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SUCH CHEMICAL INCREASES can be accommodated somehow,  over time. Earth has plenty of that, but do we? The current overloading has the potential to alter life on this planet. Physically, our bodies may already be showing the stress.
Take lead, for example. Most of us do, from paint, plumbing, and principally automobile exhausts, despite reductions in the lead content in gasoline.

Getting the lead out

USING unleaded gasoline pays off in three ways: It keeps lead from poisoning the air, reduces maintenance, and allows a catalytic converter (right) to do its job. Installed on new cars sold in the U.S. since 1975, converters eliminate 90 percent of carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons and now great- ~ ly reduce nitrogen oxides. But only a few tankfuls of leaded gas can destroy converter effectiveness.

One in ten cars in the U.S. is thought to use leaded gas illegally because it costs less. A tank opening (below right) has been enlarged to admit a leaded gas nozzle.
Telltale pink on treated paper (below) reveals lead in car exizaust checked during an annual survey by the Environmental Protection Agency.






Peruvian skeletons 2,700 years old were found to contain a thousandth of the lead levels that we consider typical.
True, lead levels in the U.S. have declined significantly in the past decade. But excess lead in the human body from a variety of sources can increase blood pressure. An EPA investigator calculates that "if you lowered everybody's blood lead levels by a third, there would be 60,000 to 70,000 fewer heart attacks over a decade."

Humanity releases many other elements to the air -- mercury, chromium, vanadium, selenium, arsenic. As with lead (and radiation from such incidents as the Chernobyl disaster) man's concentrated effluents often pose more danger than those from nature.

OUR MISTAKES are costly. Americans spend more than ten billion dollars a year on medical problems caused by outdoor pollutants. Researchers now suggest that gas and wood-burning stoves exude harmful compounds inside buildings. These indoor pollutants, along with cigarette smoke, asbestos, toxics released from building materials, and radon gas trapped by tight insulation, may exact an annual health bill of a hundred billion dollars.

The enemy within

HERE'S no place like home - or the office - for contaminated air. Pollution levels indoors, especially in buildings that have been "tightened" for energy conservation, can be ten times higher than those outdoors.
Radon, a colorless, odorless, naturally occurring radioactive gas (white, below) seeps into basements from decaying uranium in soil. A million families in the U.S. are thought to be exposed to radiation levels higher than those faced by uranium miners.
Larry Kaplan of Clinton, New Jersey, with his wife, Joan, and daughters Amy and Heather (1eft), are surrounded by fans, meters, research data, and graphs they used in their fight against radon. When it was discovered inside their house, Larry installed fans beneath the foundation to safely vent it outside.
Toxic flimes (green) enter the home or workplace in many ways. Newly installed carpets, furniture, plywood, and some foam insulation give off formaldehyde, causing headaches, impairing breathing, and irritating eyes, nose, and throat. Poorly vented kerosene heaters, gas ranges, and wood stoves put out unhealthy amounts of carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide. Copying machines emit hoxious ozone.
Dry-cleaning fluids, disinfectants, paints, and pesticides leak chemical vapors. Hazardous particles (blue) fill the air from cigarettes, wood stoves, dryers, and asbestos insulation.
Biological pollutants (yellow) add other worries. Bacterla may be drawn into airconditioning systems from rooftop puddles or breed in kitchens, baths, bedside humidifiers, or spaces above office ceilings. Pets give off allergy-inducing dander. Fungi grow in cellars.
Some remedies: Ventilate when cooking with gas; never use unvented kerosene heaters; open fireplace dampers fitlly; filter pollen from air; stop smoking.


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