Watching the World
Claims to Be Messiah
“Moon’s Unification Church has long taught members that its Korean-born founder-prophet was a necessary second Messiah because Jesus failed to complete his mission on Earth,” notes the Los Angeles Times. But now, in his first public pronouncement of that doctrine, “Sun Myung Moon has told a religious conference that he is the Messiah.” Stating that the world needs the Messiah to free itself from Satan’s influence, Moon said: “To help fulfill this very purpose I have been called upon by God.” The statement, made before his church-sponsored Assembly of World Religions, upset a number of participants.
Smoking’s Deadly Toll
Some 10,000 delegates attended the International Cancer Conference in Hamburg, West Germany, in August 1990. As reported in the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, they heard the conference chairman declare: “Within several decades the number of smoking-related deaths earth wide will be higher than the total of those who have died in all wars put together.” Although delegates were in favor of steps to curtail tobacco use, a number of cancer specialists were seen sneaking outside to light up.
Ongoing Battle
An Australian farmer in the state of Victoria introduced rabbits to the continent in 1859 when he released 12 of them on his property for game shooting. By the 1950’s the rabbit population had reached 600 million! “They chew the seedlings of native plants and outgraze sheep and native animals in the competition for grasses, shrubs and weeds . . . and can cause massive soil erosion,” states The Sun-Herald of Sydney. So the myxomatosis virus—deadly to rabbits—was introduced, spread mainly by mosquitoes and the French flea. Although it had stunning success at first, resistance to the virus developed, and the rabbit population has again soared to more than 200 million. Now Australia plans to introduce the Spanish flea to spread the virus into areas too dry for the mosquitoes or the French flea and to develop stronger strains of deadly myxomatosis for it to carry. The paper notes that the rabbits “breed up to 10 times a year, with the average doe producing 25-30 young.”
Help for Working Mothers
An advertising agency near Regensburg, Germany, has arrived at a compassionate solution to the problem of working mothers who cannot find anyone to tend their children during the day. “Work part-time and bring the kids with you,” the manager of the firm told such employees, according to the newspaper Nürnberger Nachrichten. The manager reasons: “We work here mainly with women, and good staff are few and far between in advertising. So I am naturally keen to hold on to my staff.” Of course, an office with five or six children romping around may not always be conducive to work, but the working mothers find themselves more motivated, more eager to please a firm that has gone to such lengths to meet their needs, and no more distracted than if they were working at home. Comments a single working mother of three: “There is no other way in which I would have been able to work.”
Water Woes
“At the moment, countries are poised to go to war over oil, but in the near future, water could be the catalyst for armed conflict,” stated Time magazine. “Human populations are outstripping the limited stock of fresh water. Mankind is poisoning and exhausting the precious fluid that sustains all life.” While lack of water may seem incredible on a planet where 70 percent of the surface is covered by water, it must be remembered that 98 percent of that water is salty and unfit for drinking or agriculture. The lack of fresh, clean water not only threatens health, economic growth, and all wildlife but makes famines ever more likely each year. Arrangements to tap other sources often backfire. “The world is learning that there are limits to mankind’s ability to move water from one place to another without seriously upsetting the balance of nature,” says Time. However, supplies can be dramatically increased simply by cutting down losses. It is estimated that, worldwide, from 65 to 70 percent of the water used is lost due to leaks, evaporation, and other inefficiencies.
New Airline Rule
United States federal rules now require that all persons seated in the row adjacent to an airplane exit be in good physical condition, able to read and speak English, and capable of helping to evacuate the plane in case of an emergency. Such seats will be barred to persons who are frail, disabled (including the deaf and the blind), and under 16 years of age and those pregnant or with small children. Passengers for exit-row seats will be selected at the gate and told of their responsibilities but will have the option of refusing the assignment and moving to another seat. Special instructions will also be provided for persons in exit-row seats. Many airlines plan to fill these seats with their own employees who are traveling free of charge on personal or business trips, as they usually have special training in safety procedures. The new rule was proposed after studies of crashes showed that inability to evacuate the plane quickly was the cause of some deaths.
Children and Aids
In its first report on the impact of AIDS on children, the World Health Organization said that the virus is striking many more children than had been previously thought and that some ten million children would probably be infected with it by the year 2000. “The vast majority of these will have developed AIDS and died by the year 2000,” said Dr. Michael Merson, director of the agency’s global AIDS program. The findings also brought a revision of the projection of total HIV infection by that year, raising it to some 25 to 30 million cases. Children born to infected women lose in two ways: Chances are that 30 percent will have the virus themselves, while the remaining 70 percent face the prospect of becoming orphans due to their parents’ dying of AIDS.
Underwater Lumberjacks
The flooding of thousands of square miles of rain forest in Brazil has given rise to an unusual new industry: underwater logging. Millions of gray, leafless trunks, jutting up out of a lake that formed when a huge hydroelectric dam was built during the 1980’s, caught the entrepreneurial eye of Juárez Cristiano Gomes. He devised an underwater chainsaw and formed a company to harvest the wood. Divers descend with air hoses to depths of up to 150 feet [50 m] to fell the trees. Underwater lumberjacks are not in danger from falling trees, since most trees “fall” up to the surface, ready for floating to waterside sawmills. But there are other hazards to watch out for. Last year a diver was bitten by a piranha.
Profusion of Plastics
“Sixty years ago nothing in anybody’s house was made of plastic,” states Asiaweek. “Today plastics of many kinds are in every room.” Worldwide, it is a $200,000,000,000 industry. The largest use, some 30 percent, is for packaging, including bottles and bags. In second place, with about 20 percent, is its use in building materials. While extremely useful and cheap, plastics do have their drawbacks in disposal. Burned, they release toxic pollutants; dumped, they remain “an indestructible blight on the landscape.” While recycling could solve the problem, collecting and sorting have proved to be very expensive.
Safety Consciousness Pays
The death rate due to accidents has fallen by 21 percent in the United States during the last decade, according to figures released by the National Safety Council, making the decade more outstanding in accident prevention than any other of the century. For instance, there was a 20-percent drop in the rate of motor-vehicle deaths. Work-related accidents declined by 29 percent. Public accidents, such as plane crashes and drownings, dropped by 22 percent. And home accidents, including falls, fires, and poisonings, fell 16 percent; this would have been better had not accidental fatal drug overdoses showed a significant increase. Progress in reducing accidents, which rate fourth as a cause of death (after heart disease, cancer, and strokes), is attributed to improved regulations, changed attitudes, and safety campaigns.