Life Under the Ozone Hole - a Salon.com Special Report Posted by BeautyCare.com
Life Under the Ozone Hole - a Salon.com Special Report

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- In Punta Arenas, Chile, preschool
children gather in the school auditorium to watch Paul the Penguin, the mascot
of a German cosmetics company, learn how to slather himself from head to web
with extra-strength sun block. Their parents scan the newspaper each morning
for the traffic-signal graphic that tells them how much dangerous ultraviolet
radiation they will be exposed to that day. A red signal means that the
radiation level is so high that it can cause some people's skin to burn within
five minutes.
Welcome to life under the ozone hole -- which, according to scientists,
reached its largest dimensions in September, stretching from Antarctica to
southern Chile, thousands of miles away.
In a special report, Salon health correspondent Dawn MacKeen files from
ground zero of this ecological catastrophe -- the Chilean port city of
120,000 people that has become famous, or infamous, as the place that squats
directly under the gaping hole in the earth's protective ozone layer. "What's
happening down here on the edge of nowhere is an uncontrolled science
experiment: exposing human beings in their natural habitat to long-term doses
of potentially deadly ultraviolet radiation," writes MacKeen.
In the U.S. ozone depletion is a political issue, but in Punta Arenas,
it's a nightmarish reality.
Read the full story in Salon.com at:
http://www.salon.com/health/feature/2000/11/03/ozone/index.html


SOURCE Salon.com

-0- 11/03/2000

/CONTACT: Dayna Macy, Director, Public Relations of Salon.com,

415-645-9324, or macy@salon.com/

Web Site: /http://www.salon.com/

(SALN)



CO: Salon.com

ST: California, Chile

IN: MLM

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