A Hole in Our Ozone Layer? Thermal Warming and Other Problems We May Have

I had heard that we were making a hole n our ozone layer many times in the past. I did not truly understand the concept of our ozone, and how it replenished our oxygen, or what was happening in our skies above our heads, season by season, year by year.

How could we have a hole in our atmosphere and not get sucked out into outer space? This was what I could not comprehend. It seemed to me that if we had a hole in it, the vacuum of space would suck us out, or turn our world inside out.

I decided to look into it by way of the Internet, and our satellites, and whatever information I could find there. I searched first for what our atmosphere looked like from outer space. Sure enough, from a weather satellite, I got a colored image of earth, and its atmosphere from space today. Then, with a simple click I was able to pull up the exact same picture only take in 1968. I overlapped the two photos, and was shocked to see what was before my eyes.

The atmosphere was half the size it was in 1968. It seemed especially around the equator, we were missing about half of the layer of oxygen that protected us from the suns radioactive rays. This worried me just a little. Were we not getting the protection that we thought we were? If not, why haven't I heard about any of this on the news, or on any of the science or discovery channels?

Before we get into what is going wrong, lets take a look at how it is supposed to work before anything went wrong.

When our atmosphere works normally, it is thin in the middle, and thick at each end of the earth, at the north and south poles. At each end, the atmosphere bunches up, for lack of a better term, and at these two locations there are violent storms. These ice storms create winds that are not like winds anywhere else on Earth. These very violent winds form a vortex at each end of the earth, and carries millions and millions of ice particles into our upper atmosphere. During the journey, the ice particles pick up molecules of ammonia nitrate. When this happens, the ice particles then turn into one molecule of oxygen and two molecules of water. This is then pushed, due to the velocity of the winds, towards the middle or equator. It then settles worldwide, making the ozone layer fatter and fatter.

Now, the problem with this process, is that we are contaminating the air faster than mother nature can replenish it. Due to our cars, trucks, and other vehicles, and our factories, and all the other things we need so bad, the carbon monoxides and dioxides that we put into the air destroy the protective value from the suns rays. With the missing oxygen molecules, we are slowly getting more and more of the radiation from the sun coming through to us.

According to the information i researched, the equivalent of two and a half hours in the sun in 1968, equaled 12 minutes in the sun now. Wow, I thought, that is quite a difference. Upon further investigation, what we are perceiving as sunburn now, is really radiation burns. If you notice a blotching of your skin, instead of a consistent sunburn, you are getting radiation burns. Further, if you get burned more than once a month or so, you will get radiation poisoning, which in turn gives you a much higher chance of getting cancer of some kind, mainly skin cancer.

So no, there is not a real hole, as far as I can find, in our ozone layer. But I am not sure if I am happier with the lack of a hole that I found. Radiation burns, instead of sunburns, that to me sounds a lot like science-fiction or futuristic fact-finding.

Thermal warming, is this something that is actually going on, or is it a ploy for some of those millionaires to make even more money? We have become too easy going and have incredible abilities to say hmmmmm, thats too bad, I hope someone does something. When do we actually take charge and do something ourselves to help.

It is our reality of our planet and what we are leaving for our children. The facts are that we are helping make our planet uninhabitable, if we keep going as we are. For the truth of the matter, that I have not even mentioned yet, is that mother nature is also helping us destroy our atmosphere, with volcano eruptions, with wildfires, and with the gases from herds and herds of bovine adding to it all with methane. Between all of this put together, we had better give a good thought or two to what we need to do to be responsible and help our children have a future.

I have a feeling that our earth could use a friend. I think that the possibility of all of the above is the right answer. Mother nature puts out a lot of pollutants from volcanic disturbances, fires etc. Man adding to it the toxins from factories, cars, and his need to eat more red meat than ever before in our world history, therefor making it so tempting for ranchers to make the big bucks by raising more cattle than was ever intended for this earth to have.

I believe that if we want to have this planet for our children and their children to have and enjoy, we better begin teaching them where we have gone wrong and what we might be able to change or fix,. Also, just the fact that we have by far, more people on this planet than it should ever have. All of this needs to have our attention.

Maybe there isn't any one thing we can do to change this, but if everyone does something it is bound to help. Here are some ideas we have the ability to change that would help this crisis.

• Solar panels or wind generation of electricity.
• The use of electric automobiles or cars that run on perhaps water.
• Finding alternate proteins for our diet besides red meat
• Planting trees, lots of them
• Protection of our rain forests
• Finding alternate means of transporting goods worldwide
• Finding other fuels besides fossil fuels
• Outlaw the drilling of oil, especially in our oceans

If we explore changing these and probably many more of our bad habits and deplorable need to do things the easy way, or the incredible greed we seem to have, no matter what we are doing to the only place we have to live, we might be able to save ourselves. The change needs to begin now. We need to stop thinking about how to make money, and start thinking about what I can do to help our planet become healthy. Our whole mindset has been a very selfish one.

Along with change, we need to teach our children about all of these things, for they are our future and they must understand what is going on around them. They must be taught to see things differently so that they will by instinct know what should be happening and what should not be happening to our environment. Our kids must learn how to survive if mankind is to survive.