Society has been widely addressed with the many problems that we are
having in our environment today. A major problem is that of CFCs. CFC
stands for Chlorofluorocarbons which are found in many of the aerosol spray
cans. In December of 1973, Rowland and Molina discovered that CFCs can
destroy the ozone in the stratosphere.
In June 1975, the Natural Resources Defence Council (NRDC) sued the
Consumers Product Safety Commission for a band of CFCs used in aerosol
spray cans. United States's fifth largest manufacturers of aerosol sprays
announced that they will reduce the amount of CFCs used in there products.
But as things started to get better, The Consumer Product Safety Commission
rejected NRDC's law suit in July stating that there was insufficient
evidence towards the amount of harm the CFCs were doing to the ozone layer.
On September 1976, a report was released which re-enforced Rowland and
Molina's hypothesis, but also stated that the govern- ment action on CFC
regulations should be postponed. This report also stated that the CFCs can
initiate climatic changes and contribute to the warming of the earth's
atmosphere, i.e., the greenhouse effect.
May 1977, several government agencies announced joint plans to limit,
but not eliminate uses of CFCs in aerosol spray cans. But on February of
the following year, the government decided to postpone the regulations on
CFCs used in refrigeration, air conditioning, solvents, and other
industrial processes. With all the new regulations taking affect and being
postponed, nothing was getting accomplished, but finally, on October 1978,
aerosols where banned in the United States.
August of 1981, satellite pictures showed that over one percent of the
ozone was lost due to CFCs. Then, in October of 1984, research groups
found a forty percent loss of ozone over Antarctica. In August of 1985,
satellite photos confirmed the e...