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Show In- j Battle C!reek "-I, '"J? .5 gjgrsgg7 A short news clip on the television tele-vision the other night shook me up so forcibly that I have not been the same since. The picture showed several large Ponderosa pine trees in the mountains east of Los Angeles. The trees were dead as door nails from the trunks to the tops and the needles and smaller smal-ler branches had blown away with the wind. The commentator commenta-tor said that the trees had been killed by the air pollution, commonly called "smog" in California. What hit me above the chin was the question: "If the smog is doing that to strong, healthy forest trees, what is smog doing do-ing to the eyes and lungs of men, women and children?" What are fog and fumes doing do-ing to people in Salt Lake and Utah Valley every time we have an "inversion" and at other times as well? Scientists who have studied the situation, state that over 50 per cent of Utah's air pollution pol-lution is caused by the exhaust gasses from motor vehicles. Sulfur Dioxide and Carbon Monocide in the exhaust fumes fum-es are the culprits, they say. Gasoline is a hydrocarbon. When pure hydrocarbons burn completely they produce water and carbon dioxide, neither of which is regarded as actually poisonous. However, when carbon car-bon burns partially, carbon monoxide is produced a dead ly poison. In addition, gasoline contains varying amounts of sulfur. When sulfur burns, it produces sulfur dioxide. When sulfur doixide fuses with water, sulfuric sul-furic acid is produced a deadly dead-ly corrosive reagent. So it would seem in all reasonableness, reas-onableness, that the way to eliminate eli-minate all pollution from the exhausts of motor vehicles is first to find a way to remove the sulfur from the gasoline and then burn the fuel completely com-pletely in the automobile's cylinders. cy-linders. Motor vehicle manufacturers say that these two things are difficult to do. Hence they have not done it. Well sir, walking on the moon was difficult, too.. But we did it,, because we devoted our brain power and unlimited resources toward making the moon landings an accomplished accomplish-ed fact. Industry, too, can continue to do more and more to reduce spilling poisonous gasses into the atmosphere. Only puny efforts ef-forts have been made in that direction so far. Which is more valuable to humanity, pure, clean air with which to fill our lungs, or exploratory ex-ploratory trips to Mars and Jupiter? Why visit other planets, until we have cleaned up the mess we have made on our own? So long 'til Thursday. |