"Not the End of the World" is the title of a fine book by Hannah Ritchie. I particularly enjoyed the discussion of how countries fixed the ozone layer. So much so that I even borrowed the poorly reproduced graph of which I could not find on reverse image search. But I reinforced it with a colorful version which tells the same story. By the 1960s scientists began to understand the photochemistry of the upper atmosphere, the stratosphere where airliners fly. Paul Crutzen, Frank Rowland + Mario Molina later won the Nobel prize for their work in this space. Chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs were in refrigerators, freezers, air conditioners, aerosol sprays + industry. They spread evenly, even over Antarctica, + the breakdown of ozone proceeds faster at colder temperatures, so the infamous ozone hole was discovered there. The chairman of Dupont—the largest global manufacturer of CFCs—said the theory was 'a science fiction tale...a load of rubbish...utter nonsense.' and helped set up the so-called Alliance for Responsible CFC. But 43 countries signed the Montreal Protocol in 1987. By the turn of the millenium that ballooned to 174 parties. "In 2009, it became the first international convention—of any kind, not just environmental—to achieve universal ratification from every country in the world." If you find out you like this book, I would next recommend "After Cooling" by Eric Dean Wilson. And as a sensitive nerd, I won't even tell you about the book I'm reading now about the science + history of refrigeration. [Feel free to contact me if  you're really curious]. So I intended this story to serve as an oft-told tale of how all the world's countires came together to solve an environmental problem at the level of 99.7%. If what's been done is possible—then the multitudinous issues coupled together as climate change deserve the same thorough treatment. So, nerd out + get started.
