Date:         Thu, 10 Jun 1999 22:58:31 EDT
Reply-To:     KENWILFY@AOL.COM
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         KENWILFY@AOL.COM
Subject:      Who has the real skinny on R-12?
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

After spending way too much time reading EPA material about holes in the
ozone layer, I got to wondering about a couple things.
First of all how does R-12 (Freon as it used to be called) get tens of
thousands of feet up into the Stratosphere when it is heavier than air (you
always check for leaks under the fittings on a car because the stuff sinks
instead of rising)?

How does the EPA know that it takes over 100 years for R-12 to break down
when it has only been exsistence for a little over 70 years?

How do we know for sure that the hole in the ozone is getting larger when we
have only been observing it for a relatively short time (50 years or less)?
Couldn't it be cyclic getting bigger over a couple hundred years and then
shrinking again over another couple hundred?

Why is it taking so long to come up with a replacement for R-12 that is
satisfactory (EPA literature acknowledges that such a search is going on)
when it only took the folks who invented R-12 a couple of weeks to invent it
from scratch back in 1927?

Why don't we all just forget about airconditioning and cut the tops
completely off of our vans and make them convert-a-vans and drive around with
the wind whipping through our finite number of hairs? (obligatory Vanagon
content).

Just wondering...
Ken Wilford
Van-Again
John 3:16