New theory finds air-conditioner chemicals cause global warming

A report by a University of Waterloo professor is creating waves among climate change watchers worldwide because it claims that chlorofuorocarbons (CFCs) are responsible for most global warming since the 1970s, not carbon dioxide emissions.

In a release, Professor Qing-Bin Lu of the department of physics and astronomy, biology and chemistry in Waterloo’s Faculty of Science, says: “Conventional thinking says that the emission of human-made non-CFC gases such as carbon dioxide has mainly contributed to global warming. But we have observed data going back to the Industrial Revolution that convincingly shows that conventional understanding is wrong. In fact, the data shows that CFCs conspiring with cosmic rays caused both the polar ozone hole and global warming.”

If Professor Lu is correct, his findings would have serious repercussions for mechanical consulting engineers, since CFCs, and their more environmentally friendly offspring HCFCs are a key component of building air conditioning systems.

Lu’s paper, which was peer reviewed and published on May 30 in the International Journal of Modern Physics (Vol. 27), also includes a graph that predicts global temperatures will continue a decline that began in 2002, and says that decline is due to the depletion of CFCs in the atmosphere in recent years.

To read the University of Waterloo announcement about the paper, entitled “Cosmic-Ray-Driven Reaction and Greenhouse Effect of Halogenated Molecules: Culprits for Atmospheric Ozone Depletion and Global Climate Change,”  click here.

In reaction, one commentator quoted in the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s News in Science, said that Lu’s theory is either a “landmark study” or “completely wrong.” Click here