We closed the hole in the ozone (and we didn't have to stop buying hairspray)

Stop asking individuals to sacrifice minor luxuries to solve problems that require major political will and cooperation.

Millennials and Gen Xers vividly remember the major environmental problem we faced in our childhoods: the growing hole in the ozone layer.

As a kid in the 90s, I didn’t understand why it was a problem, but everyone was talking about how we were destroying the ozone. And it seemed clear the blame lay squarely with one consumer product: aerosol hairspray.

If you remember anything about the fashion of the 80s and 90s, you know aerosol played a big role. We wanted big hair, and it took a lot of hairspray to get it.

The message we were getting was, to stop destroying the ozone layer — and, with it, maybe all life on earth — we needed to use less aerosol hairspray. It was still on the shelves at the drugstore for some reason, but if we were going to be good citizens, we were not to use it.

My family are very good rule followers, so we switched to pump-spray bottles. They didn’t meet the demands of our early-90s hairstyles, but we could live with limp teased bangs if it meant doing the right thing for humanity, couldn’t we?

Brave as that sacrifice was, we didn’t have to make it. The depleted ozone was never a problem of individual consumption. It was just one of about a billion problems in our world that need to be addressed with policy, not individual shame and responsibility.

What ever happened with the ozone layer?

We were depleting the ozone layer with chemicals called ozone depleting substances (ODS) (with a name like that…). Those were a bunch of chemicals used in refrigeration, air conditioning, aerosol propellants, and fire extinguishers. After a decade of scientific study on this effect, 20 countries came together to agree on regulation for these substances, and in 1987, they reached a binding agreement called the Montreal Protocol. They also created an international fund to help developing countries comply with the new regulations.

Since then, 197 countries and the European Union have joined the agreement. And scientists have seen the ozone layer recovering.

Let me repeat that for the Gen Xers and millennials in the back: That big ozone crisis we heard about our whole lives? We’ve reversed it! Scientists expect the ozone to return to normal levels within our lifetime.

Even better: We never had to give up aerosol hairspray.

Photo by Tuva Mathilde Løland on Unsplash

The regulation forced companies (like Dupont, which had fought hard against the scientists in the 80s and 90s) to innovate. People still wanted refrigerators, air conditioners, fire extinguishers and hairspray, so they developed new chemicals that didn’t bore a hole into the ozone and leave us all vulnerable to death by ultraviolet radiation. And Dupont is doing just fine.

Individuals didn’t have to give up the good hairspray (or the good hair it gave us). We just needed our representatives on the world stage to work in our best interest and put up common sense guardrails against capitalist destruction.

Where there’s a political will, there’s a way

We reversed the damage to the ozone with rapid international cooperation and policy that’s been funded and enforced. In the U.S., Congress listened to scientists, commissioned more studies and let the results guide them — despite repeated efforts by ODS-producing industries to avoid regulation.

Sometimes it feels like taking the easy way out to say we have to stop blaming individuals for our societal and systemic problems. It’s relatively easy for me to sit on my couch and knock out a post about how money is all about policy, not individual behavior. It seems far more difficult to actually make the change that needs to happen.

But change is much simpler than it seems.

Real change really does happen when the political will exists.

We can stop shaming people for individual choices and create policies and regulations that force innovation and give them better options to choose from.

We can give money to children and families in need. We can open up access to health care for every American. We can reverse minority control of our legislatures. We can protect trans people from discrimination at work and in school. We can regulate financial institutions against predatory behavior.

I was honestly stunned when I first learned the ozone layer was recovering. The panic that’s sometimes necessary to conjure political will is usually all we hear of an issue. But researching our economic challenges and working in politics have made me hopeful. The more I learn about every issue, the more I know there are clear policy solutions. We don’t have to count on convincing millions of people to change their behaviors, and we don’t have to live with constant stress and shame about our own.

Fighting against individual blame isn’t an easy way out of living a responsible life. Blaming individuals for systemic problems is the easy way out of responsibility for capitalists.

As the ozone recovery shows, putting that responsibility where it belongs can force governments and corporations to make real change — and let the rest of us enjoy our carefree, frizzy-haired lives.

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