Word: arctics
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Imagine knowing that the Mississippi River had been dammed and drained into dusty extinction. Or that every wolf, every eagle, every grizzly had been captured, muzzled and put in a circus. That the ices of the Arctic Circle were purple and irridescent with tanker refuse. Or that every lighthouse was nothing more than an overgrown lightbulb, blinking over debris-strewn shores and abandoned buildings...
Fish and shellfish that have absorbed toxins can indirectly pass contaminants to humans. Birds migrating between Central America and the Arctic Circle, for example, make a stopover in San Francisco's wetlands, where they feast on clams and mussels that contain high concentrations of cadmium, mercury and lead. Says Biologist Gregory Karras of Citizens for a Better Environment: "The birds become so polluted, there is a risk from eating ducks shot in the South...
...bags of cement to a remote Eskimo village? Answer: mail them. Sam Krogstad, a construction supplier in Anchorage, is sending the individually addressed blocks (postage: $4.33 each) and bags ($4.27) about 700 miles north to Wainwright, where they will be used to build a small harbor on the Arctic Ocean. Krogstad's bill for stamps will be about $45,000, less than what other shippers would charge...
...over Antarctica during the southern spring. The phenomenon is dramatic evidence of ozone loss in the upper atmosphere, caused largely by man-made chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons, which could leave the earth more vulnerable to cancer-inducing rays from the sun. Now, it seems, there is mounting evidence that the Arctic has its own ozone hole, albeit a smaller one. At the American Geophysical Union meeting last week in Baltimore, W.F.J. Evans, an atmospheric physicist with the Canadian Department of the Environment, announced that an ozone "crater" 1,500 miles wide may be developing over the North Pole...
Evans' findings are based on the release in 1986 of a series of research balloons at Alert, Canada, near the North Pole. Scientific instruments aboard the craft detected a significant loss of ozone between January and March of that year. Unlike the Antarctic ozone hole, however, the Arctic crater formed only patchily in 1987 and scarcely appeared at all in 1988. For now, Evans' colleagues have reserved judgment about his discovery until further studies of the Arctic atmosphere can be made...