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t No Entry

t Protect Yourself

In This Issue:

ToxicTerritory

Environmental toxins come from everyday things such as vehicle exhaust, factory smoke, and fumes from incinerators. Even household cleaning products and garden fertilizers can contain toxins. Although environmental toxins may be hard to see, you can find their effects everywhere you look. Sound scary? Well, environmental toxins can cause serious health problems. But knowledge is power. Understanding where toxins are and how they get there is the first step in making your environment safe.

Nonfiction Article

by Sophi Nauman

In your home, at your school, on the street—

just about anywhere you care to go—there are

invisible poisons all around you.

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If you look around, you can see the effects of air pollution. In some cities, air pollution from traffic and factories can make you feel as though you’re looking through a dirty window.

Buses, cars, and trucks pump toxins into the air through their exhaust systems. Factories and power plants foul up the air with dirt, dust, and smoke. When we burn oil and gas for home heating, it does the same thing.

Governments around the world have made laws to cut down on pollutants. New rules say that many factories have to use technology that catches pollution before it reaches the environment.

Water is one of life’s essentials. When water is affected by pollutants, every living thing loses!

Every day in Canada, each person uses roughly 683 L of water. Depending on where you live, water supplies might seem endless. In fact, our supplies of fresh water are shrinking.

Most of the water we use comes from lakes and rivers or it is taken from the ground. Pollutants can leak into these sources of fresh water. Some pollutants make their way into the water from chemical or sewage spills into rivers and lakes. Others, like weedkillers, get into the water when soil washes off farms and gardens.

In many countries, water is treated with chemicals such as chlorine before it is pumped to homes. These chemicals get rid of environmental toxins and other substances that might make people sick.

Lead in gasoline used to be a major air pollutant. But since 1990, leaded gasoline has been banned for on-road vehicles in Canada.

Beware of the Air!

Water, Water, Everywhere …

According to the World Health Organization, about one-sixth of the world’s people have no clean water to drink.

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Soil needs bacteria, fungi, and other organisms to help plants grow. Pesticides that are used to kill insects and prevent diseases in food crops can keep these organisms from working. This makes the soil less fertile. Pesticides can also remain on many foods. Unless we wash our fruit and vegetables carefully, we end up eating these pollutants. So wash that apple before you eat it!

The full effects of pesticides on people aren’t totally understood. But many people steer clear of them by eating organically grown foods. These foods are grown without pesticides or chemical additives.

Scientists say that it’s best to eat as wide a variety of foods as possible. This helps to reduce your contact with any one pollutant. It helps to keep your overall diet healthy, too.

A deadly illness turned up in Japan in 1956. Mercury, a poisonous chemical, leaked from a factory into Minamata Bay. The mercury built up in fish and shellfish. When local people ate the seafood, the mercury damaged their nervous systems. People’s speech, memory, and vision were affected. This illness is now called Minamata disease.

Mercury is found in thermometers, fluorescent light tubes, paint, and some batteries. It’s also used in pesticides. Mercury gets into the environment when these items are burned, put into landfills, or broken down through everyday use.

POISON IN THE BAY

Through the Food Chain

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A huge purple sun sat low on the horizon. Thorpe sat on the high stool of his guard tower and looked out over the ocean. It was calm tonight, and the flat water was the colour of blood. He was tired. This was always the worst time, the end of the shift, just before dark. He understood what would be done to anyone who fell asleep. More importantly, he knew what might happen if someone was ever allowed to slip through the island’s defences.

Thorpe checked the monitor in front of him. The slow flash of the display told him that everything was normal. He looked down again at the coastline. There were no waves tonight, and he could hear the gentle movement of the tide against the security fences. He tried to imagine how it would have looked in the old days, before the outbreak. The sea was blue then, they said, and people swam in it. Without the barriers, fish swam in so close to the shore that people could catch them with a rod and line.

Birds used to fly over the island, bringing strange calls to the silent nights. That was when the air was better—back in the days when you didn’t have to line up outside the hospital every second Saturday for treatment. The island was a tourist resort then, a place people would visit just for a holiday. Now nobody was allowed in and nobody ever left.

NO ENTRYScience Fiction by Bernard Beckett • Illustrations by Warren Mahy

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A low hum in the distance brought Thorpe back from his daydreaming. He adjusted the focus on his vision goggles and scanned the ocean. There it was, out over Disaster Head, the only part of the mainland visible from this coast. A huge grey ship hovered just above the harbour. Its orange lights blinked as it gained altitude. It would rise for a few more moments, then turn and disappear, the way they always did. If it broke the agreement and entered the island’s airspace, it would be shot down. Thorpe had seen that happen once when he first started working. It was how it had to be. They couldn’t afford to take any risks.

Thorpe wondered what they were like, the few remaining people on the mainland who’d outlasted the epidemics. He’d heard the rumours, everyone had, even though the leaders told them not to speak of it. Some said the only ones to survive were mutants, weird-looking and with strange powers. Others said that there was still great suffering over there. And then there were those who said the epidemic had passed. That the precautions were no longer necessary. But people like that were made to be quiet soon enough.

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A shrill noise sounded, and Thorpe checked the security screen. It blurred for a moment and then showed the face of his replacement, Buzz.

“Well, are you going to let me in?” Buzz asked. She was a year younger than Thorpe, just out of the academy. She had dark hair and piercing eyes and a smile that nothing could wipe off. Buzz had her own theories about the epidemic, but she was smart enough not to talk about them.

Thorpe entered the code, and the door slid up.

“Okay, then, you’re done.” Buzz smiled. “Anything interesting happen today?”

“Nothing. Same as always,” said Thorpe. Just then the monitor gave a high-pitched squeal, a sound he had only ever heard in training. He jumped at the noise and turned to Buzz, who was looking carefully at the monitor, still smiling.

“It’s something in section four,” Buzz said, leaning forward and fiddling with the controls below the monitor. “You want to wait around and see what it is?”

“Sure,” Thorpe said. Two years in the job, and this was the first time anything exciting had happened. He wasn’t about to miss it. “Should I call Control?”

“Not yet,” Buzz replied. “Let’s just see what we’ve got first.”

Buzz tapped a command on the control panel. Somewhere high above the coast, a sky eye responded, zooming in on the spot and beaming the pictures back to the monitor. Thorpe and Buzz looked at the image on the screen. It wasn’t a surprise. This was why they were here, it was what they were trained for. But somehow, seeing it for real made it worse than Thorpe had ever imagined.

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It was a small boat—so tiny it looked like a toy. There was no engine to be seen, and the one person aboard appeared to be using two long sticks with flat ends to paddle through the water. The sky eye zoomed in closer, and the two looked at the face of the intruder, who stared ahead at the security fence, her big dark eyes filled with surprise.

“She’s so young,” Buzz said. “Not even my sister’s age. What’s she doing here?”

“You know what she’s doing,” Thorpe replied. “She’s trying to find a way in. She’s trying to escape the epidemic.”

“You don’t know that,” Buzz told him. “Maybe she’s lost.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Thorpe remembered his training well. “We have to inform Control.”

But then something very surprising happened, something Thorpe could never have anticipated. Buzz turned to look at him, and her smile disappeared.

“You can’t call through,” Buzz said.“I have to,” replied Thorpe. “It’s the

rules.”“You know what they’ll do, don’t you? You

know what will happen to her?”

“It’s what they have to do. It’s for our own protection.”

“We don’t even know if there’s still an epidemic,” Buzz told him, speaking aloud the forbidden words. “Look, Thorpe, I know you think this is your duty, but I’m going to ask you to help me. I want you to call Control and tell them it was a false alarm. I’m going to run down to the cliffs. I can call out to her from there, tell her to turn back, before anyone else notices.”

“Why?” Thorpe asked.Buzz stared at him, her smile still

missing.“Because it’s the right thing to do.”Thorpe thought back to his training,

back to all the stories he’d heard about the epidemic. Then he looked at the screen, the little girl in the tiny boat moving gently up and down in the low swell. She didn’t look sick. She just looked lost … and frightened.

Thorpe called Control.“Control,” he said, surprised by how calm

his voice sounded. “This is Watchtower Three. We’ve had a false alarm. I’m dealing with it now.”

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Environmental poisons may be mostly invisible, but that doesn’t mean you can’t learn about them. Environment Canada, Greenpeace, and other organizations help people learn about the effects of poisons.

Environmental groups also promote guidelines that come down hard on vehicles and industries that poison the environment. Organizations and individuals can work toward creating a cleaner environment.

Being aware of pollutants is one step toward cleaning the environment. The real challenge is to keep these poisons from getting into our food and water. It’s not hard to become a part of the solution!

protect yourselfNonfiction Article by Sophi Nauman

Environmental Tips

Say no to plastic bags. Every year, about •

500 billion plastic bags end up in landfills.

So take a reusable bag when you go shopping.

Start a compost pile or bin—it saves landfill •

space and keeps soil healthy. As much as

20% of the stuff we throw away could be

composted.

Think about using public transportation, •

walking, carpooling, or cycling rather than

using a car.

Don’t clog landfills with old electronics. •

Some manufacturers offer recycling options

for computers and cellphones.

Look for community resources like •

e-waste recycling events, or consider

donating your old gadget to someone.

Plant a tree. Trees remove carbon dioxide •

from the air, produce oxygen, and prevent

chemicals from running into streams.

Write a sequel or prequel (the story that comes before) for the science fiction story “No Entry.”

Use some of the factual information you learned in “Toxic Territory” and “Protect Yourself.”

Try This

Many nutritionists say that if you want to protect yourself from environmental poisons, antioxidant foods are your best bet. Antioxidants are substances like Vitamin C that help remove poisons from the body. Antioxidants are found in brightly coloured fruits and vegetables, such as blueberries, plums, and oranges. They’re also found in tea, dark

chocolate, and coffee.

antioxidant action

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