{p class=”krtHeadline”}There’s good news about climate change — for a change.

{p class=”krtText”}A United Nations study shows that steps to repair the Earth’s ozone layer are working. These are among the most concrete findings to date that show the warnings of scientists about climate change are finally being heeded.

{p class=”krtText”}Maybe humankind is getting serious about protecting its planet, just in time. After decades of ominous reports, this swing in the right direction is most welcomed news.

{p class=”krtText”}We have come a long way since President George H.W. Bush mocked vice-presidential nominee Al Gore during the 1992 campaign with Bill Clinton. Bush’s nickname of Gore as “Ozone Man” was not only a bit adolescent, it reflected a dismissive attitude toward science and a very real and far-reaching concern.

{p class=”krtText”}Thirty years later, warnings about climate change, greenhouse gases, fossil fuels, global warning and damage to our planet’s resources are being taken more seriously by more people. Younger citizens, in particular, want these issues addressed.

{p class=”krtText”}As global emissions of chemicals that harm the ozone layer are reduced, the layer that protects our planet from the sun’s most piercing rays is healing. Without this layer, which blocks ultraviolet sunlight from reaching the Earth’s surface, life on the planet cannot be sustained.

{p class=”krtText”}That is not a spicy plot from a science-fiction movie. It’s real. At stake are human health, a food chain we all too often take for granted, the reduction of cancer and damage to the eyes, and nothing short of the planet’s future itself.

{p class=”krtText”}According to the study, the ozone layer could return to acceptable 1980s levels by the 2040s, and by 2066 in Antarctica, where “ozone holes” have cropped up annually and alarmed climatologists.

{p class=”krtText”}This news delivers the important message that nations can work together for protection of the planet. Greenhouse gases, rising temperatures, violent weather patterns and other evidence of climate change are everyone’s problem, but an uneasy skepticism has existed that a coordinated global response was politically feasible.

{p class=”krtText”}These findings show it can be done. Improvement will take decades, but the UN study is most encouraging. Perhaps at least, mockery and ridicule about climate change is subsiding, and consistent, doable and necessary action can take its place.

{p class=”krtText” style=”text-align: right;”}— Tribune News Service