Good news everybody, the hole in the ozone layer closed up by 30% this year! Clearly we're doing something right. It must be all the aerosols that we gave up, or the fact that more and more of people are ... umm ... walking places.

"Scientists" have long stated that we are the cause of the ozone hole, that it is bad, that we should be ashamed of ourselves, and that we need to go to our rooms until father gets home. So what do they say about this latest development?

"Scientists say this year's smaller hole... is due to natural variations in temperature and atmospheric dynamics... and is not indicative of a long-term trend. 'Although the hole is somewhat smaller than usual, we cannot conclude from this that the ozone layer is recovering already' ... "

Wait - wtf? So the hole can't get bigger due to variations in temperature and "atmospheric dynamic," but it can get smaller? I see - only selfish resource-hogging humans can make the hole bigger, but only a bit of magical atmospheric dynamics can make it smaller. Why are we even trying, then? I want my aerosols back!

Here is the true story, for anyone interested:

Researches don't get paid a salary by some company for their efforts. They rely solely on grants from foundations and the government. Therefore, the more they can ring the alarm bell on environmental issues, the more they can get grants and continue their hippie lifestyles. Therefore, all through the 90's it was "ozone layer, ozone layer, ozone layer!" but now that its obvious they were wrong, they've move on.

Now everyone is jumping ship to the rising tide of "global warming." I mean think about it - nobody cares about the ozone layer anymore - its all about melting ice caps, baby! It's really a much more lucrative psuedo-science to get into. You can't really keep sounding the alarm over a hole that isn't going to get any bigger.

As a /. commenter noted, just wait another 10 years and you will see the next great alarmist trend. In the 60's and early 70's it was the oil crisis, the 70's was global cooling, in the 80's it was overpopulation, the 90's had the ozone craze, and now we have global warming. Anyone care to place bets on the great catastrophe of the twenty-teens? I've got some guesses:

• Nanobot armies are going to destroy humanity! Scientists say "Sorry, this time its OUR bad."
• Shrinking ozone hole causes penguin overpopulation - pending penguin invasion means certain doom!
• Global Boringness: The temperature is staying the same because of bagels! Think of the children, stop eating bagels!
• Global Positioning: We're falling into the sun, and it's all Wal*Mart's fault!
• Global time travel: Jets are causing the earth to spin slower! It will eventually start spinning in the opposite direction! Stop flying before it becomes too early!