stratosphere produce chlorine atoms. These Damaging gasses stay intact 10,000 feet up in the troposphere where these gases normally tend to lie and then slowly penetrate into the higher stratosphere. This high in the atmosphere ultraviolet light breaks the pollutants down to these chlorine atoms, which have a damaging effect. Chlorine atoms have a lifetime of about 20 to 100 years, but most are destroyed sooner than that. Estimations have been made that just one of these chlorine atoms can destroy up to 100,000 atoms of ozone. If we all stopped producing chemicals containing CFCs at this very moment, the ozone layer would rot away for years to come just because of the pollution already there. (Man-Made CFC's) The devastation that these gasses can cause is immeasurable. For it is these gasses that contribute to much of the greenhouse effect.Some greenhouse gasses are produced naturally. Largely Gasses like water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone, are gasses that the earth creates without the help of man. However man has produced other much more powerful gasses called HFCs. (EPA Global Warming) Carbon dioxide is released into the air when solid wastes, coal, oil, natural gas, and wood is burned. (EPA Global Warming) Plants and trees help rid the Earth of these pollutants by photosynthesis, a process in which they turn carbon dioxide into the clean oxygen we humans and animals need. Global deforestation on scales hard to imagine does not help this matter one bit. Solid waste and decay of organic matter release methane and nitrous oxide naturally. However methane is also emitted into the by the production and transportation of coal natural gas and oil. Both methane and nitrous oxide are also emitted into the atmosphere by the burning and decomposition of human waste and these fossil fuels. Infrared rays heat up methane 21 more times than they do carbon dioxide. Nitrous oxide 270 times the heat. (EPA Global Warming) S...
