Don't be so down. We have solved the ozone hole problem - it will take years to heal, but we emit very little ozone destroying things anymore. Last year my local utility generated more power from wind than there was demand. People do care and are making change. Change is slow to come, and even after it happens takes a long time to make a difference, but there are signs of change and the cause is being taken care of.

Don't take that too far: there is a lot of work to do. However we have a good idea what that work is we just need to apply it.

It's big again

https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/Coperni...

But still on track to shrink? From your source (thank you for the read):

> Claus concludes, “Based on the Montreal Protocol and the decrease of anthropogenic ozone-depleting substances, scientists currently predict that the global ozone layer will reach its normal state again by around 2050.”

There was a discussion about this on the front page the other day:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37949994

If I understand correctly then the ozone hole fluctuates with the seasons but on average it's still shrinking.

Ozone hole was "just" replacing one chemical with another and changing refrigerator units a bit; CO2 emissions are orders of magnitude bigger as near-everything related to industry or standards of living emits CO2 in direct or indirect way.

My utility generated electric power via wind last year than all customers combined used. Electric cars are obviously taking over. Those are very encouraging signs since a large portion of CO2 comes from electric or transport uses. There are other uses aw well to work on, and some challenges in those areas, but things are looking very good.

The comment you replied to suggested carbon credits. That seems like a pretty obviously good answer. We're bad at forcing people to make broad changes, but nudging with money like that is often effective.

The hope (and IMHO only reason) for geo-engineering approaches is that they can enable achieving a large effect with a much smaller political sacrifice than cutting people's consumption or preventing some countries from increasing their consumption to "first-world" levels, and at a smaller cost than that.

If someone finds a plausible way to reduce a major part of global greenhouse gases that costs merely, say, 10 or 100 billion, then that's something that a few major countries can do (and fund) unilaterally and doesn't need global consensus, unlike major emissions reductions which have the tragedy of commons problem where if you do that and other major emitters don't, then you've crippled your economy but haven't prevented any of the bad consequences.