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Children of smokers suffer more bronchitis and pneumonia during infancy than those of nonsmokers. In a smoking-habits survey, a University of North Carolina team found cotinine, a metabolite of nicotine, in the urine of this baby (below) and others who live with smokers. In rural Nepal (below) a cooking fire can fill a poorly ventilated house with heavier pollution than the worst urban smog, increasing risks of respiratory disease - the Third World's leading killer.

Paying the price for lead, a young girl and a middle-aged man symbolize victims of a lead-polluted environment. The 20 automobiles stacked behind them - including many "lead sleds" built before 1975 -- without catalytic converters would have spewed out the equivalent of 525 pounds of lead in exhaust fumes during their average life span of ten years.
Between 75 and 95 percent of the lead inhaled or ingested accumulates in bones and other tissues, threatening to cause irreversible brain and kidney damage. Young children are most vulnerable because their nervous systems are still developing. Excessive lead can decrease a child's intelligence, shorten his or her attention span, create learning disabilities, or cause hyperactivity. Perhaps 20 percent of all preschool children have excessive blood lead levels.
Elevated blood lead levels in adult males have been linked to high blood pressure. An EPA researcher estimates that 60,000 to 70,000 heart attacks per decade might be prevented if the mean blood lead level of all Americans was reduced by a third. The phasing out of leaded gasoline has already helped. From 1976 to 1980, when production of lead additives dropped by more than half, the mean blood lead level in the U.S. fell by a third.

Aside from monetary losses, air pollution eats at beloved cultural treasures. In Athens I sat on a stone and contemplated what has been called the most beautiful building in the world. Acid deposition has caused more erosion on the marble Parthenon in the past 24 years than had occurred in 24 centuries.
The Roman Colosseum, Westminster Abbey, and the Taj Mahal are suffering similar damage. At Chartres, as with other cathedrals, stained-glass windows dating from the 12th and 13th centuries have corroded to barely recognizable images. Is combustion our contribution to the arts?
The sources of damage are not easily removed. Legislation lags because fumes come from industries badly needed for national economies, from automobiles prized for private transportation, and from high- sulfur heating oils. Besieged by budget- conscious citizens and profit-conscious industries, politicians fiddle with regulations while their Romes burn.
The problem goes far beyond buildings and cities. Our entire troposphere is a blue balloon from which there is little escape. Some pollutants degrade or change form, but others may drift for years.
 


 
  
 
Erasing the beauty of classical Greece, sulfitr oxides in the smog over Athens chemically transform marble into gypsum, causing it to crach and flake off A frieze panel on the Parthenon (above left) has lost much of its detail, compared with another panel (above right) preserved at the British Museum since the early 19th century.


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