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S u m m e r '93

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The Ozone Confusionists:

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C o //No S w ea t N ew s

Next Page:

from fringe to mainstream ____ . . .

the BigLies

Rogelio Maduro
A follower of Lyndon LaRouchc, his
book. Holes in the Ozone Scare: the Scien­
tific Evidence that the Sky Isn't Falling,
docs what Dr. Sherwood Rowland calls, “a
good job of collecting all of the bad papers
(in the field) in one place."

Confusionist
Inbreeding
Q y

Dixy Lee Ray

Fred Singer
His organization, the Science and Envi­
ronment Policy Project, was launched with
funding from the Reverend Sun Myung
Moon's financial empire. He was among
the first Confusionists to rise to prominence.

How the
LaRouchies Went
Mainstream with the
O zone ‘H oax ”
The arguments and ideas o f Rogelio
M ad u ro regarding ozone depletion have
managed to ooze into the American
mainstream in (he last year or so.
Maduro, a conspiracy-minded asso­
ciate editor with the "technology is God"
LaRouchietabloid, 21st Century, be­
lieves that the entire ozone depletion
crisis is an enormous scientific hoax.
Who cares? No one should really, but
Maduro has managed to pull together
enough plausible sounding arguments,
stated with such certainty, that a number
of influential people have taken up his
battle cry.
How did this happen? Here we trace
some o f the pathways o f deception.
Dixy Lee R ay relied exclusively on
information from M aduro and Fred
Singer for her ozone arguments. Per­
petually on the speaker's circuit, she
pumps her error-riddled book to counto f

0 ^b

m n /» ltA ro

In her book, Trashing the Planet, she
relics exclusively on two sources for her
discussion of ozone, Rogelio Maduro and
Fred Singer.

D.C. press conference for the coal in­
dustry. The Joltn Birch Society promi­
nently offers her book in th eir
conspiratorial m agazine, The New
American.
The Reverend Sun M yung Moon,
besides funding Fred Singer’s sum up at
SEPP, owns The Washington Times,
which publishes a steady stream of ar­
ticles and ed ito rials from ozone
Confusionists into our nation's capitol.
A recent editorial saluted a “growing
chorus dismissing alarmist cries ofozone
depletion.”
National syndicated columnists, such
as George Will and Alston Chase, have
picked up on Maduro’s arguments for
columns attacking environmentalists.
N o velist J im H o g a n relics on
M adura’s book for a feature article on
the ozone ‘hoax' in lire June 1993 issue
of Omni, a science-fiction magazine
that reaches one million readers.
Inspired by M adura’s writings, re­
tired autoair-conditionerrepainuan, Bob
Holzknccht, has spent $50,000 of his
own savings to “debunk the ozone
theory,” he says. “It's on my mind most
o f my waking hours.” He has formed
The Ozone Truth Squad, networking

Rush Limbaugh
Relics exclusively on Dixy Lee
book lor his discussing of die ozone '
in his bestselling book, The Way
Ought to He.
He claims to have been booked on 20
radio shows in one month recently and
last year was granted a feature editorial
in USA Today.
Armed with Ray’s book as his sole
source o f ozone information, Rush
Lim baugh reaches die widest audience
of all. His daily radio show reportedly
has an audience of some 15 million. His
book may soon become the bestselling
"non-fiction" hardback of all time. He
even has liis own syndicated television
talk show. Apparently, he’s ttlso a draw
on the speaker's circuit. A group of
students at liny Shoreline Com munity
College have wrestled loose $30,000 in
student fees to pay Limbaugh for the
honor of his presence, talking, live and
in the flesh.
Limbaugh, an intellectual giant, suc­
cinctly summarizes the state-of-the-art
knowledge of atmospheric chemistry
and dynamics, built upon literally thou­
sands of research papers by hundreds of
scientists, as “poppycock”. He classi­
fies scientists and activists that advocate
o zo n e
lay er
p ro te c tio n
as,
“dunderheaded alarmists and prophets
of doom”. (Editor: well, Rush, you're a
fork-tongued, blubber-brained manipu­
lator o f the mentally weak - sn thrre'\

 Summer '93

No Sw eat News

Confusionist Recants:
Says Key Claims of Maduro are “completely false”
Perhaps hoping to retain a small mea­
sure o f credibility in the scientific com ­
munity, Dr. S. Fred Singer, a leading
Confusionist on both ozone and greenhouseeffect issues, recently broke ranks
with his long-time allies. Interviewed
by Science, the journal of the American
Association for the Advancement of
S cience, S in g er distanced h im self
sharply from a primary tenet of Rogelio
M aduro’s influential book.
M aduro argues that natural sources of
chlorine (the ocean, volcanoes) far
outshadow human-caused emissions in
influencing stratospheric chlorine lev­
els. Singer called these claims “ red her­
rings and completely false”. He told

S
Tracing the Giant Mt.
Augustine Blunder
In the last issue o f No Sweat News we
showed that Dixy Lee Ray, in her book
Trashing the Planet, overstated the chlo­
rine content o f the 1976 volcanic plume
from theM t. St. Augustine eruption by
1600-3600 tim es. T h an k s to Dr.
Sherwood Rowland (see “President's
Lecture" - Sources), we now know the
sordid truth of how she managed such
an extreme error.
It all began with a 1980 paper by
David Johnston, published in Science.
In it, Johnston estimated that Augustine
sent up 82,000 to 175,000 tons o f hydro­
gen chloride (HC1 )into the stratosphere.
According to Rowland, this estimate
was discredited because “no actual evi­
dence was presented in this Science
paper to show that any hydrogen chlo­
ride had really reached the stratosphere
in this volcano - it was just a hypothesis
based on ashfall data.”
This didn't stop Johnston from further
speculating that an eruption 700,000
years ago, the Bishop T uff volcano in
Long Valley Caldero, California “may
have injected 289 million tons of HC1
into the stratosphere, equivalent to about
570 times the 1975 world industrial
productionofchloinein fluorocarbons."

Science that he is "now reasonably con­
vinced that CFCs make the major con­
tribution to stratospheric chlorine”.
By contrast. Singer wrote in National
Review in 1989 that “Evidence is firm­
ing up that volcanoes....contribute sub­
stantially to stratospheric chlorine.” As
late as August 1992, Singer appeared at
a press conference with Rep. William
Dannemeyer(R-CA) calling for a presi­
dential commission to investigate the
ozone ‘hoax'. Dannemeyer’s opening
statement reiterated Maduro's argument
that "natural sources of chlorine con­
tribute more than 600 million tons”,
while Singer went on to argue that "the
scientific disagreements arc quite seri­

ous” as to the existence of the “ozone
hole” in Antarctica.
And on May 6th o f this year, the
executive vice president o f Singer’s
group (SEPP), Candice Crandall, pub­
lished a letter-to-the-editor i n The Wash­
ington Times, the influential Moonie
daily, attacking U.S. Vice President A1
G ore
for
p ro m o tin g
“ scary
and....completely false stories related to
the ozone-depletion issue."
Singerapparentlyfeelsaneedtom ain-,
tain credibility with and access to the
scientific community, but his extensive
roots as an outspoken Confusionist will
be hard to cover up.

m m a
Johnston's speculation about Bishop
Tuff700,000yearsago was far-fetched.
There was virtually no experimental
information about the eruption, “with
none at all about its chlorine content,”
according to Rowland.
N early a decade later, Rogelio
M aduro reported this wild speculation
as fact.
Dixy Lee Ray went a step further, by
applying Johnston’s 289 million ton
figure for the volcano of 700.000 years
ago to the 1976 eruption of Mi. Augus­
tine volcano, an eruption hundreds of
times smaller!!
Rush Lim baugh, who worships Dixy
Lee Ray's book ("the most documented,
footnoted book I have ever read," he
writes), perhaps has done the most to
carry the Confusion to the masses, lie
recycles her volcanic blunder regularly.
So here's how Confusion went main­
stream: Johnston speculated wildly,
Maduro reported it as fact, and Dixy
transposed one volcano for another and
— voila! We get completely false con­
clusions drawn from an enormously in­
flated claim that is now pemieating
through popular culture even as you sit
and read this.

Why Chlorine in Volcanic
Plumes Doesn't Affect Ozone
Most of the chlorine emitted in a volcanic
plume docs not reach the stratosphere, some
30.000 feet above us. Only chlorine that
reaches the stratosphere destroys the ozone
layer.
The reason most of the chlorine (emitted
as HC1) does not reach the stratosphere, is
that it is dissolved in condensing water.
According to A. Tabazadch and R.P. Turco
(see Sources), volcanic plumes contain about
1.000 times more water than MCI. As the
plume rises, it cools, causing water to con­
dense into a liquid state. HC1 is then easily
“scavenged" by liquid water.
Scientists have observed that even with
major explosive eruptions, stratospheric
chlorine levels are not radically altered. The
19X2 eniption of El Chichon in Mexico, for
instance, increased the stratospheric chlo­
rine load by 10%. That's significant, but
matched by the chlorine buildup caused by
CFCs o verjust 2 years ( prior to the Montreal
Protocol phasing out CFCs).
Furthermore, chlorine in the stratosphere
is now 6 times its natural abundance (Na­
ture. v362,p599). The increase docs not
parallel any increase in volcanic activity,
ruling out volcanoes as the cause. Rather,
chlorine has increased steadily, in sync with
worldwide CFC production.

U

 .. . .
'

Summer "93

Sw eat N ew s
i & S --------— ■
— “M o th e r N a tu r e is th e w o r s t p o llu te r ." Rogclio M aduro

‘T h e c o m b in a tio n o f s o m e b u t n o t e n o u g h in te llig e n c e , p lu s c o n s id e r a b le a m o u n ts o f b o th ig n o ra n c e
a n d a r r o g a n c e , c a n e a s ily l e a d to b e in g b a d ly w r o n g in f u l l v o ic e a n d , w o rse yet,
w ith a c o n s id e r a b le f o l l o w i n g . D r. Sherwood Rowland
!
Confusionist arguments have three
common characteristics. One, they as­
sert that the Earth's natural processes are
so huge that humans can't possibly af­
fect them. Two, they sound plausible.
Three, upon closer inspection, they're
usually completely bogus.

Below, we provide two examples
which should be sufficient to help you
strike back whenever such distortions
pop up. Confusionists arc emboldened
by oursilence, and are fellow citizens are
left confused about an issue of para­
mount importance.

When you encounter a Confusionist
arguments, take it as an opportunity to
expose a bad con. Letters-to-the-editor,
opwxi forums, radio call-in shows - use
every means available. Confusion will
spread unless we confront it.

The Ozone Confusionists:

Volcanic Falsehoods Spew Forth
The Mount Erebus Red
Herring

surrou nds us. The stratosphere is roughly
30.000 to 150,000 feet above us, the
zone outside the weather zone.
Theozonclaycrisindicstratosphcrc.

“All by itself, Mt. Erebus (in Antarc­
tica), pumps 50 times more chlori ne i nto
the atmosphere annually than does an
entire year's production o f CFCs,” says
Rogclio M a d u ro in his book, Holes in
the Ozone Scare.
Excellent point, eh? Humans must be
too insignificant to affect the ozone layer.
Maduro uses the Erebus example again
and again to make this point.
The first step in deciphering this con­
fusion is to differentiate between the
atm osphere and the strato sp h ere. A t­
mosphere is the general word for the 30mile thick sea of gravity-bound air that

Maduro's claim is that Erebus emits
1.000 tons of chlorine a day, dwarfing
human emissions o f CFCs. Dixy Lee
Ray recycles this claim directly in her
book, Trashing the Piatiet.
Does the volcanic plum e from Erebus
in fa c t carry chlorine into the strato­
sphere as Maduro and Ray contend?
The Maduro-Ray figure for chlorine
emissions from Erebus' volcanic plume
is greatly exaggerated. Philip Kyle, who
co-authored the 1985 paper dial Maduro
cites for his figure, now reports dial the
1.000 ton per day figure is 23 times

Credentials

greater than actually emissions.
Furthermore, although Mt. Erebus
stands 14,000 feet high, it is still several
kilometers below die base of the siratosphereabovc Antarctica. To inject chlo­
rine into die stratosphere it would have
to erupt explosively, which it does not.
NAS A’s Richard Stolarski says, "The
highest they've ever seen the plume rise
(from Erebus) is half a kilometer above
the mountain. M ostof the time it doesn’t
even make it that far, it’s usually oozing
over die side.”
Maduro has delved into the subject
enough to know that what is emitted to
die atmosphere docs not necessarily
reach die stratosphere where the ozone
layer is located. One can only conclude
he is intentionally misleading readers
and not simply ignorant of die falsity of
his Mt. Erebus claims.

Rowland:
1992 President of the American Associauon for the Advancement of Science; published over
300articles on atmospheric chemistry and radiochemistry in scientific journals; PhD and Doc.
of Science; member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Chemical
Society; fellow of the American Geophysical Union and the American Physical Society.

Maduro:
Bachelor of Science in geology; associate editor of 21st Century Science and Technology, a
publication from supporters of Lyndon LaRouchc.

Ray:
One-term governor of the state of Washington; former head of the Atomic Energy Commis­
sion; PhD in zoology (ed. note: perhaps it was "atmospheric zoology"!)

Limbnugh:
Grew up in a large family of "staunch Republican lawyers."

V__________________________ __ __________________________
10

Sources:
"President's Lecture: The Needfo r Sci­
entific Communication with the Public." F.
Sherwood Rowland, Science, June 11.1993,
v260, p i 571-1576.
"Stratospheric Chlorine Injection by
Volcanic Eruptions. " A. Tabazadeh and
R.P. Turco, Science , May 21, 1993. v260,
p 1082-1085.
"The Ozone Backlash." Gary Taubes.
Science. June 11. 1993. v260. p i 580-1583.

 y to A /V y .

y o v A im M y AA V O . ^ 1 / t A ] l < \ 3

Letters to the Editor

Ozone. CFCs and Science Fiction

the
prol
cow

In your Feb. 17 Environment item "Mis­ Earth’s surface correlating to the release
conceptions on CFCs Prove Hard to Root of CFCs, we may be sure that the alarmists
Out," you repeat the most cpmmdn mis- , would be touting, these figures for maxi­
conception, of all about chlorofluorocarmum benefit to thblr political cause. But
what, in fact, do the zealots report? Ozone
bons: "They deplete the Earth's ozone
layer." It is theoretically possible for CFCs r concentrations in the pfllar regions at the
end of polar win ters. But of course we could
to. destroy ozone in the stratosphere, but
there has never been any scientifically expect lowered ozone concentrations dur­
valid proof that they do. In fact, from i n g the polar winters because there is‘ little
1985 to 1991, the ozone layer, density (as - or no UV radiation there to create ozone.
More recently, NASA went public with
measured by the TOMS experiment on the
Nimbos 7 satellite) actually, increased in reports of “increased'.’.chlorine monoxide
i
'
• \ : ; concentrations over Kennebunkport as evi­
thickness.
There are major, unanswered ques: dence of CFC damage to the atmosphere. It
gives new meaning to the phrase “science
tions about CFCs and the ozone layer.
Since CFCs are heavier than air, how do fiction.”-To ensure continuing appropria­
tions for CFC ozone research costing, we
they get into the stratosphere in quantities
large enough to cause ozone, depletion? - may speculate, upward of $100 million a
year, NASA has engaged in a disgraceful
Why did the ozone “hole" (which is not a
public deception. hole at all) develop over Antarctica when
R obert W. Clack
most of the CFCs are used in the Northern
River Ranch, Fla.
Hemisphere? And, finally, if CFCs are
(The writer is a retired nuclear engi­
responsible for the destruction of the ozone
neer.)
layer, why has their presence never been
detected in the stratosphere?
This is not an academic matter. The
next time your car develops a leak in the
air-conditioning system, recharging with
the new refrigerant gas R-134a will cost
It is probably pointless to argue with
you $400 to $500, as opposed to the Freon
you about my “Ethical Standing” (Review
recharging cost of $25 to $50. The costs of & Outlook, March 12), but it is stunning to
changing over refrigeration systems to the
me that you would so misrepresent the
new gases will cost an estimated $40 billion
facts you cite as the basis for your conclu­
to $100 billion each year for the foreseeable
sion.
future.
Never did I make reference to the
And all because of environmental non­ gender or race of the Federal Reserve
sense.
members who testified before the Senate
R.S. B ennett
Banking Committee, as the transcript will
Executive Director
show. My comments were to the point that
Society for Environmental Truth
I wanted to hear what they had to say and
Tucson, Ariz.
not be subjected to partisan political
*
*
*
speeches from committee members. Sen.
You write: “ . . . close to half of all the
Donald Riegle (D., Mich.) has done a great
people surveyed didn’t know how chloro- job in affording new members with an
fluorocarbons affect the environment. (An­ opportunity to hear from the bankers and
swer: They deplete the Earth’s ozone
regulators who are confronted with the
layer.)" What irony! The reality is that no day-to-day realities of the system. To call it
one knows, whether surveyed or not, how a “staged" event disparages efforts to do
CFCs affect the environment. The general
the right thing.
public, including apparently The Wall
You also referred to several events that
Street Journal, has been conned in an
were personally painful to me, and that
environmental scam of dramatic propor­ threatened to sully a reputation for reform
tions. Although a detailed rebuttal of the
that I have built in my 20 years in public
Rowland hypothesis is too involved to
service. However, you should tell the whole
recite here, we can summarize the argu­ story, and not just part of it, in your
ment as follows: (1) If free chlorine in the
implied condemnation of my record.
stratosphere is essential to the Rowland
The state of Illinois has closed the case
theory, it fails because natural chlorine
concerning my mother and, in so doing,
sources far outweigh CFC sources of chlo­ exonerated both my mother and me of any
rine; (2) If there were any direct evidence
wrongdoing: “The Department did nut
of increasing ultraviolet (UV) flux at the
believe that any referral of the matter for
Uraun was warranted or appropriate."
"•ople who were hired, and then fired.
-nra«r's office in Chicago have all
•-n-:«piv because they

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 INEWS & COMMENT

The Ozone Backlash
W hile evidence for the role of chlorofluorocarbons in ozone depletion grows stronger, researchers have
recently been subjected to vocal public criticism of their theories-and their motives

L a s t June, Mario Molina, an atmospheric
chemist at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, was scheduled to give a 30minute presentation on ozone depletion at a
scientific forum preceding the environmen­
tal summit in Rio de Janeiro. Molina had
been at the forefront of ozone research since
1973, when he and chem ist Sherwood
Rowland of the University of California,
Irvine, first put forward the theory that chlo­
rofluorocarbons (CFCs) would break down
in the stratosphere, releasing chlorine that in
turn would destroy ozone molecules. None­
theless, Molina was less than prepared for the
talk that preceded his. A Brazilian meteorol­
ogist explained to the assembled scientists
that the ozone depletion theory is a sham. So
much chlorine is gening into the stratosphere
from sea salt, volcanoes, and burning bio­
mass, he said, that CFCs couldn’t possibly
have a noticeable effect on the ozone layer.
Molina was stunned. The meteorologist’s
arguments had been debated over the years
by the scientific community, he says, and had
been tested and found simply to be wrong.
Nonetheless, says Molina, "it became clear
to me that I was not going to be able to
teach the audience in a half-hour presen­
tation enough about the atmosphere to
rebut what this fellow was saying in his
half-hour. Given enough time 1 could have
carefully rebutted his objections. They
sounded reasonable, but they were only
pseudoscientific."
Molina’s experience has become a
familiar one recently to researchers
working on ozone depletion. Their un­
derstanding of the mechanisms of ozone
destruction— especially the annual ozone
hole that appears in the Antarctic—has
grown stronger, yet everywhere they go
these days, they seem to be confronted bycritics attacking their theories as baseless.
For instance, Rush Limbaugh, the conserva­
tive political talk-show host and now-best­
selling author of The Way Things Ought to Be,
regularly insists that the theory of ozone deple­
tion by CFCs is a hoax: “balderdash” and
“poppycock." Zoologist Dixy Lee Ray, former
governor of the state of Washington and
former head of the Atomic Energy Commis­
sion, makes the same argument in her book,
Trashing the Planet. The Wall Street Journal
and National Review have run commentaries
by S. Fted Singer, a former chief scientist for
the Department of Transportation, pur1580

porting to shoot holes in the theory of ozone
depletion. Even the June issue of Omni, a
magazine with a circulation of more than 1
million that publishes a mixture of science
and science fiction, printed a feature article
claiming to expose ozone research as a polit­
ically motivated scam. •
These jabs may not have been sufficient
to knock the world’s leading atmospheric re­
searchers off balance. But they have recently
been hit with a flurry of new blows, as the
critics have seized upon revisionist articles in
the mainstream press to contend that the
scientific community is retreating on the
CFC-ozone connection. A recent Washing­
ton Post front-page article, for example, noted
that, with the Montreal Protocol limiting
global production of CFCs, “the problem
appears to be heading toward solution before
[researchers] can find any solid evidence that
serious harm was or is being done." The oth­
erwise balanced article played this point of
view against what Post reporter Boyce

Chain reaction.
Arguments detailed in
The Holes In the Ozone Scare
were cited in Trashing the Planet.
which in turn (ormed the basis lor Rush
Limbaugh's attacks on ozone orthodoxy.
The same arguments were also cited in a
petition circulated around the scientific
community.

SCIENCE • VOL. 260 • 11 JUNE 1993

Rensberger called "a decade of headlines and
hand-wringing about erosion of the Earth's
protective ozone layer." That was enough for
The Washington Times, a conservative news­
paper owned by Sun Myung Moon, to de­
clare that the Post, Science, and other leading
publications had joined “a growing chorus
dismissing alarmist cries of ozone depletion ”
Welcome back to the ozone wars, which
many scientists believed were long settled.
The backlash now being encountered by at­
mospheric researchers graphically demon­
strates the problems of doing research on a
politically charged issue when there are still
many scientific uncertainties. The gap be­
tween the present danger of ozone deple­
tion—little or none that can be attributed to
rising ultraviolet radiation at Earth’s surface
—and the possible danger in the future, had
not the Montreal Protocol been passed, pro­
vides plenty of room for a wide range of opin­
ions as to how much concern is warranted.
“The public tends to operate in one of two
modes,” says Harvard atmospheric chemist
Jim Anderson, “either there's ozone loss, a
hopeless disaster, and we panic and become
dysfunctional, or it’s no problem at
all because there's no massive ozone
loss. The truth, of course, is some­
where in between."
Atmospheric researchers have
been forced to walk a political tight­
rope: On the one hand are the dan­
gers of reporting the situation as po­
tentially disastrous and being called,
in Limbaugh’s words, “dunderhead
alarmists and prophets of doom” (see
box on p. 1581). On the other are the
dangers of presenting scientifically con­
servative scenarios and having their crit­
ics respond that there's no problem, and
thus no reason for either further concern
or further research.
Roots of the backlash
Limbaugh, by virtue of his various talk-shows
and his best-selling book, is the most visible
and outspoken critic of the ozone depletion
scenarios and the research community. He is
quick to blame the ozone “scam" on selfinterested scientists out to procure funding
for their unnecessary research. “They always
want more funding,” he writes, “and today
that means government funding. What could
be more natural than for the National Aero­
nautics and Space Administration (NASA),

 A Fateful Prediction
T o critics of ozone-depletion science, researchers and their allies
Senate quickly voted unanimously to accelerate the CFC phase­
in the press and government showed their true colors at a 3
out mandated by the Montreal Protocol, and the White House
February 1992 press conference. These critics were already con­
just as quickly went along with the speed-up.
T he predictions of drastic ozone loss did not pan out, how­
vinced that the scientific consensus, which holds that manmade
chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are eroding the ozone layer, was
ever. In April, NASA reported that the extreme cold in the
based more on politics than science (see main text). The failure of
Arctic required for ozone depletion didn’t last; a sudden warming
spell hit the Arctic in late January, causing ozone depletion to
the dire predictions aired at the press conference only sealed their
bottom out at only 10%.
conviction that atmospheric researchers are pursuing their own
The result was a slew of editorials and articles questioning the
hidden agendas. For the researchers themselves, however, the
motives of the researchers, NASA officials, politicians, and the
event and its aftermath simply reflect the difficulties of making
press. “Money, in part, may explain NASA’s rush to get the ‘evi­
public pronouncements in areas where the science is uncertain.
dence’of a likely ozone hole out 2 months before the arctic research
The-press conference was held by members of the Airborne
project closed,” said The Washington Times, for example. TalkArctic Stratospheric Expedition and researchers working with
the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA)
show host Rush Limbaugh called the press conference a “scam.”
Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS), which had been
Anderson, for one, is convinced that NASA and the researchlaunched the previous September. Together, the high-altitude ■ers took the right course. “The discovery of the extremely high
airplane flights of the arctic expedition and the instruments aboard ' chlorine monoxide levels over the Arctic was, from a scientific
point of view, a very serious one. We felt it was a straightforward
UARS had detected unprecedented levels of chlorine and
aerosols, two prerequisites for ozone depletion, in the strato­
matter of releasing the information and discussing what we had
seen,” he said later.
sphere of the N orthern Hemisphere. As a result. Harvard atmo­
spheric chem ist Jim Anderson told reporters, “the probability
Although researchers had pointed out at the press conference
of significant ozone loss taking place in any given year is higher
that drastic ozone loss was by no means certain, these caveats
than we believed before." Worse, N A SA officials added, this
didn’t always come across in the press that followed, which is
was no longer the remote A ntarctic, but the atmosphere over
often the case with reporting of complicated scientific issues.
“very populated regions.”
“At the time of the press conference,” says Richard Stolarski of
The news conference sparked New York Times and Was Kington
NASA, “they qualified everything properly. But the tone that
Post editorials calling for accelerated phase-out of CFCs. Thencame across was that this was an unmitigated disaster and we’re
Senator A1 Gore made his memorable speech in Congress on the
all going to die, which in a sense just gives fuel to the Limbaughs,
“ozone hole over Kennebunkport.” The cover of Time declared
who think it’s all hogwash.”
-G .T .
“Vanishing Ozone: The Danger Moves Closer to Home." The

with the space program winding down, to say
that because we have this unusual amount of
chlorine in the atmosphere we need funding?
Obviously, we have to research this. But first
we have to ‘inform’ the public."
Limbaugh gets his facts, he says in his
book, from Ray’s Trashing the Planet, which
he calls “the most footnoted, documented
book" he has ever read. Ray cites w o other
authors for most of her inform ation on
ozone depletion: Fred Singer and Rogelio
Maduro. Maduro has a bachelor of science
degree in geology and is an associate editor
of 21st Century Science & Technology, a maga zine published by supporters of Lyndon
LaRouche, an extremist politician currently
serving 15 years in jail for conspiracy to evade
taxes. Maduro is also co-author with Ralf
Schauerhammer, a German writer, of The
Holes in the Ozone Scare: The Scientific Evi­
dence That the Sky Isn't Falling, which is also
published by 21st Century.
Maduro and Schauerhammer discuss at
great length the source of chlorine in the
stratosphere, arguing that natural sources
dwarf any contributions from CFCs. As
Limbaugh translates their case, the argument
against the ozone depletion scenarios is
simple: In one eruption, he says. Mount
Pinatubo spewed forth “more than a thou­

sand times the amount of ozone-depleting
chemicals...than all the fluorocarbons man­
ufactured by wicked, diabolical, and insensi­
tive corporations in history." And the result
was at best a minor depletion of ozone.
Meanwhile, volcanoes have been spewing
chlorine for billions of years, and yet the
ozone is still there “in sufficient quantities to
protect Democrats and environmentalist
wackos alike from skin cancer.” Atmospher­
ic scientists counter that these claims have
been intensively studied and found wanting
(see sidebar on page 1582).
Although it’s not common for a LaRouche
publication to have an impact in mainstream
thought, Maduro’s arguments have not only
percolated from Ray to Limbaugh, but are
also the basis of much of the information in
the Omni article, its author, novelist Jim
Hogan, told Science. In addition, 21st Cen­
tury has circulated a petition around the sci­
entific community citing Maduro’s arguments
and calling for the repeal of the Montreal
Protocol. Among the dozen American re­
searchers who have signed it are Derek Barton,
a Nobel Prize-winning chemist at Texas
A&M, and Petr Beckmann, a professor emeri­
tus at the University of Colorado. Barton
told Science that he signed because he’s “one
of these people who are opposed to getting
SCIENCE • VOL. 260 • 11 JUNE 1993

scared about imaginary problems. 1 think the
ozone hole and global heating are nonsense."
Beckmann, who edits a newsletter called
Access to Energy, told Science that he also got
much of his information fiom Maduro’s writ­
ings, describing them as “some very good
material published, unfortunately, by not very
reliable people.”
Many of the atmospheric researchers in­
terviewed by Science have read pans of Holes
in the Ozone Scare. They often say they can
see how readers who are not experts in the
field might find the arguments compelling.
“Pan of the strategy in this backlash," says
Anderson, “is to try to entrain apparently
responsible scientists who clearly don’t un­
derstand the problem and have not gone
over the data before they’ve commented."
And indeed, one National Science Founda­
tion official commented, “I read that book,
and found it made a lot of sense."
Those who are directly involved in the re­
search. on the other hand, describe the work
as based on a selective use of out-of-date sci­
entific papers, and an equally discretionary
choice of scientific results, often taken out of
context. The end result may seem commonsensical, these researchers say, but along the
way it loses touch with science. Retiring
AAAS President Sherwood Rowland, who
1 S81

 -t aTIL — IWf 1rJU7JtVf v’VTi

Stratospheric Chlorine: Blaming It on Nature

*

M u c h of the bitter public debate over ozone depletion has centhe stratosphere, Crutzen says; satellite data reveal that only 20%
tered on the claim that chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) pale into
of the chlorine in the stratosphere is bound up in methylchlorinsignificance alongside natural sources of chlorine in the stratoide. W hat’s more, says Jurgen Lobert of the National Oceanic and
sphere. If so, goes the argument, chlorine could not be depleting
Atmospheric Administration, who has worked with Crutzen, the
ozone as atmospheric scientists claim, because the natural sources most accurate estimates of global biomass burning today suggest
have been around since time immemorial, and the ozone layer
that this source can account for only one-fourth of the total
is still there.
methylchloride in the stratosphere, or 5% of the total chlorine
The claim, put forward in a book by Rogelio Maduro and R a l f b u d g e t . “Very significant,” Lobert says, but not as significant as
Schauerhammer, has since been touted by former Atomic Energy
chlorine from CFCs.
Commissioner Dixy Lee Ray and talk-show host Rush Limbaugh,
Even if seawater and biomass don’t hold up as major sources of
and it forms the basis of much of the backlash now being felt by stratospheric chlorine, Limbaugh, Ray, Maduro, and Schaueratmospheric scientists (see main text). The argument is simple: hammer point to a source that they believe is sufficient on its
Maduro and Schauerhammer calculate that 600 million tons of own to render CFGs irrelevant: volcanoes in general, and Mount
chlorine enters the atmosphere annually from seawater, 36tnil- ^Erebus— a volcano in Antarctica that has been erupting conlion tons from volcanoes, 8.4 million tons from biomass burning, * stantly since 1973— in particular.
and 5 million tons from ocean biota. In contrast, CFCs account
The volcano theory begins with a 1980 Science paper by the
for a mere 750,000 tons of atmospheric chlorine a year. Besides late David Johnston, a volcanologist with the U.S. Geological
disputing the numbers, scientists have both theoretical and obser- Survey. Johnston estimated the chlorine emitted by a 1976
vational bases for doubting that much of this chlorine is getting eruption of Mount Augustine in Alaska, and concluded that it
into the stratosphere, where it could affect the ozone layer.
pumped 175,000 tons of hydrogen chloride (HC1) into the stratLinwood Callis of the N ational Aeronautics and Space osphere. Johnston then suggested that the “eruption of the BishAdministration’s (NASA) Langley Research Center points out
op Tuff from Long Valley Caldera, California, 700,000 years
one crucial problem with the argument: Chlorine from natural
ago...may have injected 289 million tons of HC1 into the strato­
sources is soluble, and so it gets rained out of the lower atmo­
sphere, equivalent to about 570 times the 1975 world industrial
sphere. CFCs, in contrast, are insoluble and inert and thus make
production,of chlorine in fluorocarbons."
it to the stratosphere to release their chlorine. W hat’s more,
In her book Trushing the Planet, Ray takes this speculation and
observations of stratospheric chemistry don’t support the idea
incorrectly attributes Johnston's numbers for the gargantuan
that natural sources are contributing much to the chlorine there.
Bishop Tuff volcano to the 1976 Mount St. Augustine eruption,
If sea sal t were making it up to the stratosphere, argues Richard
and Limbaugh picks up on Ray’s misstatement and goes further,
Turco, an atmospheric chemist at the University of California,
applying similar numbers to the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo.
Los Angeles, then there should be evidence of sodium from the
As for Mt. Erebus, Maduro and Schauerhammer cite a 1985
salt in the lower stratosphere. “It’s just not there,” says Turco.
Nature paper by William Rose of Michigan Technological U ni­
versity and his colleagues estimating that Erebus emits more than
Chlorine from biomass burning should also have a distinctive
1000 tons of chlorine a day. “In short,” write Maduro and
signature: the chlorine-containing compound methylchloride.
Schauerhammer, “the chlorine measured in Antarctica should be
Maduro and Schauerhammer quote a 1979 Nature article by
no mystery. Mt. Erebus is constantly blowing out a huge cloud of
atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen and his colleagues, estimating
that biomass burning releases at least 420,000 metric tons of
chlorine and other volcanic gases."
chlorine a year in the form of methylchloride; then they multi­
Atmospheric researchers counter that Erebus, although
ply that figure by 20 bastd on much higher estimates of biomass
14,000 feet high, is still several kilometers below the base of the
burning than Crutzen used. But that chlorine isn’t making it to
stratosphere in Antarctica. And Erebus does not erupt explo-

devoted pan of his address to the AAAS an­
nual meeting to the ozone backlash (see page
1571), for instance, calls the book “a good job
of collecting all of the bad papers (in the field)
in one place.” Maduro responds that scientists
like Rowland and his colleagues “have sys­
tematically ignored all the massive research
which debunks elements of their theory."
Even Fred Singer, whose writings are cited
by Ray, takes issue w ith M aduro and
Schaucrhammer’s arguments about natural
sources of chlorine, calling them “red her­
rings and completely false.” Singer believes
that the overall ozone depletion theory is
still riddled with uncertainty but he describes
himself as “somewhere in the middle" in the
controversy. Many of the atmospheric re­
searchers interviewed by Science say that he
makes an effort to understand the data and
speak to the scientists involved. Singer says
1582

he, too, once believed that natural sources of
stratospheric chlorine overwhelm any man­
made contribition, but the data have con­
vinced him that CFCs arc the major source.
Nevertheless, researchers who try to de­
bate the critics quickly find themselves in a
no-win situation. The reason: Maduro and
Limbaugh say the researchers are pan of what
is in essence a massive conspiracy to ignore
or bury any findings at odds with the ac­
cepted theory. In their book, Maduro and
Schauerhammer, for example, accuse the pro­
ponents of the ozone depletion theory of hav­
ing “deliberately obfuscated the facts about
ozone research” and add that these research­
ers are now “in top posts with command power
over scientific journals and associations and,
ultimately, public opinion." That the great
majority of atmospheric researchers agree on
the basic findings of ozone depletion by CFCs
SCIENCE • VOL. 260 • 11 JUNE 1993

is only considered evidence of how wide­
spread is the conspiracy. Says Maduro: “What
1 am most concerned with is that scientists
who have been presenting an opposing view
have a public forum, the ability to present
their work to the public.”
The remaining questions
In such a polarized and political environ­
ment, researchers say it is difficult at best to
do science and make sensible public policy
recommendations. Stephen Schneider, an
atmospheric modeler at Stanford University,
describes the problem as being "caught be­
tween the exaggerations of the advocates,
the exploitations of political interests, the
media’s penchant to turn everything into a
boxing match, and your own colleagues say­
ing we should be above this dirty business
and stick to the bench.”

-

 new s

& Com ME!S

k

stratosphere by just 2 years. Similar measurements were
attempted after Mount Pinatubo erupted in April 1991,
but according to Mankin, the nature of the cloud from
Pinatubo made the measurements more difficult than
those from El C hichdn: Nonetheless, he says, Pinatubo
appeared to have emitted an amount of HC1, “perhaps
less than, perhaps comparable to, El Chichon.”
. For the global picture, atmospheric researchers
4: point to measurements from the ATMOS instrument,
which flew on the space shuttle in 1985. The instrument
precisely determined the total chlorine budget in the
stratosphere by making measurements of 30 molecular
signatures, including the major CFCs, as well as their
sinks and sources. According to Curtis Rinsland of
Blowing sm oke? Mount Erebus has been blamed as the source of chlorine for NASA Langley, the measurements showed that chlo­
rine is bound up in CFCs at lower levels of the strato­
the Antarctic ozone hole; atmospheric scientists say the claim is groundless.
sphere and in the predicted by-products of CFC break­
sively, which is a necessary condition to lift chlorine from volca­
down, HC1 and hydrogen fluoride (HF), at higher levels— just as
noes into the stratosphere. “The highest they’ve ever seen the
the ozone theory predicts.
plume rise [from Erebus],” says N A SA ’s Rich Stolarski, “is half a
Further studies done from the Kitt Peak Observatory, by
kilometer above the mountain. Most of the time it doesn’t even
Rinsland and his colleagues, and from a base in the Swiss Alps by
' make it that far, it’s usually oozing over the side.” W hat’s more,
Rodolphe Zander, an atmospheric physicist with the University
Philip Kyle, a co-author of the 1985 Nature paper, now reports
of Lifcge, and his colleagues, document the rise in HC1 and HF
that Erebus emits only 15,000 metric tons of chlorine per year,
over the past 20 years for Kitt Peak, and 40 years for the Swiss
only V2i what was originally reported.
station. Both show a steady atmospheric increase of the two mol­
Even Fred Singer, whose own skepticism about some aspects of
ecules, with HF rising at a consistently higher rate than HC1.
the ozone depletion theory has been cited by the critics to bolster
Whereas HC1 does have some natural sources, HF is produced
their case, refers to the argument over volcanoes as “polemics.”
almost entirely by photo-disassociation of CFCs. ‘W hen you mon­
The volcano issue, he says, “has to be decided on the basis of
itor the increase,” says Zander, “and see the ratio of HF and HC1
data.” And so far, expeditions that have brought back direct
have a kind of constancy, you can say that HC1 and fluorine in the
experimental data on volcanic emissions into the stratosphere
stratosphere are coming from the same source, namely the [CFCs].”
suggest that volcanoes play a relatively minor role.
Singer agrees now that Zander, Rinsland, and colleagues have
Bill Mankin and Michael Coffey, both of the National Center
done "a very careful job of tracing the amount of chlorine and
for Atmospheric Research; sampled emissions from El Chichdn
fluorine in the stratosphere." He adds that this seems to settle at
after its 1982 eruption. According to Mankin, they saw a “signifi­
least one point: “I’m now reasonably convinced,” Singer told
cant increase in HC1 [in the stratospheric cloud], roughly 40%
Science, “that CFCs make the major contribution to stratospheric
above the background level.” This represented a 10% increase in
chlorine, and what has convinced me is the published data." And
global stratospheric chlorine at a time when the stratospheric
that leaves the critics with little basis for claiming that the ozone
HC1 budget was increasing by 5% each year. Thus, says Mankin,
layer has long withstood high levels of chlorine without harm.
El Chich6n seems to have advanced chlorine buildup in the
-G .T .

W hat is perhaps most ironic, or frustrat­
ing, to the research community is that their
most vocal critics focus on the least uncer­
tain aspect of ozone depletion science. It is
well established, they note, that levels of
CFCs are increasing in the stratosphere and
that chlorine levels are rising in tandem.
And the evidence that the Antarctic ozone
hole is caused by chemical reactions, in which
chlorine plays a key role, is equally robust.
Yet atmospheric scientists freely admit
that, as a January 1993 review of the Depart­
ment of Energy’s (DOE) Atmospheric Chem ­
istry Program’s Ozone Project put it, current
understanding of global ozone behavior is
“fraught with uncertainty.” Among these
uncertainties are whether ozone depletion in
the Northern Hemisphere is due to natural
variation and changes in atmospheric circu­
lation, chlorine from CFCs, or some combi­

nation of both. Another crucial unknown is
whether ozone depletion has led to a measur­
able increase in the flux of ultraviolet light at
Earth’s surface. The only existing study, by
Joseph Scotto, then of the National Cancer
Institute, published in Science in 1988, showed
no increase in ultraviolet light in eight loca­
tions in the United States, and perhaps a
slight decrease. Scotto, however, used data
obtained from instruments that were not built
for measuring yearly trends.
W hat everyone seems to agree on is that
more research is needed. For now, what to do
is a question of scientific politics: What con­
stitutes enough certainty to require action
and regulation? The dilemma was aptly de­
scribed in the DOE's Ozone Project review.
“On the one hand, recent evaluations of strat­
ospheric and global tropospheric ozone trends
indicate substantial anthropogenic impacts
SCIENCE • VOL. 260 • 11 JUNE 1993

that, if allowed to continue, could result in
widespread and unacceptable damage. On
the other hand, current and proposed
remediation efforts have resulted and will
result in severe and potentially unaccept­
able, socioeconomic impacts.”
From there, opinions will naturally vary
on what action is necessary. Sihger, for in­
stance, argues that the Montreal Protocol
was passed prematurely, while the state of the
science was still far too uncertain and the
possible deleterious effects of ozone deple
tion unknown as well. Ari Patrinos, director
of the DOE program, like many of the re­
searchers Science spoke to, argues the oppo
site—for the necessity of taking action
“There’s only one atmosphere," says Patrinos, “and sometimes we have to be very con
servative in the actions we take ”
-G ary Taube<158'