INTRODUCTION

How much ozone layer protection could 368.5 billion U.S. dollars buy?

$368.5 billion is the amount that the tobacco industry is expected to pay in reparations under a recently proposed settlement which resulted from legal proceedings brought against the industry by a coalition of State governments and public interest groups in the United States. The money, to be paid over 25 years, will be used to compensate ill smokers and state governments for health care costs.

After many decades of denial and lies, the tobacco industry was finally compelled to take responsibility for endangering human life with its products, and for willfully deceiving the public. In a related development, the industry has agreed to a 16 billion dollar settlement with the State of Florida. Now, other jurisdictions, for example British Columbia in Canada, are considering similar class action suits. Despite the many weaknesses in the proposed settlement, this is an important precedent towards corporate accountability.

In another landmark decision, on August 18, 1997 a jury in Louisiana, New Orleans, found Dow Chemicals, one of the largest chemical producers in the United States, guilty of deception and conspiracy in hiding the health risks from their silicon breast implant products. A subsequent trial will determine what compensation, if any, should the women who brought the class action suit against Dow receive. The company is already considering an out-of-court settlement. Several other law suits have been started against the company in other jurisdictions.

These developments give rise to the following moral issues:

* If the tobacco companies and Dow Chemicals can be held legally responsible for the destruction of human life and for willful deceit of the public, then shouldn't the chemical corporations also be legally compelled to commit their profits to repair the damage that their products have caused to the health of the whole planet through the depletion of the ozone layer, and for similar deceitful behaviour?

* If the health damage to Americans from tobacco products is estimated to be worth a minimum 368.5 billion dollars, what is the estimated worth of millions of people worldwide suffering from eye cataracts and blindness, skin cancer or immune deficiency, or the value of lost human lives caused by increased UV radiation bombarding the earth? A rough estimate would indicate that the global health costs arising from increased UV radiation could be between 400 and 3200 billion US dollars.¹ This does not take into account additional damage from increased UV radiation to crops, livestock, forests, building materials, wildlife, and so forth.

* Why is it that the chemical corporations that continued to vigorously market ozone depleting substances, even after they were fully cognizant of the damage that their products were having upon our common heritage, the ozone layer, have never been held legally and financially accountable by the governments through global or national class action suits?

It is totally unacceptable to let taxpayers to carry the full financial burden for repairing the damage, while the chemical corporations and their shareholders are allowed to continue to profit handsomely from the ozone crisis.

* Given the responsibility of the chemical industry for the ozone crisis, given that much of this industry continues to profit magnificently from ODS production, and given that this industry has to this day failed to accept its full responsibility for the crisis by paying any form of reparations, it is a mockery that the industry lobby group, the Alliance for a Responsible (CFC) Atmospheric Policy is to receive the 1997 UNEP Ozone Award, or that in the past corporations such as Du Pont, ICI, Allied Signal and the Alliance itself received the US EPA's Stratospheric Ozone Protection Awards. Isn't that analogous to the tobacco industry receiving an award from the World Health Organization for the industry's contributions to the 'prevention' of lung cancer?

1 A study conducted for the US EPA calculated that a US phase-out of methyl bromide alone, would prevent human health costs associated with increased UV radiation of approximately US$ 14-56 billion in the USA alone. This calculation only factored in human health as an indicator of costs Ð it did not include all the other UV-related costs, such as damage to crops, livestock, fisheries, forests, building materials, tourist industries etc. From this initial study however, it is possible to extrapolate that the human health costs of global ozone depletion, as a very rough estimate, would be between US$ 400 and 3200 billion. The extrapolated calculation is based on the assumption that the USA is responsible for approximately 35% of the global methyl bromide consumption, and and that methyl bromide represents 5-10% of global ozone depletion. [return]