HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1998-05-27, Page 5A Final Thought
It takes less time to do a thing right, than
it does to explain why you did it wrong —
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, MAY 27, 1998. PAGE 5.
Arthur Black
Sorry, wrong
number
So I'm sitting on a wood-slatted bench in
the middle of a park on a fine spring day,
lobbing breadcrumbs from a brown paper
bag at a flock of freeloading pigeon and
'watching, out of the corner of my eye,
popcorn clouds scud their way across the
blue sky when suddenly, from the Jack
Fraser-clad businessman on the next bench I
hear...Bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbi
nrPPPPPPPPPPPPPP! -
It's his cellular telephone. The guy fishes
around in his inside jacket pocket, extracts a
piece of plastic, sticks it next to his ear and
for the next 10 minutes I listen to this clown
telling some sales rep how they have to get
20 units of number four grade framma-
jammits to their warehouse before Tuesday.
Cell phones. I'm sorry I had to be on the
planet for the spawning'of cell phones.
I recall distinctly how pleasant life was
without them. Now, they're everywhere.
Remember when dining in a restaurant,
riding in your car and certainly sitting in a
park — was consider& personal time? Relief
How about that
global warming?
I try to avoid writing about the weather in
my column although I did teach meteorology-
for a while to aspiring pilots in the Air Cadet
system.
However, I was looking for a bit of a
change-of-pace and happened to come upon
a study that was being carried out at the
Eidgenoessische Technische Hochschule in
Zurich, Switzerland. For non-German
speakers you can safely shorten that name to
ETH, but any Swiss will tell you that it is the
well known Federal Technical University. It
is actually where I might have ended up
studying if the economics bug had not bitten
me during my high school career.
At any rate, a couple of professors at the
ETH were carrying out a study on the sun
and global warming and decided to publish
their findings. They argue that it is the sun
more than anything else that is responsible
for all the global 'warming up to 1970.
Greenhouse gases only began to have a
partial effect after that.
Now that is interesting! After the recent
world conference on the topic held in Japan,
one would have thought that these greenhouse
gases were the chief culprit. Now we have
something that appears to absolve them of
part of the blame. I decided to look further.
For openers, the Naval Research
from the workaday world?
The cell phone has changed all that. Now,
we can take our work with us wherever we go.
Whoopee,
What's doubly ironic is nine times out of
10, whatever business we're using our cell
phones to take care of, isn't really all that
crucial. A recent study of 1,800 cell phone
users in Europe revealed that the Number
One recipient of all cell phone calls were ...
spouses. Wives calling husbands. Husbands
calling wives. •
Which reminds me of my brief flirtation
with cell phones. Yes, I, too, was once
smitten. I bought a cell phone because I felt it
would be nice to "stay in touch" with the rest
of the world when I was on the road.
And the TV ads made it very clear how
easy and convenient the cell phone was.
The ads didn't mention that you had to
remember to charge the damned thing every
day. And to lug it around with you
everywhere you went,, because cell phone
thieves were making a specialty of breaking
into vehicles in which owners had left their
cell phones.
Nor did the ads mention the fact that cell
phones tend to "go off" at the most
inopportune times.
By Raymond Canon
Laboratory in Washington, D.C., has studied
records of the sun for the last 400 years and
found that it has been getting steadily
brighter. This ties in with what we know as
sunspots. Although such spots make the sun
dimmer, the causes of this phenomenon also
bring about bright patches which seem to
compensate for the dimness. Thus it is that
the sun actually gets about one per cent
brighter during the dim or sunspot period.
These sunspots move in an 11-year cycle
and this fact brought on another study by the
Scripps Institution of Oceanography at La
Jolla, near San Diego. Scientists there
determined that the surface temperatures
across the globe go up and down during a 10-
12 year cycle that lags behind the solar cycle
by about 20 years.
The Scripps' scientists are of the belief that
there is some kind of reinforcing action
taking place. For example, let's assume that
the sun spots result in the heating of the
surface waters of the ocean, such as takes
place with the phenomenon known as El
Nino. This sets off weather patterns that
cause the water to warm some more, which
in turn affects the climate even more and so
on until the effect is three times greater than
it was at the beginning.
The story does not end there. Another
scientist, this time in London, Eng. has
looked at the change in the ultraviolet
radiations of the sun and found that they
varied by a percentage far greater than the
Such as, during "romantic interludes". Or
when you're in a washroom cubicle but your
cell phone is in the pocket of your jacket,
which is hanging on a clothes hook.
Outside the cubicle.
But I learned to handle the petty headaches
that came with cell phone usage because ...
well, because the cell phone was just so
darned useful.
I remember driving home one night from
work with my shiny new cell phone on the
seat beside me, and I was thinking: "Now
this is exactly why I purchased this piece of
cutting edge technology — so that I could
phone up my sweet patootie from the comfort
of my car to let, her know I'm on my way."
1 punched in my home number. It rang.
Said Sweet Patootie picked it up.
"Hi, honey!" I trilled. "I'm finished work!
I'm on my way home!"
A puzzled silence came down the line,
followed by a familiar but sarcastic voice
saying: "Oh, goody. You mean, just like last
night?"
I sold my cell phone through a newspaper
ad two days later. That was four years ago. I
haven't needed — or wanted — a cell phone'
since.
total change in the energy output.
It was also discovered that, contrary to
earlier beliefs, the changes in the ozone level
resulted in more heat ending up on the
surface of the earth. This could, it was
argued, add to the increase in warming
referred to above.
There are other studies being carried out
which could be used to demonstrate
additional influences of the temperature on
the earth's surface, but a great deal of work
still has to be done before the exact co-
relation of all these can be established.
I did not find that any of the studies
absolved humans of their contribution to
global warming but, as they say, the jury is
still out.
One scientist noted that, although the
sunspot cycle took a sharp drop after 1960,
the effect on global warming should have
been less. Whatever the effect, global
warming did not drop.
I have the feeling that studying the
question of the earth's temperature is just
about the same as looking at economic data.
Just when you think you have established a
certain pattern, along comes a study that
moves you back to square one.
The
short
of it
By Bonnie Gropp
Breathe easy
Twelve years ago, I had the scare of my
life. My young son, who was three at the
time, had a severe asthma attack.
I remember my trip to the hospital,
watching my baby gasp for air, as I tried to
close the gap of 19 miles in record time. My
worry fluctuated between not making it in
time, or because of the speed I was
travelling, not making it at all.
It was a heart-lurching sense of hopeless
panic that is still palpable.
My paranoia as a parent is legendary. For
the next few years I hovered over my child
with wary eye. We were fortunate, however,
in that his first attack was his worst attack.
Yet, while Mom could begin to relax
again, I realized that his condition provided
me with an excuse to take a step that I had
wanted to take for some time. Our house
became a smoke-free environment.
As an ex-smoker, I am assuredly one of
the most sanctimonious. When I quit 22
years ago it wasn't easy. It took several tries,
but I did it. Therefore that my lungs could be
polluted by someone else, has since induced
in me just a touch of hostility. The one place
where I could have control was in my own
environment. But despite my strong aversion
to cigarette smoke, it still felt rude to tell my
guests to take it outside.
My son's attack, however, gave me a
'valid' reason. What I should have been
brave enough to realize was that simply his
existence gives me more than enough
motive.
The Coalition for a Smoke-free Huron-
Perth is supporting the World Health
Organization's focus on "Growing up
Without Smoke" this Sunday, which is
World No Tobacco Day. Children are
innocent victims of second-hand smoke,
which is the most dangerous form of indoor
air pollution. Inhaling second-hand smoke
increases heart rate, blood pressure and
carbon monixide levels in the blood.
Sidestream smoke from a burning cigarette
contains twice as much tar and nicotine as
does the inhaled smoke, three times as much
3,4-benzpyrene (a cancer-causing agent),
five times as much carbon monoxide and as
much as 50 times the ammonia. According
to Heather Kehl, co-chairperson for the
coalition, children who breathe second-hand
smoke get more colds, ear infections,
bronchitis and asthma.
And with all the well-documented
evidence of the health threat of second-hand
smoke to the non-smoker I have to question
why any loving parent would subject their
child to it. Sitting in a restaurant one day, I
seethed while watching an adorable infant be
passed among his chain-smoking mom and
her friends under a haze of blue smoke.
Hopefully, this ignorant woman is the
exception. I know heavy smokers who
would never dream of smoking near their
children. But, it's also a reminder that we
can't always protect them from it.
Research has shown that the levels of
second-hand smoke in restaurants are higher
than in workplaces or in a one-smoker home.
So what about those who want to protect
their loved ones from smoky public rooms'?
You can start to breathe easier. The
Coalition is distributing a brochure listing
where to dine smoke-free in Huron and
Perth.
I can only say one thing — thank you.
International Scene