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ol -------- -- ---------------- nr -- rg 8 -- PORT PERRY STAR -- Tuesday, July 31, 1990 Water smart week at pool The week of July 30 - Aug. 4 is the 1990 Water Smart Week, spon- sored by the Royal Life Saving Society Canada. Students participating in lessons will be learning and prac- tising water safety skills such as Boating Safety, Rescue Breathing, Cold Water Survival and Life Jacket Education. Saturday Aug. 4 is Drowning Prevention Day. On this day on- ly, public swim be '% price. Public swim times are from 1-5 and 6-8 p.m. Weather permitting. Two successful sessions of swimming lessons are over. For those interested there are two more sessions available. Session 3 - begins July 30 - Aug. 10, and Session 4 - Aug. 13 - 24. Ages for lessons are 6 months and up. Fit Swim, free for seniors on Wednesdays! Come and get in shape at your own pace or just - cool off. Fit Swim is liesure laps for adults. Call for our times at 985-4952. Come and get in the swim of things at Birdseye. Mexican day planned Last week at Creative Arts camp was great, we enjoyed a huge chocolate-chip cookie, can- dle making, modeling clay, marsh mallow people and a tiny talent show. The ROCKSTAR day winners were: Suzanne Stone, Emily Stone, Lindsay Spielman, and' Adam Jacobson. Graeme Powell won for the best overall achieve- ment during the week. This week we have a BEACH- DAY planned, we will play beachball, volleyball, tye-dye T- shirts and singsongs. On Mexican day, we will have a hat dance, break pinata's and munch on taco's. We still have crafts, drama day and plenty of games on the agenda too! See you at Arts Camp! Julie, Joanne, Leslie Life's Like That by Julia Ashton If opponents of the Sunday shopping legisia- Jn san wait a few months, they may get their wish. Stores may be forced to close on Sunday -- not because they don't want Sunday shopping, but because no one is in their stores purchasing their goods. Why? Well, for the most part, it won't be because they don't want to shop, but because they just can't afford to. Sunday shopping is an idea whose time has come and gone. People no longer have the dis- posable income available to shop on the sev- enth day. And an article on the front page of this week's Port Perry Star tells the whole story. ~ The economy has taken a dramatic turn for the worse. Skilled laborers, who were once well paid and in great demand, are now finding themselves out of work. Businesses are closing their doors left, right and centre because no one can afford to pur- chase their products. And most businesses that are still open are unable to give their employees raises over and above the inflation rate because of the slow down in the economy. | can't think of any profession that is not feel- ing the pinch right now -- except perhaps those darn senators who so graciously believe that tax dollars should be used as an incentive for them to actually show up to work. That money could be used for a better cause, such as helping out Ontario municipalities which are crushing under the pressure of ever increasing welfare rolls. Or how about abolishing the senate com- pletely. It's just another level of government we could do without completely. Just what do they do anyway? If you haven't read the story on welfare in this addition, I'll give you a brief overview. Almost 3 per cent of Durham Region's popu- lation is living on welfare, and the problem doesn't stop here. Regional municipalities right across Ontario are feeling the pinch -- some worse than us while others are a little better off. In numbers, 10,408 people, including nearly 3,200 children, depended on welfare assistance from the region last month (June). That amounts to a 51.9 per cent increase in caseloads over the same month last year and an increase of 106 per cent in welfare pay- ments. In its wisdom, Durham saw the problem com- ing and budgetted accordingly. But staff and councillors for the region fear the money will run out by November. - Council was called back from its summer re- cess Thursday to deal with the matter. Their task was to find any available money within the budget that could be reallocated to the mandat- ed general welfare assistance payment fund. Although they recommended and agreed upon three areas, the solution really creates a catch-22 for the region. For a last resort, council has agreed to use all $922,887 of a special levy designated for homes of the aged -- in particular, Hillsdale Manor in Oshawa -- because they felt work on the home would not even begin this year. But the work will have to be done -- eventual- ly. And if it is not done now, that means later, and at an even higher cost because as we all gl nothing gets cheaper as the years pass y. And where will that money come from? The taxpayers pocket, of course. And if the provin- cial and federal government continue to cut back on their assistance to municipalities, the local tax bite will just get larger and larger until Canadians work the entire year for every level of government. Those people who we, the citizens of Cana- da, have elected to be in power, must become more aware of how tax dollars are being spent. And if you are a politician, don't give me that line that goes "we pay taxes too" when one- third of your salary is tax-free. Us working stiffs are going for broke. For Better or For Worse® by Lynn Johnston Tage. CAME OUT OF THE. CHANGING HOUSE. COUNSELORS WENT DOWN THEN, you AND THE. YB| po TO THE BEACH. KNOW EXACTL SI you WERE y SITING, ELIZABETH? The Environment CARS - THE BAD NEWS by Janet Banting This week I'm going to pass along some frightening statistics about one of North America's "Sacred Cows" - the automobile. It makes for depressing reading, I'm afraid. Next week I'll of- fer suggestions of things we can all do to minimize somewhat our role in the environmental destruction our cars are con- tributing to. Sources of information I consulted for this column are "The Canadian Green Consumer Guide' prepared by Pollution Pro- be, "2 Minutes a Day for a Greener Planet" by Marjorie Lamb, and an article entitled "Car Sick" in the May/June 1990 issue of Greenpeace magazine. All of these are available at the Scugog Memorial Library for anyone who would like to learn more about this subject. In 1950, there were 50 million cars on the earth; today, the total is 400 million and rising. Although in North America there is 1 car for every 2 people, most people in the world will never own one! Inthe Soviet Union, for example, there is 1 car for every 24 people, while in India the ratio is 1 to 515. Though India and China make up 38% of the world's population, they account for scarcely % of 1% of the total number of cars. These statistics help to demonstrate that responsibility for the environmental destruction caused by cars can be laid right at our very own doorstep! Cars cause air pollution, consume vast amounts of resources, cause noise and congestion, destroy land and wildlife, and ex- act a huge toll in human injury and death. Every year, worldwide, 300,000 people are killed by cars - nearly twice as many deaths as caused by the atom bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki! Two times as many Americans have died on the highway in the U.S. as have been killed in all their wars since 1776. In addition to the number killed, 10 million more people are injured annually. Cars are the biggest single source of greenhouse gases, with every car contributing 2 tons or more of carbon every year. While tailpipe emissions are under regulation and have become less polluting in some respects, the sheer number of cars produced " means that we will never be able to overcome the pollution pro- blems. Lest Canadians are inclined to feel smug, we are already well behind the U.S. in regulating tailpipe emissions. Car contribute to the problem of acid rain with the produc- tion of nitrogen oxides. Acid rain, as we know, harms trees, crops, lakes, fish and other wildlife, and is eating away at countless statues and buildings. : The coolants used in car air conditioners - chlorofluorocar- bons or CFC's- are helping to destroy the ozone layer that shields us from the sun's harmful ultraviolet rays. Though substances have been found to replace the CFC's in some products, alter- natives have not been found for the coolants in car air condi- tioners, which are more destructive than home air conditioners, - and tend to leak excessively. Ozone layer depletion, for anyone who may have forgotten, is expected to contribute to lower crop and timber yields and damage to marine life, as well as to in- creased rates of skin cancer and eye cataracts, among other ill effects to human health. As well as contributing to acid rain, the greenhouse effect, and ozone layer depletion, cars are responsible for 75%, of the ozone-forming pollutants that case smog. This kind of ozone, pro- duced at ground level by car exhaust reacting in the presence of sunlight, peaks in afternoon rush hours on hot summer days. Unfortunately, this kind of ozone does not rise up to replace that which is depleted in the upper atmosphere. Smog is responsible for damage to drops as well as contributing to lung damage and respiratory troubles. If all of the above were not disturbing enough, North Americans' obsession with automobile use has consumed huge amounts of land and money, and staggering quantities of energy. Transportation is second only to industry in overall energy con- sumption, with road vehicles being responsible or 83% of the total. The constant search for new sources of oil consumes vast sums of money. In the U.S. in 1988, for example, purchasing $32 billion worth of foreign oil accounted for more than one third of the trade deficit. Enormous environmental problems also result from the search for oil, with huge spills a constant risk. Another very disturbing piece of information is the fact tha Americans who change their own oil dump the equivalent of an Exxon- Valdex-load down drains and sewers every two weeks! World oil reserves are only expected to last somewhere bet- ween 30 and 45 years depending on whose predictions you believe. All things considered, it looks pretty much as though our love affair with the automobile is not going to last forever! Next Week: Things we can do. EMMERSON INSURANCE BROKERS LIMITED 193 QUEEN ST., PORT PERRY, ONT." LIL 1B9 PHONE (416) 985-7306 ALL LINES OF GENERAL INSURANCE » * * HOMEOWNERS - FARM - AUTO COMMERCIAL