ENTERTAINERS

"The American Revolution, the abolition of slavery, and World War II all had one thing that the greenhouse effect does not have: the support of folk music," writes "Captain Sea Level" of Glenndale, Md. But, glory be, that dreadful flaw has now been repaired by his music and poetry: "I wanna tell you 'bout the greenhouse effect and a little ozone hole . . ." and "What will Santa do when the North Pole starts to melt?" (rhymes with ". . . little elves"). For $25 the entire treasure on sheet music is yours, guitar not included. "A refreshing, upbeat song," testifies Lynn Edger-ton, attorney for the NRDC. ". . . could become the Blowin'-in-the-Wind of the movement to stop the greenhouse effect," opines D. Campbell, chief economist, Ntl. Wildlife Federation.

No immediate health effects of radiation other than radiation sickness (which sets in above doses of 100 rem) have hitherto been known to health physicists; but a new discovery by the editors of the mountain climbing journal Summit (Jan/Feb 1989) has changed all that. Climbers on Mt. Eager in Canada "experienced nausea and illness from fallout following the Chernobyl incident," wrote the editors, applying the theorem that when two things fol-low each other, they must be cause and effect (which explains why temperatures dropped in Alaska following Hirohito's death). That type of thinking was confirmed by the editors of Chemtech (Jan. 1989) who at this late date repeated the full Gould-Sternglass hoax [AtE Feb 89] as a guest editorial including photos of the two char-latans. It will do wonders, I hope, for the credibility of products advertised in this journal of alchemy.

Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) on dangerous substan-ces are put out by companies of the environmental protection industry, which is to the environment as the poverty industry is to poverty: both make a lucrative living from a fashionable way of putting oneself in a moral light, but they do little for the environ-ment or against poverty. The MSDS on sodium chloride put out by Fisher Scientific of Fair Lawn, N.J., for example, notes its toxicity: severe irritation of eyes, causes coughing when inhaled, chronic exposure may cause mucous membrane irritation, nausea, vomit-ing and conjuctivitis. Its fire hazard is small, but spill and leak pro-cedures include pumping into plastic, non-corrosive containers, while avoiding sewers and watersources. Protective equipment re-quires self-contained breathing apparatus with a full face piece, clothing avoiding skin contact,gloves, and splash-proof safety gog-gles. Reader C. M. of Lycoming, N.Y., who sent me the 9-page MSDS sheet, notes that sodium chloride has been detected in both the Arctic and Antarctic Oceans. In fact, it has by now crept into virtually every American household; for its common name is table salt.