Stratospheric ozone depletion

Solar ultraviolet radiation creates an ozone layer in the atmosphere which in turn completely absorbs the most energetic fraction of this radiation. This process both warms the air, creating the stratosphere between 15 and 50 km altitude, and protects the biological activities at the Earth's surface from this damaging radiation. In the last half-century, the chemical mechanisms operating within the ozone layer have been shown to include very efficient catalytic chain reactions involving the chemical species HO, HO(2), NO, NO(2), Cl and ClO. The NO(X) and ClO(X) chains involve the emission at Earth's surface of stable molecules in very low concentration (N(2)O, CCl(2)F(2), CCl(3)F, etc.) which wander in the atmosphere for as long as a century before absorbing ultraviolet radiation and decomposing to create NO and Cl in the middle of the stratospheric ozone layer. The growing emissions of synthetic chlorofluorocarbon molecules cause a significant diminution in the ozone content of the stratosphere, with the result that more solar ultraviolet-B radiation (290–320 nm wavelength) reaches the surface. This ozone loss occurs in the temperate zone latitudes in all seasons, and especially drastically since the early 1980s in the south polar springtime—the ‘Antarctic ozone hole’. The chemical reactions causing this ozone depletion are primarily based on atomic Cl and ClO, the product of its reaction with ozone. The further manufacture of chlorofluorocarbons has been banned by the 1992 revisions of the 1987 Montreal Protocol of the United Nations. Atmospheric measurements have confirmed that the Protocol has been very successful in reducing further emissions of these molecules. Recovery of the stratosphere to the ozone conditions of the 1950s will occur slowly over the rest of the twenty-first century because of the long lifetime of the precursor molecules

The MNCs' Role and Responsibility in Deforestation of Tropical Forests

Deforestation of tropical forests has significant ecological ramifications. The role played by the multinational corporations (MNCs) in this unprecedented modification of the environment may have foreboding consequences to all inhabitants of the globe. Cattle ranching in Central and South America has accounted for more than half of all deforestation in that region. This article examines the deforestation by MNCs in that part of the world and explores an interactive theoretical framework that can be used to analyze the complex web of political, social, and economic forces related to the phenomenon.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline

"THE GLOBAL-LOCAL NEXUS: NGOs AND THE ARTICULATION OF SCALE"

Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), such as Greenpeace, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Pax Christi, Oxfam and Amnesty International, have become effective political players at different governance levels: local, regional, national and international. In addition, they have contributed to the construction of multi-level governance practices as well as to a re-articulation of scale. They have done so, among others, by 'thinking globally, acting locally'; re-conceptualising local issues into global ones (and vice versa); bringing local interests to international negotiating tables; and building up 'glocalised' networks. In this paper, three cases to illustrate these claims will be presented: (a) the Biodiversity Convention; (b) the human rights regime; and (c) the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). As a general conclusion, the effects of these non-state, de-territorialised and 'glocalised' practices on the role and authority of the nation state will be (shortly) assessed. It will be claimed that we do not observe a 'general retreat of the state', but issue-specific re-definitions of its role and authority. Copyright (c) 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG.