Harold Johnston was the leading atmospheric chemist who first discovered that nitrogen oxide emissions from SSTs could deplete the atmosphere’s ozone layer. His finding led to more important work on ozone, including the studies that discovered the dangers of CFCs. When an official government report misrepresented his research, he publicly responded with a letter in Science. While this corrected the record, it didn’t reach as wide of an audience as the misleading report.
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Harold Johnston Character Timeline in Merchants of Doubt
The timeline below shows where the character Harold Johnston appears in Merchants of Doubt. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 4
...ozone layer and substantially increase skin cancer rates. At a major conference, the atmospheric chemist Harold Johnston showed that the nitrogen oxide compounds SSTs released would damage the ozone layer even more....
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...SSTs in the future wouldn’t pose any ozone-related risks. Major newspapers started attacking scientists like Harold Johnston , but they refused to publish letters defending their research and correcting the executive summary....
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