The Optimist (Abilene, Tex.), Vol. 78, No. 38, Ed. 1, Wednesday, February 7, 1990 Page: 3 of 6
This newspaper is part of the collection entitled: Texas Digital Newspaper Program and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the Abilene Christian University Library.
Extracted Text
The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
-- ;i-?iT?"7r
JWednoaday February 7 1990
A World
If -lv J
4.. ! Ml
ut ask the animals. -
v and they-will
teach you
or the birds of the air and they
will tell you;
or speak to the earth and it will
teach you
or let the fish of the sea inform
you.
Which of all these docs not know
that the hand of the Lord has
done this?
In his hand is the life of every
creature
and the breath of all mankind."
-Job 12:7-10 NIV
A survey done in America at the
end of 1989 revealed that citizens
are becoming more environmental-
ly aware and concerned. In fact the
problem is within the top five con-
cerns of most citizens and the
cause for alarm seems to grow un-
controllably each year. '
Most students and young adults
Bombs always work but testing continues
MERCURY Ncv.(AP)-
For 38 years the gov-
ernment has exploded
nuclear weapons at the Nevada
Test Site. Bombs have been
dropped from airplanes and ex-
ploded atop tall towers. They've
been buried deep underground and
in tunnels. At least one was laun-
ched with an air-to-air rocket.
In every one of 697 announced
tests there's been one constant.
"They've always gone ofT" said
Paul Brown head of the Defense
Systems Arms Control office at
Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory. "Sometimes the yields
' haven't been what we expected
' but they've always gone off."
Given that nearly-perfect track
! record why does the government
continue spending some $500 mil-
lion a year to test its nuclear
weapons?
"Reliability is one reason but
it's only one" Brown said. "We
sec a need to modernize our
weapons in response to a changing
world. And there's a tremendously
vrgvrnr"
r m M7 IH lA j 4k. flHB .Mfe flHHHHIHfc flHBi
feel helpless unable to do much
that could result in a positive step
toward the betterment of the
earth's environmt...
True Abilene is a very clean ci-
ty. It was named one of the
cleanest cities in Texas by the na-
tional environmental magazine
Garbage in 1989.
The city is prepared for chemical
disasters as well. The fire depart-
ment of Abilene has even acquired
new equipment to deal with toxic
and dangerous chemical cleanups.
The Earth Works Group in
Berkeley Calif. publishes stagger-
ing and somewhat unfathomable
information such as the fact that
the junk mail Americans receive in
one day produces enough energy to
heat 250000 homes or that during
a beach cleanup along 300 miles of
Texas shoreline in 1988 15600
plastic six-pack rings were found in
three hours.
In a new book receiving wide
significant need to improve the
safety of our current weapons."
That view is challenged by a
senior physicist at Lawrence
Livermore where nuclear weapons
are designed.
Ray Kidder a 30-year veteran of
nuclear weapons research says
current weapons are both safe and
reliable. He contends the only
reason for continued testing is to
develop new warheads such as one
under development that would
burrow underground before ex-
ploding. In a 1987 report to Congress
Kidder refuted the Reagan ad-
ministration's contention that it
needed to test weapons from
stockpiles to ensure they still
worked.
"With the exception of a few of
the management people in the
complex here I think almost
everyone agrees with that now" he
said. "Almost anybody that doesn't
have an institutional reason for it
pretty much agrees you can main-
tain a stockpile for deterrence for-
ever without new testing."
rmPTt3TZmfZmrY
WVfW'9WVfmi
Features
in Ti.-i- i - . .
recognhipnj-5jt? SimploJFhiDgs-
You Can Do To Save The tanny
the Earth Works Group outlines a
variety of seemingly inconsequen-
tial things that can be done to
reduce personal waste and pollu-
tion which contribute significantly
t6the depletion of the natural en-
vironment. Admonitions from groups like
the Public Interest Research
Group manage to scare us: "Lung
damage from polluted air is a risk
faced roughly by three out of five
Americans."
The depletion of the ozone layer
has managed to grab most
everyone's attention with reports
like one from The WorldWatch In-
stitute stating that as the ozone
disappears "..the earth receives
more ultraviolet radiation which
promotes skin cancer and cataracts
and depresses the human immune
system."
These arc frightening thoughts.
Nuclear weapons have a shelf
life of only about 20 years before
they start deteriorating but Kidder
argued in his study that scientists
would be able to manufacture new
ones based on old designs without
the need for new testing.
"I think he underestimates the
difficulty of remanufacturing these
weapons" Brown said. "We've
tried to remanufacture things and
there have been problems that sur-
prised us at the time" because of
; changes in materials and the dif-
ficulty of following the old old
designs. Older weapons are still bc-
ing tested but much of the current
program involves new ones he
said.
"There are new systems being
developed at the request of the Air
Force Army and Navy" he said.
Scientists no longer carry on the
breakneck testing schedule that at
one point saw an average of two
detonations a week in 1962. An
evolving knowledge of nuclear
science has seen testing schedules
reduced to an average of little more
than one explosion a month in the
VVwwwpwWPropa
"tfvi8&"'.t
In
But hazardous wastes acid rain
and the destruction of the world's
forests will be even more real to
forthcoming generations if action is
not taken on a personal level.
Listed below are 10 simple and
potent things you can do to save
energy for the world and make it a
cleaner place to live:
1. Over half the phosphates in
our lakes and streams come from
detergents that deplete the natural
environment of oxygen. You can
prevent this from happening either
by buying low-phosphate or
phosphate-free detergent (most
liquid detergents are) or simply by
using less detergent when you
wash your clothes.
2. You can buy a low-flow faucet
aerator at local hardware stores for
around $4 to conserve water by
reducing the flow up to 50 percent
without noticeable effects.
3. You could take a long shower
every day with the water you
mignt waste by letting the tap run
T"while you shavcand brush your
teem ce conservative.
4. The ozone layer is being
depleted by manmade gases such
as chloroflourocarbons that are
found in homes and offices around
the world. To prevent further
damage you can refrain from buy-
ing halon fire extinguishers or
aerosol cans containing
chloroflourocarbons.
5. Americans produce enough
Styrofoam cups every year to circle
the earth 436 times. They are
deadly to marine life and are non-
biodegradable wastes that will be
around long after us. You can
avoid using Styrofoam at all and if
you eat at fast food restaurants ask
for paper cups and plates.
6. It takes an entire forest over
500000 trees to supply Ameri-
cans with their Sunday newspapers
every week. Perhaps one of the
most simple things you can do is to
save them sort them and stack
last decade.
Since U.S. testing began with
the detonation of the first atomic
bomb a 1 5-kiloton blast in July
1945 at Alamogordo N.M. 825
U.S. nuclear weapons have been
detonated 697 of those since
testing was moved to its current
location little more than an hour's
drive from Las Vegas.
"It's not just blowing up a bomb
in the bottom of the desert" said
Nick Aquilina who runs the
Energy Department's nuclear
testing program. "This is a com-
pletely new science. It's only been
since 1945 that we've been doing
this."
Several tests in the last few years
were "Star Wars"-relatcd Brown
said and perhaps incongruously
some are to s?2 how the nation's
weapons program can operate if a
U.S.-Soviet agreement limits the
size of explosions.
Congress last year asked federal
agencies and laboratories to study
how a test ban treaty with the
Soviet Union would affect U.S.
nuclear capabilities.
i ' ir" r "V
. V -V .'.'-
' Optimist Page 3
them. Then take them to one of
the recycling centers around town.
If everyone in the U.S. recycled
even one-tenth of the newspapers
we could save 25 million trees a
year.
7. The energy we could save and
the waste we could prevent by
recycling our glass is also phenom-
enal. Take time to clean and sort
out glass for recycling.
8. According to Recycle
America's statistics if only 250
people each recycled one alumi-
num can a day we would save the
energy equivalent of up to 3500
gallons of" gasoline every year. If
we recycle we mine less raw mate-
rials. 9. Planting a tree is a great idea
for the planet's future. People can
get together in groups and plant
trees somewhere around town and
then nurture those trees.
10. Finally the carbon monoxide
released from car exhausts does
serious damage to the environ-
w-ment. Car pool to school or walk
- wheneverpossiblerltYnbYabig'
campus amfwe areUot cripples '
let's walk.
This article hopefully has pro-
vided all of us with some reason-
able alternatives for an environmentally-conscious
life.
If we can keep in mind the rev-
erence we should hold for God's
creation and the impact of one per-
sonal deed then we could make
the world a cleaner and better
place.
Take action today because as the
writer Edmund Burke said "No-
body made a greater mistake than
he who did nothing because he
could only do a little."
Do a little it's a lot.
-by Brandon Laird
Current tests are restricted to no
more than 150 kilotons the ex-
plosive equivalent of 150000 tons
of TNT. The limit was set in a
1974 treaty never ratified by Con-
gress. The United States and
Soviet Union agreed to a test ban
in November 1958 that ended in
September 1961 with the Soviets'
decision to resume testing. The
United States is on record as want-
ing to agree to lower limits before
it will negotiate a test ban Brown
said.
The two nations made history
last year when nuclear scientists
from each witnessed a test at the
other's secret site. Soviet scientists
witnessed a test at the Nevada site
in August 1988; American scien-
tists went to the Soviet site at
Semipalatinsk the following
month.
The tests were aimed at finding
a verification method for future
limitations on nuclear tests.
r- .
If') v
Upcoming Pages
Here’s what’s next.
Search Inside
This issue can be searched. Note: Results may vary based on the legibility of text within the document.
Matching Search Results
View three places within this issue that match your search.Tools / Downloads
Get a copy of this page or view the extracted text.
Citing and Sharing
Basic information for referencing this web page. We also provide extended guidance on usage rights, references, copying or embedding.
Reference the current page of this Newspaper.
The Optimist (Abilene, Tex.), Vol. 78, No. 38, Ed. 1, Wednesday, February 7, 1990, newspaper, February 7, 1990; Abilene, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101559/m1/3/?q=music: accessed June 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Abilene Christian University Library.