If the Ozone in the atmosphere were compressed into a layer on the ground it would be a few millimetres thick. If a 100-yard football pitch represents the Earth’s atmosphere the width of the chalk line is the amount of Carbon Dioxide.

If a scientist came up with a Homeopathic Theory of Atmosphere I might believe minute quantities of Ozone and Carbon Dioxide are crucial to life on earth. But homeopathy is being rubbished...and Atmosphere Theories to date are mostly nonsense. The Ozone Story…like the Carbon Dioxide Story…is complicated and poorly understood.

200-years ago Friedrich Schönbein noticed a strong odour lingered in the air after a lightning strike on a church near his home in Basle. 40-years later he noticed a similar smell when he passed a current through water. He named the substance Ozone after the Greek ozein ‘to smell’. He experimented and found the gas had some very unpleasant effects. It affected breathing, caused chest pains and irritation of the mucous membranes and killed small animals.

The Oxygen we breathe has two oxygen atoms…Ozone has three. Airlines fly six miles high. From here to 30-miles is rarefied Ozone…a cause célèbre for Environmentalists since 1985 when holes were found in it over the poles. A few of us pointed out that this was to be expected if the earth was spinning on its axis. But in September 1987 the Montreal Protocol banned chlorinated fluorocarbons (CFCs). Subsequently this agreement was trumpeted as proof that a One World Government is needed to make such agreements and exact compliance from recalcitrant states.

A few months ago we were told that the Ozone Layer would be hunky-dory by 2050. Then a month ago NASA’s Aura Satellite photographed an Ozone Hole over the South Pole of 10.6 million square miles…close to the record 11.4 million square miles on 9th September 2000. Equinox handbrake turns at the far end of an elliptical orbit will swirl the ozone layer about. Yet Ozone Layer Theories fail to take such a dynamic planetary orbit approach to the Ozone Hole.

Back on terra firma it is a well-known fact that pollution from industrial emissions and car fumes builds up in hot sunny weather. Ozone is accused of playing a big part in the subsequent Smog Problem. Ozone is also accused of damaging vegetation in rural areas ‘because wind can carry Ozone and the pollutants that form it hundreds of miles’. Perhaps someone can explain the mechanism to me. But until then I will stick with my anecdotal expertise. I was in London for the Great Smog of December 1952 which killed 12 000 people and led to calls to outlaw coal-burning.

Fifty years ago Parliament passed the Clean Air Act banning coal smoke. In the early years of the twentieth century November Central London averaged a total of just 38 hours of sunshine. After the Clean Air Act the hours of daily sunshine improved hugely throughout the winter months. By the end of the century November’s sunshine in the capital had soared to more than 70 hours with lichens recolonising the capital’s trees, parks and gardens.

In December 1952 the smog was as acidic as a car battery. The corrosive effect of centuries of acidic smogs eating into metal and stonework disappeared when buildings were scrubbed clean of grime and black soot. By the end of the millennium London was sparklingly clean.

Back in the days that the climate computers were being run in reverse to predict a Nuclear Winter the dust particles in the atmosphere were key parameters. Erupting volcanoes were also accused of depositing dust in the atmosphere. Yet where are these Clean Air Acts in the Global Warming Studies?