ABSTRACT
Increased rates of skin cancer are more likely due to changes in lifestyle (fair skinned people spending inordinate amounts of time in the sun), not ozone depletion.
But the book’s most important flaw may be that while Booth is quick to point to the dangers of ozone thinning, he doesn’t seem to realize that the abandonment of CFC production has its costs as well. More than just the chemical industry would suffer from CFC abatement. There is, for example, the unquantifiable but certain loss of life in less developed countries that would result if refrigeration technologies became more expensive and thus less accessible. And the chemicals that could substitute for CFCs in air conditioners are toxic and flammable. Failure to recognize such trade-offs is unforgivable in a book so dead set on ‘balance’.
