In awarding the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to the originators of the stratospheric ozone depletion hypothesis, the Swedish Academy of Sciences has chosen to make a political statement. Quoting from the citation: "The three researchers have contributed to our salvation from a global environmental problem that could have catastrophic consequences." (Emphasis added) The selection committee evidently decided to reward global environmentalism rather than a fundamental advance in the basic science of hemistry.

This action by the Swedish Academy might best be viewed in light of the political situation there. Swedish public opinion supports a hasty phaseout not only of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) but also many "ozone-friendly" CFC substitutes. Swedish politicians push for imposition of a punitive carbon tax to turn back a global climate warming that has not even been detected, even as a major political party vows to close down Sweden's nuclear power plants. (Look for Stockholm's cold, dark winters to get colder and darker.) In short, the country is in the throes of collective environmental hysteria.

Is this cause for applause? A New York Times editorial (Oct. 13) acknowledges, with evident approval, that politics played a role in the award. The Associated Press (Oct. 12) quotes Henning Rohde, a member of the Academy: "The timing is good in view of the [forth- coming] Vienna meeting [to tighten the provisions of the 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer]." He adds: "I personally hope that the Nobel prize will put some pressure on the participants..."

Regrettably, Rohde's comments also point to the use of the award to stifle ongoing scientific disputes that can only be resolved with more conclusive data. He acknowledges the existence of these disputes, notably among U.S. scientists, but opines that "the Nobel prize will put a rest to this debate on whether the ozone hole really is a result of CFCs."

Is Rohde setting up a strawman--or is he just ignorant: The main controversy does not at all involve the Antarctic ozone hole--which is merely a temporary and localized thinning. Rather: How good is the evidence for a claimed trend of global ozone depletion? Are the observations sound? Is the record of sufficient length to eliminate the large natural variations? Is there any credible evidence for a long-term upward trend of ultraviolet radiation at the Earth's surface?

Further research will likely prove the CFC-ozone issue to have been a minor environmental problem. In the meantime, hasty policies to ban CFC production by the end of 1995, though a financial windfall for chemical companies and appliance manufacturers, will impose substantial economic costs--up to $100 billion--on U.S. consumers and make life worse for the poorest everywhere--especially in developing nations.

A lively black market has sprung up, with CFCs being smuggled in from sources rumored to be in the former Soviet Union. According to a recent report in Chemical Week, "illegal imports avoid a $5.35/lb import tax and are selling for $7 or less per pound, compared with about $8 for legitimate CFCs." Government sources estimate that 5,000 to 10,000 metric tons of illegal CFCs are brought into the United States each month--a $1-billion-a-year scam, second only to the illegal drug trade.

Then there's the cost of enforcement of the detailed CFC regulations developed by the EPA and the opportunity for regulatory overkill: In Miami, an eager U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida has obtained grand-jury indictments against contractors repairing damage from Hurricane Andrew. Their crime: letting HCFCs from air-conditioning units in damaged homes escape into the atmosphere. Each violation carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. The irony here is exquisite: HCFCs are the authorized substitutes for the soon-to-be outlawed CFCs, but apparently not sufficiently ozone-friendly.

The ozone issue has also acquired partisan overtones. Al Gore now attacks the Republican Congress for pursuing an "environmental jihad", and editorial page editors at the Chicago Tribune and other newspapers vilify Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) and Tom DeLay (R-TX) for having the temerity to question the science supporting the CFC ban and asking to hear both sides of the debate.

Editorial writers still confuse the Antarctic ozone hole with global depletion and accept at face value the catastrophic rhetoric of the UN World Meteorological Organization: "[The Antarctic ozone hole is] growing at its fastest rate ever, perhaps to unsurpassed size" (WMO statement, Sept. 1995). This echoes the Swedish Academy statement and earlier hype by a U.S. government official (quoted in the Manchester Guardian, March 16, 1995): "It's terrifying. If these holes keep growing like this, they'll eventually eat the world."

On the Antarctic ozone hole, Reuters was one of few news organiza- tions to get it right. Its story of Oct. 11, 1995 quoted NOAA scientist David Hofmann that although alarm has been expressed, the hole this year is similar to last year's (which was smaller than in 1992 and 1993). NASA scientist Paul Newman and Australian meteorologist Paul Lehmann had earlier expressed similar doubts about the UN scare, pointing out that the hole will change its shape, volume, and size daily as it grows; therefore its final size cannot be predicted. [The hole, in fact, appears not to have gotten any larger.]

The final word on the 1995 hole was spoken in a news story by Richard Kerr in the Oct. 20 issue of Science. It reported no observed increase over 1994 and no further increases in future years, according to model calculations. How many papers carried this upbeat story? And why should we have any confidence in future statements by the WMO? It's well to remember that the WMO is the agency that sponsored the report Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion: 1994, frequently invoked as authoritative in support of a ban on CFCs.

Time and again, journalists have run with a story that amounts to little more than "science by press release." They have succumbed to tales of blind sheep and rabbits, plankton death, and the disappearance of frogs--all blamed on ozone depletion. Yet a little common sense could help to stem the tide of scare stories, punitive regulations, and politically motivated Nobel prizes.

From the very outset it has been clear that the feared global ozone depletion would lead to a trivial increase of ultraviolet radiation at the Earth's surface, equivalent to moving just 60 miles closer to the equator, the distance from Washington to Richmond. This equivalence has been openly acknowledged by ozone scientists in press conferences and Congressional hearings. It puts the lie to fears of cataract epidemics, immune system failures, and various ecological disasters.

The problem now is that the action of the Swedish Academy is being viewed as a scientific endorsement, not only of ozone depletion but of all of the horror stories put out by activist groups. Awarding the Nobel prize with the science still unsettled only says that facts are irrelevant, that data don't matter. What does seem to matter, at least to the Academy, is "salvation."