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The Chlorine Atom That Ate a Hundred Thousand Ozone Molecules
A chlorine atom drifts to the stratosphere-decades later it can wreck ozone; what happens next when Freon keeps going up?
The Chlorine Atom That Ate a Hundred Thousand Ozone Molecules
In this episode, we follow the rise of chlorofluorocarbons from household refrigerants to stratospheric contaminants and the forty-three-year gap no one anticipated. What did scientists miss when they declared these chemicals "safe" at ground level?
Person: Thomas Midgley Jr.
Date: 1931
Event: First production of Freon (R-12)
Person: Mario Molina and F. Sherwood Rowland
Period: 43 years between 1931 and 1974
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