Pennsylvania mine. Napolean Martin has worked with his neighbors in a f~rmer company town in West Virginia to set up selfhelp housing and health care projects. Larry Spear has.worked through his union to end discriminatory treatment of his Navaho fellow miners in the Four Corners area of the Southwest. The most frustrating struggle has been that of Elmer Lockhart, who, like many miners, has had his health destroyed by black lung disease. When Lockhart filed for state workers' compensation in West Virginia because of his illness, he was fired from his job and blacklisted from the mines. Together with his wife and daughter, he fought the Federal government for years to have the seriousness of his condition acknowledged so he could receive the black lung benefits to which he was entitled by law. Does he now regret the years he spent in them mines? "We wanted to have a good home and give our children some of the things we never had," he explains, "and we figured that was the way to do it.·... I guess if it hadn't bren for the dust and the way the company treated me, it would have worked out pretty well." -JF ENVIRONMENT The Death Of The Sun, by John Gribbin, 1980, 195 pp., $9.95 from: Delacorte Press/Eleanor Friede 1 Dag Hammarskjold Plaza New York, N"¥ 10017 My initiai'interest in this book, of course, was its cheerful title. Just think, all that time and effort you've put into designing and building your passive solar greenhouse and putting collectors on your roof-all down the tubes! By the time you get the last bugs worked out the sun will be flickering like a candle in the breeze and California will have fallen into the Pacific. We've apparently misunderstood some basic astronomy. British astrophysicist Gribbon sets the record straight: Ironically, the problem for our civilization is not that the Sun is off color-our civilization grew up as a result of the Sun's temporary indisposition, and depends on it. The worst thing that could happen for mankind in the immediate future is that the Sun might get back to normal, warming up and stabilizing, bringing back conditions on earth which were wonderful for dinosaurs, perhaps, or for tree-living tropical apes, but which we might be quite unequipped to cope with. In building up to this, Dr. Gribbin discusses solar spasms, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, ice ages and other topics to make the heart sing. The really disturbing thing is how closely Gribbin's astrophysical projections parallel some of the•more astrological scenarios one sees around. Perhaps the time is right to buy ocean-front property in Colorado. This much we can rest assured of-when sunspot activity peaks and the planets line up,in about 1982, you certainly won't find me anywhere near Los Angeles! Gribbin's most controversial idea is also the only remotely persuasive argument I've ever read in favor of space colonization: The visionaries usually refer to the Earth as a cradle for mankind, but that is far too cozy a view. This planet, and its relationship with a rather erratic little star we call the Sun, constitutes a trap which has already seen the death of dozens of species before, usually just when they seemed settled for eternity. Perhaps that more realistic analogy will help to encourage the idea that we ought to get out of.here while the going is good . .. Even so, I'd rather keep an eye on Los Angeles for another year or two before throwing a lot of money and energy into August/September 1981 RAIN Page 21 outer space. I suspect Gribbin himself must take some of this sundoom with a grain of salt. He prefaces his book with this quote from a Professor Martin Rees: "Being stimulating can be more important than being right." Gribbin is undoubtedly stimulating. I sure hope he's wrong. -MR The Silent Intruder: Surviving the Radiation Age, by Charles Panati and Michael Hudson, 1981~ 208 pp., $9.95 hardcover, , from: Houghton Mifflin Company 2 Park Street Boston, MA 02107 Microwaves, ELF waves, x-rays and even sunshine: these·and other radiation sources are pervasive in our daily lives and present us with choices we may often feel ill-equipped to make. When, if ever, should we submit to dental x-rays? Should we have any concern about working near microwave ovens? Is it legitimate to oppose a new high voltage power line as a potential health hazard? The Silent Intruder is a good, plain language guide, designed to help us understand and cope with all forms of radiation. Despite the colorful title, it is a sober, well-reasoned . hook, solidy grounded in <;o-author Charles . • Panati's·background as a radition 1:iealth • physicist. There is little here on nuclear hazards which is not readily available in other sources, but the section on x-rays is one which is worthy of rereading before each trip to the doctor or dentist, and the information presented on electrical pollution (radiowaves, microwaves, power line emissions, etc.) is both fascinating and disturbing. The verdict is still largely out on potential health hazard of this electromagnetic "pollution," but its sheer volume must certainly give us pause: as the authors point out, "if in 1900 you could have vie~ed the earth from space through a telescope sensitive to these radiations, you would have s.een a black sphere; today the earth glows like a white sun, because of the blanket of radiation smog." -JF
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