No relation
Sir: I have just seen Andrew Kenny's inter- esting article on CFCs and the ozone layer ('The earth is fine; the problem is the greens', 12 March). He is quite right about the value of cheap refrigeration, though it would have been helpful to remind us that, properly used and reused, CFCs in refriger- ation plants need never go near the ozone layer.
However, I am afraid you have served Kenny very badly, and propagated a com- mon error, by preceding his piece by a line of guff linking it with global warming. In fact, the two scares are only very faintly related.
The 'greenhouse effect', the putative cause of global warming, mostly results from the doubling of carbon dioxide in the air which has occurred since the industrial revolution. This increase comes from burn- ing coal, oil and natural gas and has noth- ing to do with refrigeration or the other uses of CFCs. Changes to the ozone layer caused by CFCs may contribute at most a pane or two of glass to the greenhouse. One has to be the most scientifically illiter- ate and deranged environmentalist to be serious in linking ozone damage with the greenhouse effect, and I had always hoped that you were not.
Tom Owen 1 The Old Police Station,
19 Coldharbour, London E14
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