A ‘Joke’ With No Laugh Line

For all of President Bush’s jokes about Al Gore being “Mr. Ozone,” the ozone problem is no laughing matter.

According to the World Meteorological Organization, the ozone hole over the South Pole has grown 25% over its previously reported size. It now stretches over 9 million square miles, about three times the size of the continental United States, and its effects are no longer confined to Antarctica.

Tierra del Fuego, a populated island at the extreme southern tip of South America, now lies under it, and depleted levels of ozone are of such concern in Australia that reports on stratospheric ozone levels are delivered with the nightly news.

Antarctica and Australia are a long way from North America. But the ozone shield is unlike other shields in that it is made of air, and air can move. We must imagine a roof with a wandering leak.

Last week, in a Times report by Maura Dolan, F. Sherwood Rowland, a UC Irvine chemist, said: “Where it goes depends on the meteorology of each year. You won’t know until it happens whether the air with low ozone goes up through the Pacific and not over inhabited places or whether it goes up over Australia or South America or Africa.”

The ozone shield depletion, which brings with it skin cancers among other woes, is not just a serious and worsening problem. It is also a strange and complex problem, a problem literally unique in human history. Grasping its dimensions is not easy. Teaching others to do so is even harder. Mr. Ozone, the class is waiting.