Look, I’m not nostalgic about the ’80s. Lots of things were wrong with the politics of the ’80s. But think about what happened here. The science was explained to ordinary people. They listened, they distinguished it from lies and conspiracy theories, and ordinary people banded together and pressured their politicians to act. And even quite unlikely politicians who were very hostile to government regulation, like Margaret Thatcher and George Bush Sr., came together. And as a result, the ozone layer is now healing. I feel absolutely confident that would not happen now if the ozone layer crisis happened.
I think you would get some people who would wear ozone layer badges, you would get other people who would film themselves spraying CFCs into the atmosphere to own the libs and make them cry. You would get people saying, “How do we even know the ozone layer exists? Maybe George Soros made the hole in the ozone layer.” We would become lost. We would not be able to summon the collective attention.
Sobering truth. Still giggling at “own the libs and make them cry” by spraying CFCs into the atmosphere lol. That would definitely happen.
The positive thing is that pressuring politicians and investing in elections and civic stuff, still works! We just need to be mostly together on topics.
And these days, that’s the most complicated thing.