 he "unthinkable" appears to
be hap pening. According to a Reuters re port, "Heavy smog found in
air above south sea paradises" (K. Murray, 4/1/98), "Throat-burning
smog that afflicts huge cities like Los Angeles and Mexico City is also
contaminating the air above pristine South Sea islands like Fiji and Tahiti."
 The Reuters report is based upon
the work of F. Sherwood Rowland, a Nobel Prize-winning* expert in atmospheric
chemistry at the University of California, and his colleague, Donald Blake.
Presenting their findings at national meetings of the American Chemical
Society in Dallas, they said the ozone levels represented "a major
atmospheric problem for the 21st century."
Air quality at 8,000 feet and higher
above the South Pacific was discovered to have ozone levels that would "trigger
a first-stage smog alert" in some of the world's more congested, polluted
cities."
The Galapagos Islands near Ecuador
were also found to have this high level of smog in the air above the surface.
The scientists attributed the South Sea air pollution to the forest and
brushland fires in Africa, Indonesia, South America and Australia. They
say it "is carried thousands of miles by winds." Omitted from
this report and others is mention of the terrible smoke coming from the
burning peat in Indonesia. A tremendous amount of carbon dioxide is being
put into the atmosphere from the burning peat and coal fires, covering about
one million hectares. The peat fires are a result of national policy in
Indonesia coupled with dry conditions from the 1997-1998 El Niño.
The ozone measured in Professor
Rowland's study is high enough above the earth's surface that people in
the South Sea islands are likely untroubled by it. However, the report says
that the ozone is "a dramatic sign of escalating ozone levels worldwide."
Rowland is quoted as saying: "We are talking about (ozone count) numbers
on a regular basis that are approaching levels that are considered harmful
on an occasional basis."
The findings obtained were a result
of two research planes flying about 500 miles north of Fiji last year, at
an altitude of about 5 miles. They "flew through a plume of smog with
ozone readings of 131 parts per billion above the smog alert level in Los
Angeles or Mexico."
The chemicals found in the air over
the tropical paradises were the "essentially" the same as those
affecting major cities, Rowland said. However, overlooked in the Reuters
article is the fact that at ground level in major cities there are also
thousands of new, manufactured chemicals in the air that are not found in
forest combustion.
Rowland said, "You need hydrocarbons,
nitrogen and sunlight. In the tropics, burning forests give off hydrocarbons
and the high temperatures create nitrogen oxides, and there is plenty of
sunlight." According to him, worldwide ozone levels are rising steadily.
He believes that unless something happens to change this trend, the chemical
effects "will show up in the biology of the people that have to live
in it."
The Reuters article said the effects
of high smog levels are impaired lung functions that cause breathing difficulties,
and increased risk of asthma attacks. It also said that smog irritates the
eyes, nose and throats of people exposed to it. According to Rowland, smog
causes rubber bands to lose their elasticity and ponders what effects it
has on lungs.
The field work was done under the
sponsorship of NASA in the Atlantic in 1992 and in the Pacific in 1996.
More tests are scheduled for next year in different areas of the Pacific.
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