VIEW FROM THE WEST

Recently I read a book entitled Trashing the Planet by Dixy Lee Ray with Lou Guzzo, which gives a common-sense view of contentious environmental issues.

Ray notes that Dr. James Hansen, who in 1988 triggered the public furor about global warming, did not take sea temperatures into account in his computer program even though the seas cover 73% of the earth’s surface. The oceans are reported to hold about 60 times more CO2 than the atmosphere. The writer also points out that in the U.S., the average annual wood growth is now more than three times what it was in 1920 and that young, vigorously growing trees will remove 5-7 tons more CO2 per acre per year than old growth. Haroun Tazieff, in an article in the Fall issue of 21st Century, contends that the essential role in the greenhouse effect is played by water in the atmosphere, not CO2. Proof of this is shown by the fact that the greenhouse effect is maximal in humid regions and minimal in dry regions, while the proportion of CO2 is exactly the same, 0.03%.

The author states that the contributions of CO2, SO2 and other gasses produced by volcanoes are enormous. For example, the eruption in 1976 of Mount St. Augustin (Alaska) injected 28.9 billion kg of hydrochloric acid directly into the stratosphere or about 570 times the total 1975 world production of chlorine and fluorocarbon compounds. A table in Haroun Tazieff’s article shows that the total annual production of natural atmospheric chlorine is 649.4 million tons whereas the total annual industrial production of chlorine in CFCs is 0.75 million tons. As to ozone depletion, Ray points out that all measurements of ultraviolet light reaching the earth, taken since 1974, “have shown a continuously decreasing penetration of from 0.5% to 1.1% per year,” the opposite to what one would expect if the theories about ozone depletion were correct. Haroun Tazieff states that the celebrated Antarctic ozone hole reported by British researcher J.C. Farman in 1985 was actually discovered in the 1950s (before CFCs were born) by Gordon Dobson.

The author writes that “there is no such thing as naturally neutral rain water.” All rain water is acidic because, in even the cleanest air, rain water will dissolve carbon dioxide, forming carbonic acid.

The writer gives a brief account of the events arising from the 1978 “draft summary” of a report entitled “Estimates of the Fraction of Cancer Incidence in the United States Attributable to Occupational Factors” to the banning of virtually all uses of asbestos by 1997 and many of them by 1993. All of the evidence shows that “asbestosis and mesothelioma are generally caused by breathing fibres of crocodolite. The soft-fibred chrysotile is generally benign.” Data presented show that the removing of asbestos from school rooms can result in up to a 40,000-fold increase in airborne fibres. No book of this nature would be complete without a section on PCBs and Dioxins. PCBs received their unwarranted reputation in 1968 in Yusho, Japan, where the health problems were really caused by highly toxic quarterphenyls or polychlorinated dibenzofurons which were also present in the contaminated rice. Dioxins are a group of 75 different compounds of varied toxicity of which 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) is the most dangerous. Many dioxins are detected in low concentration whenever organic material is burned, particularly if combustion is incomplete. Much controversy exists in both the scientific community and public as to how dangerous they may be; however, neither is known to be responsible for the death of a single person. The book also has a good section on the nuclear issue, the natural radiation all around us, nuclear medicine and nuclear waste, as well as one on power from the atom, the sun, and the wind. The book clearly illustrates the decline of scientifically based decision-making over the last 20 years and the need to question all data presented by “political environmentalists.”