At a time when Steve Jobs’ death is being talked about around the world, this week we will talk about the ozone hole that has been described with the commercialization of the first Macintosh. Now is the time to know what the ozone depletion in Antarctica is, but this year we have a variable when it comes to taking stock: at the end of September we saw the hole in the Arctic ozone layer, although they detected it in March.

More than one of them called me to tell me. “Joxerra, this year also a hole in the Arctic, eh,” and my makeshift answer, always the same: “That’s what it touches, but not in the Arctic, but in Antarctica.” All of a sudden I started reading everywhere. “The hole in the Arctic.” The comment that Professor Jose Ramón Etxebarria made to me in a talk about the hole in the ozone layer 25 years ago has reached me to the first layer of the brain. “I think there may be great economic interests on this issue.”

This time I have to give Etxebarria my wholehearted support. Day by day, NASA tells us about the situation of the hole in Antarctica, but they've also reported that there's a hole in the Arctic six months late. Why?

I think the answer is not going to be far from the following argument: In the Arctic area there are several rich countries, such as Russia, Sweden, Norway, Canada and the United States. Scientists and national authorities were already aware of the hole in the Arctic last March, but that was all that was lacking, that the Fukushima tragedy had just occurred and that the inhabitants of the Arctic area were told the dangers they would face for several weeks. “Let’s wait until September, and then, as the Antarctic hole usually appears, the Arctic hole will become more natural.”

I have to acknowledge that my argument has no scientific basis, but I have tried to apply common sense to some scientific data and to the context in which they have been made public. As usual, reader, I leave in your hands the verdict on this bad opinion of mine.