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Unf*cking The Republic

The Montreal Protocol: When we listened to science.

Unf*cking The Republic

UNFTR Media

Government, News, Politics

4.9683 Ratings

🗓️ 9 December 2023

⏱️ 20 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Topical cream, a pod listener's dream, unfucking the news and current events, topical cream.

0:13.8

Yeah, you know what I mean.

0:16.6

A quarter of an hour gets you our two cents topical cream.

0:27.6

In the newsletter this week, I wrote about the mock proceedings of COP28 in the UAE. A climate conference presided over by

0:40.1

the president of an oil and gas company already accused of hacking into conference organizers' emails

0:46.6

and leveraging said conference to set up sales opportunities for new oil and gas leases. If that wasn't

0:53.6

obvious and ridiculous enough, in a Q&A session,

0:57.1

the Sultan, that's the president of the company, lambasted the interviewer for suggesting

1:01.9

the world phase out fossil fuels, saying it would drive humanity back into caves.

1:07.6

In the past, global conferences have had a positive impact on the world in terms of

1:11.7

raising awareness and coordinating efforts between major industrialized nations to set future targets

1:17.1

for carbon reduction. Promises are made to hit certain benchmarks. Funds are set aside to facilitate

1:22.6

clean energy production in transitions in emerging markets and plans are made to build out resilient

1:27.8

infrastructure in low-lying areas of the world. Diplomats fly in on private jets from all over

1:33.1

the world, with parameters set forth from their governments as to how far they're allowed

1:37.0

to commit, and white papers are produced and promptly ignored as we sail into oblivion.

1:43.2

And last night, I watched part of the Republican side show debate,

1:46.5

Zanz the fascist frontrunner, and was treated to the closing statement from Vivek Ramoswamy,

1:51.7

who once again declared that the capstone initiative of his presidency would be the elimination

1:56.4

of all policies and agencies designed to prop up the climate agenda hoax.

2:03.2

This was met with applause.

2:08.3

Now forget the fact that primary debates are meant to be outrageous and that Ramalama Ding Dong has as much chance of sitting in the Oval offices, well, Chris Christie.

...

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