they too had to be
23:33phased out. Then HFCs came along, but
23:37they were a potent greenhouse gas, so
23:40they're out, too. Hydrofluoroolefins,
23:43aka HFOs, were mooted as an alternative,
23:47but they have another side effect in the
23:49formation of a forever chemical,
23:51trifluoroacetic
23:52acid. You might have heard of it as
23:54PFAS, a poly- or perfluorinated
23:57substance that will never, ever, ever
23:59break down, and is ringing alarm bells
24:01all around the world for human and
24:02environmental health, and quite rightly
24:04so.
24:05Now, looming over all of this is the
24:07meteoric rise of nitrous oxide, commonly
24:10known as laughing gas, but predominantly
24:12used in agriculture. In the last four
24:15decades, human-caused nitrous oxide
24:17emissions have soared by 40%.
24:20It's now the most significant ODS, or
24:24ozone-depleting substance, that we have,
24:27and it's not covered by the Montreal
24:29Protocol. In fact, the Montreal
24:31Assessment Panel says it's a serious
24:33threat for stratospheric ozone.
24:36Good, another one.
24:38But this alphabet soup of chemicals
24:40isn't the only potential ozone killer
24:42out there. To paraphrase Sir Isaac
24:45Newton, what goes up must come down. In
24:501985, the year the ozone hole was
24:52actually discovered, there were around
24:54120 successful rocket launches, that's
24:57satellites, payloads, and a record nine
25:00space shuttle missions. It was a busy
25:02old year for space. Now, in 2025, an
25:05incredible 4,510
25:07objects were also launched into space,
25:10overtaking the previous record in 2023
25:13of 2,903.
25:16There's currently around 15,000
25:19satellites orbiting the Earth with
25:21another 50,000
25:22set to join them by 2030.
25:25And once they're finished studying the
25:26planet or guiding your car GPS system,
25:29often satellites are allowed to fall
25:31into the atmosphere, and that's a
25:33problem.
25:34See, what happens when they do that is
25:35they burn up on reentry, and as they do,
25:39they release teeny tiny particles of
25:41aluminum dioxide. And yep, you guessed
25:43it, what does aluminum dioxide do?
25:45Depletes the ozone layer.
25:47The problem is that the new generation
25:49of satellites are extremely short-lived,
25:51maybe 5 years. So, dozens of satellites
25:53could be hurtling back to Earth quite
25:55literally every day, each one
25:57potentially destroying the ozone layer
25:58we've worked so hard to rebuild back up
26:01again.
26:02For now though, the ozone layer is still
26:04healing, and I think we have to take
26:06that as a win, while making sure that
26:07these new threats don't undo all of that
26:10hard work. The truth is life is
26:12complicated, and us humans like to
26:15complicate it even further. The bottom
26:17line is that when you mess with nature,
26:19you're always going to pay the price.
26:21But, on the whole, as climate change
26:23burns all around us, I'd like to think
26:25the healing of the ozone hole is still
26:28basically a good news story, and
26:30sometimes we just need a bit of good
26:31news, especially in climate science.
26:35So, yes, we fixed the hole in the ozone.
26:38That's why we don't really hear about it
26:40anymore, but that doesn't mean we should
26:42just forget about it.
26:44This cautionary tale is a reminder that
26:46each one of our actions has an impact. I
26:49mean, who'd have thought a deodorant
26:51used in Detroit could end up destroying
26:53a vital part of Earth's life support
26:55system over Antarctica.
26:58We could have ignored the warnings, but
27:00we didn't. Collective action on a global
27:03scale turned the ozone hole into an
27:06environmental success story rather than
27:09a planetary emergency.
27:11This to me is unequivocal proof that
27:13science plus public awareness plus
27:15crucially political action can equal
27:18results. The only sobering thought is it
27:21happened once and it doesn't feel like
27:23it's going to happen again. If this same
27:25situation was happening now in 2026,
27:28would we all rally together in the same
27:30way?
27:31I'm not convinced. The success of the
27:33ozone hole shows what humanity is
27:35capable of doing when we all come
27:36together for one unified cause. My worry
27:38is that we don't do that enough. Let me
27:41know what you think in the comments
27:42about this ozone situation and whether
27:44this is the only time that you can think
27:46of as well that humanity's come together
27:48for a wider, greater climate good cuz
27:51I struggle to think of too many
27:52examples. Thanks for watching and we'll
27:54see you in the next one.
27:55Don't forget before you go we have that
27:57great offer for you with Planet Wild.
27:58The first 100 people to sign up using my
28:00code get their first month paid for by
28:02me. So if this video inspired you, if
28:05you want to do something right now to
28:06help the planet, please do get involved.

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