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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1988-07-06, Page 4PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JULY 6, 1988. Time is short The timing of last week’s international “Changing Atmosphere’’ conference in Toronto couldn’t have been better calculated to make people listen to its message of the problems of the Greenhouse effect. The prairies are in their worst drought in 50 years. Even easternCanadahashadtwodryyearsina row. Lake levels have dropped. We’ve had an unusual hot spring but suddenly while the conference was on, we got a frost later than most anyone can recall. Hopefully the message brought by the scientists from around the world may begin to sink in to that affluent, effluent North American Society: we can’t go on this way. In their final conference statement the scientists said atmospheric pollution is “second only to nuclear war" in its ability to destroy the world. “The best predictions available indicate the probability of potentially devastating economic and social dislocation for present and future generations in many regions of the world. It is imperative to act now.” Scientists say the pollution we cause by everything from burning coal to generate electricity to driving our cars, is going high into the atmosphere and locking heat in from escaping, driving up the temperature of the earth. If this continues our entire way of life may change. A re as like the prairies may become desserts, forests may die, the Great Lakes may become so low navigation becomes a problem for ships. While the timing of the conference may have been good with people already worrying about what is happening with our weather, it comes at a time when the scientists may find it tough to sell the need for action. With the kind of laissez-faire thinking permeating western governments these days it will be hard to get governments to take the kind of drastic action needed to reduce pollution. Meanwhile ordinary citizens may express concerns but they seem to feel the problem is just too big for them; that is even those who believe there is a problem. Many skeptics have the kind of attitude they’ll have to see it to believe it. Perhaps we need more of the kind of graphic demonstration that helped turn West Wawanosh farmer Tony McQuail into an environmentalist. He remembers, he told a meeting last year, the experiment in school where the instructor took a large jar and put plenty of mashed up banana pulp in it along with two fruit flies. The flies ate and multiplied and as the days went by the jar got fuller and fuller of flies. But suddenly one day all the flies died even though there was lots of food left. They had poisoned their own environment with their wastes. We in the affluent world have got used to flushing our wastes down the drain or setting our garbage out to the curb to be taken away, or burning everything from trash in our backyards to gas in our cars. We don’t seem to realize that the earth, big as it is, is a closed circle. J ust as we can ’ t put too much smoke in our house without choking, just as we can see the layers of smog over large cities, so the earth eventually has its limits as to how much pollution it can absorb. We are fast approaching those limits. We have two answers to the problem: government action or individual responsibility. People can wait for the government to force them to clean up their act, or they can start now to reduce their own pollution. The challenge is up to each of us. We don’t have long to hum and haw making up our minds. Politics and tragedy If there was one thing sadder than the loss of 290 lives when an Iranian jetliner was accidentally shot down by U.S. missiles over the Persian Gulf Sunday, it was listening to the U.S. and Soviet Union play politics with the situation. The America ns claimed it wasn’t as bad as the Soviets shooting down of a Korean airliner while the Soviets said it was far worse. To listen to the world’s two greatest nations arguing like schoolyard bullies while innocent families grieve their loss is both frightening and indecent. Both tragic incidents prove only that if you put enough fear into fighting men, put enough suspicions in their minds, tragic accidents will happen. And innocent people will pay the price. World leaders should be trying to build understanding so this kind of incident will never happen again, not build more suspicion to ensure that it will. Mabel’s Grill There are people who will tell you that the important decisions in town are made down at the town hall. People in the know, however know that the real debates, the real wisdom reside down at Mabel's Grill where the greatest minds in the town [if not in the country] gat her for morning coffee break, otherwise known as the Round Table Debating and Fili­ bustering Society. Since not just everyone can partake of these deliberations we will report the activities from time to time. MONDAY: Tim O’Grady said this morning that watching Canada and Russia fight back and forth over whose people have been spying kind of reminds him of watching a ping pong match. If so, Julia Flint said, Canada sure seemed to get ponged pretty good when the Soviets pulled out more than half their staff from the Canadian Embassy in Moscow. Imagine, Ward Black said, being one of those Russian workers and having somebody come along and tell you you didn’t go to work anymore because your country is having a tift with another country. Hank Stokes said that might not be as great a hardship as the Soviets who were sent home from Canada, having to go back to the shortages in Moscow. Yeh, said Ward, if Joe Clark had really wanted to hurt the Russians he could have sent them home without one last shopping spree for blue jeans and ghetto blasters. TUESDAY: Hank was saying it sure is a mixed up world. They’ve got these scientists from around the world meeting in Toronto these days worrying because there’s a hole in the ozone layer and we all may get skin cancer from too much radiation. At the same time some other scientists claim we’re in trouble down close to the earth because the sun turns the fumes from car exhausts into ozone and that kills beans and tobacco and causes breathing problems in people. That set Billie Bean to scribbling on his napkin, drawing pictures. Julia asked him what he was up to now and at first he was reluctant to say anything. Finally he broke down on the promise that no one would steal his invention. His latest scheme to get rich is to build a huge fan that will blow all the ozone from down here to up there and save us all from certain death. WEDNESDAY: Tim asked Julia how she’d like to try to manage her house if she lived in London when the water pipeline broke down and they had to do without showering or flushing the toilet for the day to conserve water. Julia said it wasn’t too bad at her house but she didn’t know what she’d do if she’d had teenagers who have to shower three times a day. Hank said it wouldn’t have hurt him too much to have had the water cut off but it sure worried him when he heard that to conserve water, Labatt’s stopped brewing beer for a day. That could get serious even way up here. THURSDAY: Billie Bean was shaking his head this morning over the story in the paper about the old timer in Toronto who owns a rundown house between two park­ ing lots that’s holding up re­ development of the whole area. People want him to sell so bad they’ve offered him $1.5 million for the place but he won’t sell. He says the money’s no good to him anyway so he wants to go on living where he has for 90 years. That kind of thinking could undermine the whole Canadian economy, Ward said. Billie says he’d sell in a minute if he had a chance for all that money. Tim said it sure was a lot of money: it would be enough for you to park your car in downtown Toronto every day for at least a month. Hank said he could understand the old timer wanting to stay where he’s lived all these years. “I get the feeling I’d like to do that myself on my own farm. Of course if I could grow a Toronto parking lot on each side of my farm I just might be able to get the money to afford to keep farming. Citizen P.O. Box 429, BLYTH, Ont. NOM 1H0 Phone 523-4792 P.O. Box 152, BRUSSELS, Ont NOG 1H0 Phone 887-9114 The Citizen is published weekly in Brussels, Ontario, by North Huron Publishing Company Inc. Subscriptions are payable in advance at a rate of $17 OO/yr. ($38.00 Foreign) Advertising isacceptedon the condition that in theevent of a typographical error, only that portion of the advertisement will be credited. Advertising Deadlines. Monday, 2 p.m - Brussels, Monday, 4pm - Blyth. We are not responsible for unsolicited newscriptsor photographs. Contents of The Citizen are © Copyright. Serving Brussels, Blyth, Auburn, Belgrave, Ethel, Londesborough, Walton and surrounding townships. Editor & Publisher, Keith Roulston Advertising Manager, Dave Williams Production Manager, Jill Roulston Second Class Mail Registration No. 6968