[benihana]

Just like the global food shortage that Malthusians assured us was bound to happen, the ozone layer fading away and UV rays destroying us all, Y2K breaking every computer on the planet.

This time it's for real. This time, technology and human ingenuity isn't going to save us.

[DennisP]

The ozone layer survives because people caught it in time and banned the chemicals causing the problem.

We could do the same thing with antibiotic overuse and it would indeed prevent disaster. That's pretty much what every article about the problem advocates, explicitly or implicitly. Well that, and funding more research on new antibiotics, which we're not doing much of right now.

Just waving our hands and trusting to the magic of technology and ingenuity isn't going to get us out of this. We have to actually do something about it.

[arjie]

There is a story:

A man is walking to a village when he falls into a puddle of quicksand. His attempts to escape are futile and he is nearly about to die when a farmer happens by and hauls him out. The farmer tells him that he should watch out for that puddle. The man suggests placing a sign there to warn travellers, to which the farmer remarks, "Oh, we had one. But no one was falling in, so we took it away.".

About the ozone layer:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Convention_for_the_Prot...

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Protocol

How quickly we forget the lessons of the past!

[TillE]

I'm struggling to understand how anyone could possibly be aware that there was a threat to the ozone layer, but also think that it magically solved itself. The catalyst action of CFCs is not remotely controversial, no more than the IR absorption spectrum of CO2.

Whether it's environmental disasters or internet social media activities, there's an interesting bias towards thinking that the status quo is stable, just because it's been that way for a few years. Stuff changes. Take a step back and actually look at the whole picture.

[refurb]

The ozone layer healed itself despite the fact the Chinese continued to produce and release MASSIVE amounts of CFCs after the signing of the Montreal Accord in 1987. It wasn't until 2007 or so until they stopped. However, the layer stopped thinning in 1997 [1]. Interesting no?

[1] http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/06/27/environment-china-...

[DennisP]

Your article does not say that China was producing such massive quantities of CFCs that the efforts of all other signatories to the treaty were negated. What your article does say:

> Scientists largely credit the Montreal Protocol, signed by about 150 countries, with reversing the depletion of the ozone layer

[refurb]

This graph shows that in 1997, reductions in CFC had just begun, yet the ozone hole had been reversed.[1]

Also, apparently there isn't agreement that the hole has gotten better: "Work has suggested that a detectable (and statistically significant) recovery will not occur until around 2024, with ozone levels recovering to 1980 levels by around 2068."

So which is it?

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ozone_cfc_trends.png

[mkr-hn]

> Just like the global food shortage that Malthusians assured us was bound to happen,

How many times can we get lucky with rapid, unforeseen advances in technology?

> the ozone layer fading away and UV rays destroying us all,

Avoided by being proactive

> Y2K breaking every computer on the planet.

Avoided by being proactive

[Aaronontheweb]

"How many times can we get lucky with rapid, unforeseen advances in technology?"

An infinite number of times. There's no "luck" to it - there are people actively searching for solutions to this shit so we don't end up dead.

[bct]

There is absolutely luck, it's in the timing. The Green Revolution happened to arrive before we hit Malthusian limits, but that wasn't guaranteed.

If an asteroid is going to strike tomorrow the only solutions that matter are the ones that are economically and technically feasible today.

[bct]

There's no law of nature that says technological advance will solve every problem in time. There are many examples of societies that destroyed themselves.

[mildtrepidation]

And whether this is "the big one" or not, with this attitude, we'll never be ready for anything that actually does go seriously wrong. "It hasn't happened before, so it can't happen now" makes for nothing but a great epitaph.

[Houshalter]

These are cherry picked examples or anything. Besides some things actually get done in the expectation of a disaster (like banning ozone destroying chemicals or fixing Y2K bugs.)

Even in the current article, no one is saying this is going to happen for sure, just that it could if we don't do anything about it or invest in new antibiotics.