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September’s ozone hole was the biggest in 20 years. The warning signs appeared months ago
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this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2026
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I get where you're coming from, but that's a pretty capitalist approach to it. Broken down it's similar to "As long as they can pay for it, we'll allow them to destroy the environment". A destroyed environment can not be replaced with money. Granted, it might work for problems that have an effect with a slow build-up, eventually hopefully replacing it with something that avoids that before its irreversible by pricing the harmful practice out.
But if the effect is close to destroying an important part of the environment, then we should outright forbid it.
Edit: Okay, I also just realized that it does not seem as easy in this case, as single countries can't forbid it, as this is about space, but then again, the world came together to ban the production and use of CFCs, so a similar approach seems possible
We could get a worldwide ban going but as long as any country with launch capabilities (like, say, the United States) decides not to join the ban we achieve nothing. And given how the States work, it's unlikely that they'd agree to such a ban.
With CFCs we had the benefit of having replacement chemicals available. Sure, they were somewhat less efficient than CFCs but they worked just fine.
(Also, some people still use them despite the ban. China has been shown to still be a CFC emitter although to a lesser degree than earlier.)
A ban or heavy restriction on LEO satellite constellations would render the whole high speed satellite internet business model useless. Sure, you can do it with higher orbits but that requires unacceptable tradeoffs. So you'd see much more pushback.
On the other hand, charging for environmental damage is kinda hard to work around. Sure, Musk can go cry to daddy Trump if the mean EU forces him to pay up. But Trump can't really do much except escalate the trade war for the thirtieth time.
I'd still say that the situation is similar enough to CFCs. If the USA would not have forbidden CFCs, there also wouldn't really have been much other countries can do, as it's in the atmosphere. From that political perspective it's pretty comparable.
As for having a replacement available, there are some technologies that just aren't worth it, when compared to the damage they do. We do have a replacement, which would be wired internet. Or heck, even cellular networks. For those rare remote locations it might have a higher upfront cost, but from a perspective of necessity, I'd say that a working ozone layer is even more important to those remote locations than high-speed internet.
That doesn't go against anything you said, on a factual level I agree with your statements - I'm well aware that that's not how the world works. I'm just annoyed by this being used as arguments in discussions about the environment. Of course the USA or even Europe would hesitate to do something that would eat into the profit margins of companies. That doesn't mean that we immediately have to take over these talking points. The world shouldn't be about profit over everything else. But that's just my little utopia.