> Yep, they hold the patents to freon substitutes. Ironically, the > Dupont patented freon substitutes are greenhouse gases and they are > resisting the US introduction of substitutes that are widely used in > Europe: > > http://archive.greenpeace.org/ozone/greenfreeze/may1997/3obsolete.html
Having recently read a fair bit about HCFC's,I gather that China is now the main producer, http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/15/business/warm.php and making plenty of money from selling emissions certificates at huge make-up. I haven't heard anything about them paying Du Pont royalties, though. Maybe Du Pont found a way to profit from the phase-out, just like some oil and coal companies seem to be doing quite well in Europe's emissions market, but the fundamental reason that CFC's were dealt with so quickly was surely that it could be done fairly inexpensively without troubling too many people. It didn't exactly require calls for doing without cars, not flying on holidays, living in walkable communities, making do without coal power etc.., all people were asked was to boycot spray cans with CFC's in them. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change. Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
