For the first time since measurements began 15 years ago, the hole detected in the ozone layer spread over a heavily populated area last month, exposing Punta Arenas, a city at the southern tip of Chile.
Health authorities advised people to stay indoors but if journeys outside were absolutely necessary, then high-factor sun creams were recommended, along with UV protective sunglasses, wide-brimmed hats and clothing with long sleeves.
The warnings were delivered with the same tone of detached bewilderment as those post-war US advertisements on nuclear holocaust which advised families to crawl under a convenient table in the event of a Soviet missile strike.
"I have to go to buy bread and scarcely have money for that, so forget the sunglasses and suncream," complained one woman in Punta Arenas, ignoring the guidelines for personal health.
The anticipated fallout from Chile's brush with global warming will be a surge in skin cancer and the destruction of tiny plants in the food chain.
When climate disaster strikes Latin America, the results tend to be far more dramatic than in Europe, as entire populations live in cardboard shacks on muddy hillsides.
Last December, Venezuela was devastated by deadly floods when one year's annual rainfall fell in just five days, leaving 50,000 people dead. A further half a million people became "weather refugees", the fastest-growing category of displaced citizens in the world.
Last month, Vietnam joined the list of global environmental casualties, as hundreds of people died in floods and thousands more fled their homes along the Mekong delta, during the worst monsoon in 70 years.
Hunger and disease followed the uprooted people while crocodiles, not normally found in the area, have been washed downstream from Cambodia. A plague of golden snails has also been spotted by farmers, causing fears that surviving rice crops will be destroyed.
The 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC or the Climate Treaty), signed by 165 nations, established general principles around a disturbing reality; we are changing the way energy from the sun interacts with and escapes from our planet's atmosphere.
The convention set an ultimate goal of stabilising greenhouse gas emissions to levels which would "allow ecosystems adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner".
This week in the Hague, delegates from 160 countries are gathering to assess progress since the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, in which governments pledged to cut greenhouse emissions worldwide by 5.2 per cent on 1990 levels as a first step to the 60 per cent scientists say is needed.
The US is responsible for 23 per cent of all greenhouse emissions, compared to just 3 per cent for all of Africa - 20 per cent of the world's population consume 80 per cent of the planet's resources.
The industrialised countries created their wealth by pumping vast amounts of gases into the atmosphere long before the likely consequences were understood. Nowadays, developing countries resent being told that they must curtail their fledgling industrial activity in the name of environmental austerity.
The Hague summit debate is also constrained by legislation which protects big business through the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
Under international law, "an activity has not been restricted or prohibited unless a direct causal link between the activity and a particular damage can be shown," according to a Kyoto Protocol briefing document.
Such links are unlikely to be found in the near future. "The science of climate change is enormously complicated," says Julian Morris, an environmental analyst at London's Institute of Economic Affairs. "The data are inconclusive, contradictory and confusing."
The global warming phenomenon has been aggravated by international free trade agreements that punish small farmers, eliminate subsidies and force millions of people to compete for low-paying jobs in urban centres. In Venezuela, the majority of the 50,000 victims of last year's floods had moved to the outskirts of Caracas in the previous decade, abandoning subsistence farming for cash opportunities in the city.
Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez, a critic of corporate expansion, has begun a rural resettlement plan, offering incentives and homes to people who leave shantytowns and return to farming lifestyles.
However, the Venezuelan floods were little different in intensity to the floods which hit Britain over the past three weeks, yet the proportionate loss of life was approximately 100 to one. British weather victims were rescued quicker, their homes and towns better fortified, their losses compensated by insurance, in sharp contrast to Third World victims.
It is no coincidence that in the past two years, as climate change begins to show its deadly impact, 98 per cent of the estimated 100,000 "climate fatalities" have occurred in the Third World, notably Latin America, India and China.
"There have always been severe weather events, but the number and severity has increased in recent years," says David Keys, a historian who analyses past climate change and its effect on human civilisation.
"When you get scarcity of resources, population movement and poverty you almost inevitably end up with conflict and destabilisation," adds Keys. In his recent work Catastrophe, Keys anticipates weather chaos which could derail trade agreements, reducing supplies of commodities and cheap manufactured goods, resulting in higher inflation in developed nations.
Scientists have been cautious in drawing conclusions about climate change, but an authoritative study, commissioned by the EU and published last week, differs little from Keys in assessing the risks ahead. "It is imperative that we adapt to climate change now," says Prof Martin Parry, editor of the Acacia report, a three-year investigation assessing the effects and potential for adaptation to future weather changes in Europe.
The report, written by 27 experts in the field of climate studies, concludes that changes will have greater impact in southern Europe, affecting forestry and agriculture and will reproduce the Latin America pattern, whereby poorer regions suffer more than wealthy regions.
Insurance and tourism will be the two business sectors hardest hit by climate change but the deterioration of soil quality will "impair soil functions that underpin ecosystems and society".
The understated tone of scientific certainty disguises a harsh truth; the failure of soil functions may destroy precious ecosystems which took millions of years to create, plunging the earth into an apocalyptic future.
Prof Parry and his colleagues crafted their report with governments and business in mind, offering "adaptation" as an alternative to "mitigation".
The Acacia report describes one proposal which will be put forward at the Hague, a system of tradable emission credits, whereby industrialised countries with high emission levels could literally trade "hot air" with poorer nations which have low emissions.
The "Clean Development Mechanism" is a market-based solution to the global warming issue, pleasing governments and business which fear "command-and-control" resolutions, such as operational performance, taxes or technology mandates.
In one hypothetical case, the US might pay India to reforest a swathe of its territory, thus reducing overall greenhouse gas emissions on the planet. The strategy risks greater damage than good however, should offending nations plant fast-growing eucalyptus trees, which increase soil erosion.
All EU member states have announced their intention to fulfil greenhouse reduction commitments through some form of reallocation measure.
"The Hague conference could end with industrial countries increasing their greenhouse emissions while remaining within the Kyoto guidelines," warns Michel Raquet, climate adviser to Greenpeace International.
The lack of consensus around the causes and consequences of climate change has lent an air of unreality to the issue. In addition, the environment does not pay dividends in one electoral cycle, tempting politicians to postpone the introduction of legislation which would oblige citizens to moderate wasteful consumption patterns.
The US-based Environmental Defense organisation has produced a household guide with basic advice on reducing global warming: washing machines should run only with full loads, rooms should not be overheated, low-flow shower heads should be used, walls and ceilings insulated. Just as importantly, the manual advises citizens to keep track of party voting records on environmental issues.
As flash floods focused minds on climate change in Ireland last week this reporter congratulated himself for being a true ozone ally, riding a bicycle, rarely washing clothes and generally working in an unheated room.
The illusion was shattered however when I discovered that the air travel required for working as a correspondent in Latin America had turned me into a carbon-crazy war criminal, inflicting the same amount of damage as if I had stayed at home and driven 12 cars around the country every day last year.
The first priority, home and away, is information and education, permitting future generations to focus on environmental priorities from an early age.
On an intermediate level, a new Greenpeace report shows that northern Europe could meet three times its total energy needs simply by exploiting offshore wind.
Einstein once said: "Things should be as simple as possible but not any simpler," - a useful adage to keep in mind as the Hague summit ploughs through an ocean of data this week.
Greenpeace: www.greenpeace.org.uk Friends of the Earth's Hague Summit protest site: www.foeeurope.org/dike/ ENFO - Ireland's environmental public information website: www.enfo.ie