@ — Wednesday, June 10, 1992 - North Shore News Green lining in bad news cloud YOU CAN feed on despair, but you can’t live on it. Ac- cordingly, I try to remind myself io look for the bright side, the green lining, as it were, in the enveloping carbon dioxide cloud. Every once in a while, you find a flicker of good (or at least goodish) news. Or, at the very least, ironic news that can be in- terpreted 2s being faintly positive — which is just a notch below cautiously optimistic. And, frankly, cautiously op- timistic is the most I think a ra- tional human being with access to the mass media can permit themsclves to feel during those rare moments when one pauses to contemplate the fate of the world. Even to be cautiously optimistic estimated that another 100 to 300 Species vanish every 24 hours nowadays on Planet Earth. Sure, it’s mostly insects, weird flowers and weeds we haven’t even classified yet, but with in- creasing frequency relatively big creatures like the B.C. short- horned lizard are disappearing be- fore our eyes. The eco-catastrophe isn’t in the future, it’s happening now. 1 refer to the planetary background, one more time, just to keep the existential angst juices flowing. Let’s not lapse into reflex Pollyannaism just because the truth is so unbearabie, hm? Still, at the considerable risk of tolling the steadfast reader into a false sense of security, I'm going to go ahead and mention a pathet- ic handful cf what you could call good (or at least reasonably halfway decent) signs, the sort of thing that might allow you a solid night’s sleep without the Industri- alized Person’s Burden pressing down quite so suffocatingly. For instance... Amazingly (miraculously, one is seriously tempted to say), the global warming trend has been deficcted for a couple of years by the tremendous belching of Mount Pinatubo, which pumped more sulphuric ash into the atmosphere than any volcanic disturbance Since Krakatoa in £883. Krakztoa, you will recall from your eacyclopedia, lowered global temperature for several winters — according to some calculations, Setting in motion a decade-long climatic chilling ripple effect. One wonders whether to laugh or cry about this. On the one hand, obviously, if you happen to be one of the mil- Hors of poozie in Africa who are facing famiwe thanks to drought by weather pattern changes driven by polfution from the industri- alized nations, you just cry. Or rage. iia you can afford the luxury of scenaric-playing i.e., if you live in a place like Canada, the concern naturally is that the warepentant fossil fuel-burning auto-mobile Western and Wester- nized hordes will decide that the , entire global warming threat can continue to be ignored with im- punity. If the polls show a decline in interest in the issue, the Arab and Texan oil billionaires will be able to continue to fend off demands for curbs on CO2 emissions. The bottom line on the cooling, as opposed to warming, trend ap- pears at che moment to be that when the temperature rises again it will move back up to the posi- tion it would have been at any- way, so that three years down the road we'll be at the same point we would have been at had there been nO cooling ai all, except there’ll be that much more junk in the at- Based on the unpredictability of Bob Hunter STRICTLY PERSONAL things so far, who knows what else might have happened by then? In any event, a breathing space is a breathing space. Maybe Gaia, the Earth God- dess, is compensating for the wasted years of George Bush, the Environmental Presi- dent...Probably it’s just another cosinic fluke. Whatever, Iet’s have a small round of applause before our next example of unexpected good fortune. Which coines in the form of a much under-reported observation dropped at a recent Environment Canada press conference. While introducirg the new ul- traviolet radiation risk warning system, a federal government scientist let drop the news that ground-level ozone (i.¢. smog) ac- tually serves to protect city dwellers from the additional! rays breaking through the thinning ozone layer 15 kilometres above. The ground-level stuff performs the same function as the at- mospheric stuff, meaning that the pale brown cowl of smog you see hovering over Vancouver func- tions like a kind of bubble, shielding its denizens from the sun. ic only adds 3% to 5% more protection, but that’s nearly enough to offset the amount of thinning. Again, the whether-to-cry-or- laugh reflex is wonky. How is one supposed to react to such weird- ness? Yet it has to be true. Federal civil servants say so. And if it’s true, congratulations city-dwellers, you’re actually safer from the risk of skin cancer than your country cousins. Oh, and by the way, I picked up a rumor that a new report is going to show that Eastern Canada’s dead lakes are ‘‘deacidi- fying’’ at a faster rate than ex- ed That is, they’re coming back to biological life without planeloads of lime having to be dumped into them to counter the effects of acid rain. i guess the exact term we’re looking at would be “‘autodeacidification.”’ Gotta love it. That’s certainly what the world needs more of. A global cooling-off spell can’t be knocked either. And if I'd dared to say even a week ago that smog could be partially beneficial, i’d have expected to have my mouth washed out with chlorine. By the way, you can buy nifty little handheld liquid-crysial UV-monitoring devices now that tell you exactly what the ultravio- let reading is and how many minutes you've got before you skin cells begin to sizzle. The future, eh? I told you, it’s here! CHANEL BOUTIQUE C3 Ye fale feCPSLULP we OL OLMONG a poate. to- Wear, Shoes, and selected. becessertes, CGS 1S trough -Sete lurday. Pune LUA, Yor one week only. 755 BURRARD STREET 632-0522 2st Varicouvel Tax Deadline for Property Taxes _ is Friday July 3 Property tax statements have been mailed to property owners in the three North Shore’ municipalities. Please contact your municipat tax office if you have not yet received a state- ment. If you are a new home-owner, you should be aware of your responsibility for payment | of the 1992 taxes. . Making your payment For your convenience, payment can be made by a post-dated cheque. Save the late payment penalty, and avoid line-ups, by having your payment in early. Drop your cheque, dated July 3 or earlier, in the mail or defiver it to municipal hall. ; Late payments A5% late payment penalty is added to taxes unpaid after July 3 and a further 5% added after September 2. Provincial Home Owner Grants Applications can be made whether or not current taxes are paid. It is to your advantage to apply before the tax penalty date of July 3, to avoid the penalty being calculated on the grant amount. Tax Deferment You may be able to defer payment of your taxes, through the BC Land Tax Deferment program if you are aged 60 years or more, or have a disability and qualify for GAIN, or are a widow or widower. Your municipal tax office has forms and more information. Numbers to cail District of North Vancouver 355 W. Queens Rd. District of West Vancouver 750 17th Street 987-7131 City of North Vancouver $85-7761 141 W. 14th Street