Where rain is like vinegar

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THE massive increase in the has been eaten away by a deficiency, such as yellowing The most dramatic effect ing the gases from the flues)

of leaves and dying off of of acid rain has heen ENCIN BORE THE massive increase in the burning of fossil fuels, such as oil and coal, over the last few decades, has brought something we are going to hear more and more about in the future - acid rain.

All fossil fuels contain a few per cent of sulphur which turns into the gasses sulphur dioxide and trioxide when the fuels are burnt. These gases combine with rain to make sulphuric acid.

Together with nitric acid produced from motor vehicie exhaust gases, this makes up acid rain.

Some acids have always been present in the atmosphere, but about 90% of all sulphur falling on the fields, forests and lakes of Europe and North America is of human origin.

Acid rain sounds bad, but what does it do?

Firstly, it destroys metals and stone. ' The Acropolis in Athens is now pitted with corrosion, having suffered more damage in 20 years than in the previous 2,000. The gold foil covering , the has been eaten away by a potent cocktail of acids. potent cocktail of acids.

Secondly, it dissolves many metal compounds, not soluble in ordinary water, corroding water pipes, discolouring drinking water (and incidentally endangering dialysis patients who cannot control their intake of dissolved minerals). This dissolving of metal compounds has other more serious consequences for plant and animal life, as we shall see.

According to new ideas acid rain works in three phases.

Phase 1. Increased nitro gen content provides more nutrients and actually istimulates plant growth.

Phase 2. Acids combine with essential nutrients such as magnesium and calcium, making them insoluble. For a time, the soil can neutralise the acid and replace nutrients from the bedrock underneath, but eventually acid starts to accumulate and plant life displays symptoms deficiency, such as of leaves and dy: tree tops.

Phase 3. Increasing acidity makes normally insoluble metals become soluble - most seriously aluminium. This toxic metal attacks the fine hairs on tree roots, which extract moisture and nutrients from the soil.

The ability of these root hairs to control the entry of substances is destroyed and the damage spreads further into the roots. Various disease organisms can then invade so that tree death comes from starvation, disease and poisoning.

Phase 1 still continues in Scandinavia, while Phase 2 reigns in West Germany (with Phase 3 starting to look in). Phase 3 is well established in Poland, East Germany, and Czechoslovakia, all of which now possess dead forests.

Some parts of Britain seem to be suffering Phase 2 damage, but the amount of research into acid rain in Britain remains pitifully The most dramatic effect of acid rain has been the death of the Scandinavian lakes. In south Norway, over half the fish have disappeared in the last 40 years, while in Sweden 9,000 lakes have suffered serious loss of fish and 4,000 are effectively dead.

Again, the problem is aluminium being dissolved in the soil and then washed into the lakes. It then clogs up the gills of fish (as it is. insoluble in body fluids), killing them by suffocation: Rather unjustly, most of Scandinavian acid rain comes from Britain.

This process is also starting in the northern British Isles. Already the Forestry Commission is adding lime to lakes in Galloway to neutralise acid. Also in Scotland, Pitlochrie has gained the dubious honour of the most acid rain ever recorded - more acid than vinegar!

There are various solutions to the problem of sulphur (removing it from the fuel, burning the fuel in a different way, or removing the gases from the flues) but all suffer from an over- muffar farms no Astro whelming (to capitalism) objection - they all cost money, which capitalism is little disposed to spend in the absence of overwhelming pressure.

The bureaucratic police states of East Europe are even less disposed to deal with their pollution since they are their ways (with the temporary exception of a group of Polish environmentalists during the pre-martial law phase of Solidarnosc).

Halt Once again, therefore, it is up to the labour movements of Europe and North America to call a halt to the despoliation of our environment. in many ways the problem is a more serious one than that of radioactive pollution which exercises so many on the left.

This world belongs to the workers - let us protect it.

(Information from New Scientist)

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ist Organiser, 19 August 1982 Page 11

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from a German biochemist, Professor Bernhard Ulrich,