The Oct. 12 editorial “The sky isn’t falling” celebrates the happy news that the hole in the ozone layer is being repaired, but it dismisses those who warned of ozone depletion as “environmental Cassandras,” by which the editors seem to mean environmental Chicken Littles, who falsely predicted a terrible disaster. Yet in Greek mythology, Cassandra was no false prophet. Her predictions of terrible disaster all came true. The problem was, nobody listened to her warnings.
In the case of ozone depletion, people did listen to our modern “Cassandras.” The Montreal Protocol reduced ozone-depleting chemicals, and a terrible environmental disaster seems to have been averted. The question now is, will our government listen to the “Cassandras” of global warming, before it’s too late?
