TV Reviews : ‘The Hole Story’ Outlines Ozone Plight

When we last left the ozone layer, it had a hole or two in it, but we had passed a lot of laws and treaties to save it and things were getting better, right?

Not according to “Ozone: The Hole Story,” a serious and wide-ranging documentary that can be seen Sunday at 11 p.m. on KCET-TV Channel 28. The program is narrated by Bill Kurtis, who also produced.

The show recounts much of the known history of the ozone layer, a protective shield around the Earth that filters out potentially deadly ultraviolet radiation from the sun. The ozone came under attack about 60 years ago with the invention of chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs. Many of the supposed material blessings of modern civilization--aerosol spraying, packaging, sound proofing and air conditioning--use CFCs. But unlike other gases, CFCs didn’t move harmlessly into the atmosphere. They drifted upward into the ozone layer and began to destroy it, especially in the cold air above the poles, where ominous “holes,” or regions of extreme ozone depletion, have developed.

The problems in the ozone layer were discovered about 20 years ago, and most advanced nations quickly banned aerosol cans. But attacking other elements of the problem has been less successful. A major international treaty calls for a ban on all CFCs by the end of the century.

“Ozone: The Hole Story” offers some disturbing glimpses of the future. At the southern latitudes of New Zealand, school children must wear wide-brimmed hats in the schoolyard and they are taught to think of the sun as the enemy. Skin cancers in that part of the world have become particularly virulent. A German TV public-service announcement shows two youngsters kicking a soccer ball around--they are wearing reflective suits and helmets with visors and are playing in a barren, sunbaked field.

Did we act in time? Kurtis points out that CFCs can take up to 40 years to drift up to the ozone layer. Thus, we are probably a long way from the worst of it or from solving this worldwide environmental challenge. “Ozone: The Hole Story” brings us disturbingly up to date on a threat we may not yet fully appreciate.