Earth’s Protective Shield

has provided man with many items of extraordinary comfort. Air-conditioned houses, offices, and buildings are considered by many to be a necessary part of modern life. When air-conditioning was invented, it seemed wonderful, but current research has shown that both minus and plus are present. Modern air-conditioning uses a CFC-based system. CFC technology has emerged as a significant danger for man today. CFC stands for ‘chlorofluorocarbons,’ a chemical used to manufacture air-conditioned products. Factories that manufacture this chemical produce a byproduct called ‘chlorine monoxide,’ which is causing the depletion of the ozone layer, so much so that it has generated an enormous hole in the atmosphere through which the harmful ultraviolet rays from the sun have begun to fall on the Earth, posing a grave threat to humanity. Thus, research is being conducted on a large scale to discover an alternative material through which air-conditioners and other such products can be manufactured without producing this harmful chemical. Now, there are two models to consider here: the model of Nature, on the one hand, and the model of human industry, on the other. In the model of Nature, provision was made beforehand, in the form of the protective ozone layer, to prevent the sun’s harmful rays from reaching the Earth’s surface so that humanity could be protected from them. On the other hand, the human beings who run big airconditioning-related industrial empires could not know beforehand that their factories would seriously disturb the precious balance of Nature by damaging the ozone