Rush Limbaugh is wrong as usual
Rush Limbaugh fancies himself an expert on the environment, especially ozone depletion. But as this example from his radio show and web site shows he is frequently outrageously wrong.
Ozone Hole Disappears As Usual
November 20, 2003
This is not a joke. Ananova: "The seasonal ozone hole over the South Pole has disappeared again after reaching record size earlier this year. The hole, a thinner-than-usual area in the protective layer of gas high up in the earth's atmosphere, has been forming in the extremely low temperatures that mark the end of Antarctic winter every year since the mid-1980s, largely due to chemical pollution.
"This year the hole peaked at 10.81 million square miles in mid-September - matching the record size set three years ago. 'The ozone hole size and persistence have developed similarly to the year 2000, with an early rapid growth observed during August, a record size observed in September and finally its disappearance in mid-November,' said a statement by the World Meteorological Organization." So, it's totally normal!
No, it is not "totally normal!" If you had a fever of 103 for three days in a row, 103 would not become normal. And having a hole year after year is not normal, there was no hole from 1956 till the mid 1970s.
Point of order: If the hole (which is actually a "thinning", not an actual hole) is "largely due to chemical pollution," then how does it close again? Would somebody explain to me why this not the kind of seasonal flux we see every year in nature? You know, I'm just an average, run-of-the-mill high school graduate. I have some college here but it seems to me that if chemical pollution is up there causing a big hole in the ozone then we must be getting rid of the pollution in order for the ozone hole to close, right?
Wrong. The conditions that create the hole, and why it breaks up, are well understood and have been explained numerous times (see Robert Parson's ozone FAQ for example). In an nutshell the temperature rises and the Antarctic vortex breaks up. That a self appointed expert would not know this is beyond belief.
Do you know how ozone is created? Mr. Sun produces the ozone when his rays hit the atmosphere. Huuuh! So there's naturally less ozone at the South Pole during all those months when the sun doesn't shine there! In other words, we can never eliminate the ozone layer protecting us from disaster, murder, death, pillage, rape, Medicare cuts and thirst because we'd have to put out the sun to do so. Even if Ronald Reagan had ordered his administration to make sure all liberals developed skin cancer by getting rid of the ozone layer, it would not have been possible. This is just the environmentalist wackos trying to get people behind their real agenda with panic.
Here Limbaugh promotes a totally different "theory", that the hole is caused by a lack of sunlight. But the hole appears in the spring, after the sunlight has reappeared. The amount of ozone stays relatively constant over the winter. (Limbaugh had been promoting a totally different "theory", that the hole is caused by volcanos. I guess attacking "environmentalist wackos" is more important than getting the facts right.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Written by Jim Norton
Visit my anti-environmental myths home page.
Visit my practical skepticism page
The text on these pages may be freely copied, distributed and posted as long as my name, this statement and the URL are included.