ENVIRONMENT WATCH : Suddenly It’s Serious

Last year it was found that Earth’s ozone layer had thinned far more than scientists had predicted 12 years earlier. This year, satellites and high-flying spy planes have found in the stratosphere the highest concentrations of ozone-damaging compounds ever recorded, some traceable to last June’s volcanic eruption of Pinatubo in the Philippines. The crafts also detected signs that the first ozone hole over the Northern Hemisphere may be imminent.

The ozone layer, one of the Earth’s immune systems, screens out the sun’s ultraviolet rays, which can cause cancer and cataracts and is believed to weaken the human immune system. Eating away at the layer are, mainly, the chlorines in chlorofluorocarbons used as solvents and refrigerants.

President Bush responded to the latest report by shifting the deadline for halting American manufacture of most of the implicated chemicals, advancing it five years from the year 2000. And the corporate managers who doubted last year that they could meet a 1995 deadline now think it can be done. That’s good.

Cynics are noting that last year was not an election year and that this one is. Predictably, some Democratic presidential candidates have been accusing Bush of reneging on his promise to be “the environmental President.” Partisanship aside, the Bush Administration, especially when John H. Sununu was chief of staff, was slow on the uptake on the ozone. Now Sununu is gone, the ozone hole is bigger and the White House, finally, seems to be waking up.