To Name But A Few

[hatrack]

Opaque and pale as tissue paper the sky overlay America.

Everywhere the voices of people saying in a doubtful tone, "But it didn't used to be like this, did it?" And others saying with scorn, "Don't give me that shit about the Good Old Days."

The mental censors rewriting history, not through rose-colored glasses, but gray ones.

Reading, as you might say, from the top down:

Dead satellites.
Discarded first and second stasges of rockets, mainly second.
Fragments of vehicles which exploded in orbit.
Experimental material, e.g. reflective copper needles.

Combustion compounds from rocket exhausts.
Experimental substances intended to react with stratospheric ozone, e.g. sodium.
CFCs, HFCs, methyl bromide.
Very light radioactive fallout.

CO2.

Aircraft exhaust.
Medium fallout.
Rainmaking compounds.

Smoke.
Sulphur dioxide.
Lead alkyls.
Mercaptans and other bad smells.

Car exhausts.
Train exhausts.
More smoke.
Local fallout.
Products accidently vented from underground nuclear tests.

Oceanic flourine.
Nitric acid.
Sulphuric acid.

Sewage.
Industrial effluents.
Detergents.

Selenium and cadmium from mine tailings.
Fumes from garbage incinerators burning plastic.
Nitrates, phosphates, fungicidal mercuric compounds from "compacted soils."

Oil.
Oil-derived insecticides.
Defoliants and herbicides.
Radioactives from aquifers contaminated by underground explosions, chiefly tritium.

Lead, arsenic, oil-well sludge, fly ash, asbestos.
Polyethylene, polystyrene, polyurethane, glass, cans.
Nylon, dacron, rayon, terylene, stylene, orlon, other artificial fibers.

Scrap.
Garbage.
Concrete and cement.
A great deal of short-wave radiation.
Carcinogens, teratogens and mutagens.
Synergistic poisons.
Hormones, antiobitcs, additives, medicaments.
Drugs.

Solanine, oxalic acid, caffeine, cyanide, myristicin, pressor amines, coper sulphats, dihydrochalcones, naringin, ergot.

Botulinus.

Mustard gas, chlorine, Lewisite, phosgene, prussic acid.
T, Q, GA, GB, GD, GE, GF, VE, VX, CA, CN, CS, DM, PL, BW, BZ.

CO.

- to name but a few.