Aardvark Daily

Please visit the sponsor!

Starlink will give you skin cancer?

Hands up anyone who remembers when CFCs flowed like water and having your airconditioning system recharged was cheap as beans.

Also hands up, all those who remember those highly effective BCF (Halon) fire extinguishers that could snuff out any fire in the blink of an eye, despite their tiny size and weight.

Well these days refrigerants are either extremely expensive or flammable, or both -- and BCF extinguishers are illegal except for very specific applications such as on aircraft.

Why is this?

Well the changes made were to protect the ozone layer, high above the surface of our planet.

Scientists discovered that the flurocarbons in these materials were significantly weakening the layer of ozone that sits atop our atmosphere and provides most of the protection against the sun's harmful/dangerous UV radiation.

Since this discovery, those flurocarbons have been all but banned throughout the developed world and, as a result, the ozone layer has been repairing itself.

This is especially relevant to New Zealand because the largest hole in the ozone layer was just south of us, over the Antarctic continent. Indeed, at times this hole would reach as far north as our green isles and contribute significantly to levels of UV radiation that gives us one of the highest skin cancer rates in the world.

Well decades after the ban on CFCs, the ozone hole has shrunk significantly, although you still need some SPF50 if you're going out in the mid-day summer sun.

However, there's now another threat to the integrity of the ozone layer that protects us.

According to this report from phys.org, the rapidly growing "megaconstellations" of almost disposable satellites in low-earth orbit could wreak havoc on the vulnerable ozone layer.

Apparently, as they re-enter the earth's atmosphere and burn up, these satellites scatter a cloud of aluminium oxides that "eat away" at this critical barrier against UV radiation.

With the average lifespan of a Starlink satellite slated to be around five years and with over 6,000 of them already in orbit, with another 42,000 planned, things are not looking good for the ozone layer.

Even more worrying is the fact that the aluminium oxides don't just fall to earth, they hang around for decades, high in the stratosphere, where they act as a catalyst for ozone-damaging chemical reactions high over our head.

Unless things like the lignosat take off, it looks as if global satellite internet could come with a heavy environmental price.

Carpe Diem folks!

Please visit the sponsor!

PERMALINK to this column

Rank This Aardvark Page

Change Font