=======================Electronic Edition========================
RACHEL’S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #246
—August 14, 1991—
News and resources for environmental justice.
——
Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403
Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@igc.apc.org
==========
The Back issues and Index are available
here.
The official RACHEL archive is here.
It’s updated constantly.
To subscribe, send E-mail to rachel-weekly-
request@world.std.com
with the single word SUBSCRIBE in the message. It’s free.
===Previous Issue==========================================Next Issue===
DISMANTLING OUR LIFE-SUPPORT SYSTEMS.
“The ozone layer, which protects living things from the Sun’s
harmful ultraviolet rays, has been depleted in many areas of the
globe, and at the latitudes of the United States the loss is
proceeding twice as fast as scientists had expected, the [U.S.]
Environmental Protection Agency announced [in April].
“The agency said the declines measured in the late fall, winter,
and early spring amounted to 4.5 to 5 percent in the last decade.
“‘It is stunning information,’ William K. Reilly, the agency’s
Administrator, said in an interview after the announcement in
Washington. ‘It is unexpected, it is disturbing….’
“According to agency calculations based on the new ozone
findings, over the next 50 years about 12 million Americans will
develop skin cancer, and more than 200,000 of them will die.
Under previous assumptions, only 500,000 cancer cases and 9,300
fatalities were forecast….
“Scientists say that for every 1 percent decline in the
high-altitude ozone shield, 2 percent more ultraviolet radiation
reaches the earth’s surface. Besides skin cancer, the harmful
ultraviolet radiation can cause eye cataracts. Scientists say it
can also affect the human immune system adversely, that it harms
the ability of phytoplankton, tiny plants at the basis of the
oceanic food chain, to reproduce; that it can damage some crops
and wild plants.” –NEW YORK TIMES April 5, 1991, pg. 1, D1.
Thus readers of the NEW YORK TIMES in April learned that ozone
depletion is now proceeding rapidly in the atmosphere above the
United States. For roughly 450 million years, the ozone
shield–10 to 30 miles high in the sky–has protected the surface
of planet Earth from ultraviolet radiation streaming in from the
sun. Now chemicals called CFCs, released from refrigerators and
air conditioners, are wafting upward, destroying the protective
ozone in the stratosphere, allowing ultraviolet light levels to
increase on the surface of the Earth. In sufficient quantities,
ultraviolet light is a potent disinfectant, killing everything it
strikes.
And so a problem that only three years ago seemed confined to an
ozone “hole” over the ant arctic is now recognized as a
world-wide calamity that will cause skin cancer in caucasians,
will cause eye cataracts and immune system disorders in humans of
all races, will interfere with the most fundamental underpinnings
of oceanic food chains, and will disrupt wildlife reproduction in
other ways that are poorly understood. Furthermore, the problem
is developing twice as rapidly as scientists had predicted just
last year, indicating that scientists–15 years after the
National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC, declared this a
serious problem worthy of urgent attention–do not yet understand
the problem sufficiently well to predict its course correctly. In
this business of dismantling the life-support systems of the
Earth, we are learning as we go.
Just this year, scientists seem to be reaching agreement that
ozone loss is connected to another worldwide phenomenon that was
first noticed in 1989. Scientists have reported simultaneous
wildlife losses in places as far apart as California, Australia,
Brazil, and Europe. It may sound silly at first, but
amphibians–salamanders, toads, and frogs–are declining,
disappearing, and becoming extinct at unprecedented rates
world-wide. Increased ultraviolet light is now thought to be one
important cause, though by no means the only one.
Dr. Henry Wake, a biologist from University of California at
Berkeley chaired a panel of 20 experts for the National Research
Council (Washington, DC) in early 1990. Dr. Wake compares the
loss of frogs to the 19th-century coal miner’s canary–when the
canary died, it was a warning sign that the air in the mine had
grown hazardous to humans. So with frogs, says Dr. Wake: “If
frogs and salamanders are dying off in synchrony [at the same
time], there’s a message there for us,” says Dr. Wake. (NY TIMES
Feb. 20, 1990, pg. C4; SCIENCE NEWS Feb. 24, 1990, pg. 116, and
March 3, 1990, pg. 142.)
The truth is, amphibians are rapidly disappearing from many
ponds, rivers, mountains, and rain forests around the world,
including places that are not very polluted. Dr. Wake says, “They
are disappearing from nature preserves in the most pristine sites
of Costa Rica, Brazil, Yosemite, Sequoia and Ile Royale National
Parks [in the U.S.]. Meadows where frogs were as thick as flies
are now silent,” he says.
Individual scientists had been noticing the decline of frogs but
it wasn’t until 1989 that they compared notes at a global
conference and discovered that reports of local losses were
coming in from all over the world. Some scientists had refrained
from reporting their observations of loss and extinction for fear
that younger colleagues, or even children, would find live
specimens of frogs reported extinct.
All the reasons for the decline of amphibians are not understood.
In some cases, it’s loss of habitat. Frogs that used to live in
Japanese rice paddies now find golf courses instead. In the U.S.,
frogs return to ponds only to find condominiums. Stocking lakes
and ponds with edible fish, particularly in the western U.S.,
wipes out frogs when fish eat their tadpoles.
But there’s something going on besides direct human intervention.
Dr. David Bradford of UCLA reports that in the 1970s he found
ponds in the High Sierras containing more than 800 adult
yellowlegged frogs and 1500 tadpoles. In 1990, he checked 38
lakes and found frogs in only one.
A leading cause of such declines may be acid rain and acid snow.
The spring thaw brings a shock of acid water into mountain
streams, killing sensitive creatures in the early stages of life.
Another source of problems is pesticides, including those that
are banned for sale in the U.S. but which are still manufactured
here and shipped overseas. Many of them, sprayed abroad, travel
on the wind and rain down on U.S. soil; some see in this an
ironic and fitting gift to us from the developing world, but for
frogs and salamanders it represents apolitical destruction and
death.
Amphibians are particularly sensitive to chemical pollution
because they spend part of their life-cycle on land and part
immersed in water; furthermore, they breathe through their skin.
Toxic heavy metals and pesticides building up in aquatic food
chains, plus a hefty dose of air pollution may be what’s killing
some frogs, toads, and salamanders.
The latest information is that many researchers now believe that
increased ultraviolet radiation may be affecting frogs’ eggs,
which float on the surface of the water, absorbing sunlight. Too
much ultraviolet light evidently interferes with the ability of
egg cells to multiply.
What are Humans Doing About It?
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has
recently set up a “Task Force on Declining Amphibian
Populations,” located in Corvallis, Oregon. They are developing a
worldwide network of scientists who will document the destruction
of amphibians as the ominous global trend unfolds. (SCIENCE Aug.
2, 1991, p. 509.)
Back in Washington, President Bush has steadfastly refused to
force an aggressive phase-out of ozone-depleting chemicals.
Furthermore, Mr. Bush and Vice-President Quayle recently
announced they are reversing U.S. policies established to protect
wetlands. Under pressure from some of the nation’s wealthiest
lobbyists, the Home Builders Association, Mr. Bush will open
millions of protected wetlands to development. (NY TIMES Aug. 3,
1991, pgs. 1, 25.)
For its part, DuPont, the company that invented, patented, and
sold the CFCs that are bringing ruin to the Earth, has developed
only one problem in recent years: managing all the money that is
pouring in. As CFCs are slowly phased out, they become scarcer
and their price is rising on the world market. Organizations
dependent upon refrigeration are willing to pay the rising cost
of CFCs to maintain their operations, and thus DuPont is reaping
literally billions of new dollars each year in windfall profits.
(NY TIMES April 21, 1988, pg. 2F.)
–Peter Montague, Ph.D.
Descriptor terms: ozone layer; global environmental problems;
epa; reilly; studies; immune system; skin; cancers; eyes; oceans;
food chain; habitat destruction; cfcs; nas; amphibians; wildlife;
costa rica; brazil; yosemite; sequoia; ile royale; national
parks; conferences; japan; rice paddies; heavy metals; air
pollution; iucn; bush administration; wetlands; home builders
association; dupont;