f
cs _Castlégar News April 10, 1988

‘Doctor Doom’ predicts disaster

By ROBERT PLASKIN
Canadian Press

OTTAWA — John Last works hard to avoid being
saddled with a Doctor Doom image.

But for Last, a medical doctor and the editor of the
Canadian Public Health Association's journal, it's a
difficult exercise.

“I'm profoundly pessimistic about the fate of our
planet,” Last said in an interview, “but I can’t say that too
often publicly. Nobody wants to constantly hear
jeremiads.”

Still, his worries cannot help but percolate to the
surface every now and then.

Last is disturbed by the lack of attention to what he
considers an impending crisis:the impact that the
deterioration of the environment will have on the general
health of Canadians.

A major part of the problem, he says, is that it's
difficult, if not impossible, to prove beyond a shawdow of
a doubt that public health is mortally threatened, and
anything less than absolute proof is usually not enough to
justify action

PLANET AILING

An editorial by Last in a recent issue of the
public-health journal warns there is an over-abundance of
evidence to show that the planet and the people who live
upon it are ailing

The editorial says a massive report prepared by the
UN World Commission on Environment and Develop:
ment is “a catalogue, to be sure, of the follies of mankind
that have brought us to this pass.

“The health of the earth is an essential prerequisite
for the health of all the people of the earth; if our planet

sickens, we, too, will sicken; if our planet dies, we will all
die with it.”

Public-health professionals, the people who try to
advise government and industry on the policies needed to
cope with these problems, should be playing a leadership
role, Last says.

That is the case in many countries.

NOT IN CANADA

In other countries, government policies lag behind
the needs and even behind public opinion, says, Last.
“There are three English-speaking countries where that

‘In Mulroney's Canada
there's little thought
for tomorrow. They're
only interested in
getting rich quickly’

is happening in a serious w

“In Ronald Reagan's Ame Thatcher's Britain and
here in Mulroney's Canada, there's little thought for
tomorrow. They're only interested in getting rich
quickly.”

There is no lack of concern by or advice from
public-health professionals to Canada's federal and
provincial governments. Last's groups, the Canadian
Public Health Association, is an independent organization
consisting mainly of nurses and doctors who advise all
levels of government on issues that affect public health.

“It just happens that these governments aren't very

interested in the advice we have to offer.”

British Columbia's forest policies are a perfect
example, Last says. There are nearly constant battles
between an industry running out of productive timber-
land - - largely because of the clear-cutting practices the

pr ind
save wilderness tracts.

THINK OF KIDS
“It wouldn't happen if the people in government,
even just for a moment, gave a thought just to their own

kids’ future,” Last says.

“Where are the children of the people who run
British Columbia going to go camping when the forests

are gone?”

Last finds it strange how people react to environ-
“that Bre ultimately public-health

mental problems

issues.”

He cites, for example, scientists’
years ago that toxic chemicals in the Great Lakes —
which supply drinking water to millions of Canadians —
were causing herring-gull chicks to be born with

grotesque deformities.

“I got all fired up because I perceived it as an early
warning signal, but unfortunately I couldn't arouse much
in the problem as a public-health issue.

REPORT ON SHELF
Last did get a contract from the International Joint
the Canada-U.S.
studies boundary issues — to examine the herring-gull
problem and its implications for public health, but the
study published two years ago

interest”

Commission —

gathering dust.”

The issue of scientific proof is a real dilemma.

who want to

discovery a few

organization which

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Mars to come
close to Earth

MIAMI (AP) — This year,
Mars makes it closest ap
proach to Earth in a gen
eration, and astronomers say
the red planet's appearance
in the night sky may be the
astronomical event of 1988

As if to demonstrate the
heavens have a sense of
humor, the height of the
show comes in September,
just shy of the 50th anni
versary of Orson Welles's
1938 War of the Worlds
broadcast that panicked the
United States with fictional
reports of invaders from
Mars.

“I see 1988 as a great
Martian adventure,” said
Jack Horkheimer, the aptly
named Star Hustler of the
Public Broadcasting System
and executive director of
Miami's Space Transit Plan
etarium. “I'm like a kid in a
candy store.”

When Mars is at its closest
on Sept. 21 just over 58
million kilometres away — it
will rival Jupiter as the
brightest object in the sky
after the Moon and Venus.

“It won't be this close
again until 2003,” says Hork
heimer. “And there are a lot
of kids out there who have
never seen it this bright.”

Unlike the comets Halley
and Kohoutek, Mars will not
disappoint viewers, because
its brightness is more pre.
dictable and the planet will
be easily visible from almost
everywhere.

He expects a spate of

sightings of unidentified fly
ing objects to accompany
‘Mars’ visit as people un-
accustomed to the unblinking
reddish-orange light in the
night sky mistake it for more
exotic extraterrestrial visi
tors.

Like planetarium directors
around the country, Hork.
heimer is preparing a series
of Mars shows he promises
will “knock your socks off.”

One involves a computer.
ized simulation of a flight
through the planet's giganite
4,000-kilometre-long version
of the Grand Canyon.
And other centres around an
29-kilometre-high mountain
— three times higher than
Mount Everset — capped by
a large crater.

Although Earth passes
Mars every two years, it is
only every 15 to 17 years that
the orbits of the third and
fourth planets bring them as
close together as in 1988. The
year began with Earth and
Mars separated by 320 mil
lion kilometres.

The close encounter comes
four years before a scheduled
Mars probe by the Soviet
Union

The Soviets plan to have
the probes bring back Mar
tian soil, and perhaps, Hork-
heimer said, settle the most
intriguing question about
Earth’s neighbor — whether
life once existed on the now
cold and arid desert planet.

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