Relive the forgotten story of how our ozone layer was saved

Discover the forgotten story of the hole in the ozone layer and how the world came together to fix it.

Watch “Ozone Hole: How We Saved the Planet” on Wednesday, Jan. 8, at 9:00 p.m. on Arizona PBS. Hear from the scientists and politicians who persuaded Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher to take action and solve this planetary problem.

WATCH: “Ozone Hole: How We Saved the Planet”

Scientists in the 1980s concluded it was not global warming, but a seemingly benign industrial chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) that were developed in the 1920s and used in everyday products from hairspray to deodorant. If continued unchecked, the world faced a perilous future, one in which humans would be forced to hide from daylight due to the harmful unfiltered UV radiation, and one where agriculture and entire ecosystems would collapse.

The hourlong documentary tells the incredible true story of how scientists and the administrations of two unlikely eco-friendly world leaders — Ronald Reagan (a skin cancer survivor) and Margaret Thatcher (a chemist by trade) — successfully worked together to prevent an environmental catastrophe.