There was a time when we listened to scientists. Believe it or not, it actually happened in the 1980s. Under Ronald Reagan. (Don’t get me wrong, he’s still a quasi-villain in this story.) When set against the backdrop of Cop28 being run by an oil and gas executive, that time we banned a whole bunch of products and chemicals in the 80s will make you wistful. When scientists discovered a hole in the ozone layer, the world came together to pass the Montreal Protocol and then something even more miraculous occurred: it worked. In 2017 scientists noticed that the hole had started to repair itself and was shrinking. Here’s the story of how it all came together.

Resources

The Guardian: Cop28 president says there is ‘no science’ behind demands for phase-out of fossil fuels

European Central Bank: A new age of energy inflation: climateflation, fossilflation and greenflation

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

Time: Reagan Administration Officials at First Dismissed the Ozone Hole. Here's What Changed

UNIDO: HCFC Phase Out

Los Angeles Times: Op-Ed: Reagan made a massive environmental mistake. Trump is repeating it, only worse

NOAA: 4 facts you might not know about ozone and the Montreal Protocol

Goldman Sachs Publishing: Lithium: The short trade must go on

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