The Sheep Look Up Read Online Free PDF Page B

and children had emerged. All were thin, all were ragged and barefoot, and several of the children had the belly-bloat characteristic of pellagra.
    “The idiot’s made the jigras resistant to DDT, heptachlor, dieldrin, pyrethrum, the bloody lot! Think I was such a fool the idea hadn’t crossed my mind to check? Those people don’t need chemicals, they need food!”

    DEFICIT
    Petronella Page: Hi, world!
    Studio audience: Hi!
    Page: Well, this time as ever we have for you all kinds of people making news. Among others we’re to welcome Big Mama Prescott whose hit “The Man with the Forty-Five” is currently the center of a fierce debate about the proper—or improper—material for pop songs. ( Audience laughter. ) And then we’ll be talking to a whole group of the ex-officers who’ve given so many children from Southeast Asia the best of all Christmas presents, a new home and a new family. But first off let’s welcome someone who’s been making headlines in a different area. He’s a scientist, and you’ve been hearing about him because—well, because if his calculations are right they bode not too well for the future of this nation. Here he is, Professor Lucas Quarrey of Columbia. ( Applause. )
    Quarrey: Good eve—I mean, hello, everyone.
    Page: Lucas, because not as much attention is paid to scientific matters these days as perhaps ought to be, maybe you’d refresh the viewers’ memories concerning the subject that put you in the news.
    Quarrey: Gladly, and if there’s someone watching who hasn’t heard about this it’ll come as—uh—as much of a surprise as it did to me when I first saw the print-out from the university computers. Asked to guess what’s the largest single item imported by the United States, people might nominate lots of things—iron, aluminum, copper, many raw materials we no longer possess in economic quantities.
    Page: And they’d be wrong?
    Quarrey: Very wrong indeed. And they’d be just as wrong if they were asked to name our largest single export, too.
    Page: So what is our largest import?
    Quarrey: Ton for ton—oxygen. We produce less than sixty per cent of the amount we consume.
    Page: And our biggest export?
    Quarrey: Ton for ton again, it’s noxious gases.
    Page: Ah, now this is where the controversy has arisen, isn’t it? A lot of people have been wondering how you can claim to trace—oh, smoke from New Jersey clear across the Atlantic. Particularly since you’re not a meteorologist or weather scientist. What is your specialty in fact?
    Quarrey: Particle precipitation. I’m currently heading a research project designing more compact and efficient filters.
    Page: For what—cars?
    Quarrey: Oh yes. And buses, and factories too. But mainly for aircraft cabins. We have a commission from a major airline to try and improve cabin air at high altitude. On the most traveled routes the air is so full of exhaust fumes from other planes, passengers get airsick even on a dead calm day— especially on a dead calm day, because it takes longer for the fumes to disperse.
    Page: So you had to start by analyzing what you needed to filter out, right?
    Quarrey: Precisely. I designed a gadget to be mounted on the wing of a plane and catch the contaminants on little sticky plates—I have one here, I don’t know if your viewers can see it clearly ... Yes? Fine. Well, each unit has fifty of these plates, time-switched to collect samples at various stages of a journey. And by plotting the results on a map I’ve been able to pin down—like you said—factory-smoke from New Jersey over nearly two thousand miles.
    Page: Lots of people argue that can’t be done with the accuracy you claim.
    Quarrey: I wish the people who say that would take the trouble to find out what my equipment is capable of.
    Page: Now this is all very disturbing, isn’t it? Most people have the impression that since the passage of the Environment Acts things have taken a turn for the better.
    Quarrey: I’m afraid