An interesting low - budget entry in the post-Jaws animals - run - amok genre (which also owes more than a little to Hitchcock's The Birds), this noisy, violent thriller features the prophetic premise of a widening gap in the ozone layer (thanks to human indulgences in hairspray and
other aerosol products) which unleashes brain - frying radiation and causes assorted woodland creatures to go for the throats of unsuspecting Sierra backpackers.
But «in a large city, you can ignore natural
aerosol products for the most part» because the number of aerosols produced by human activity far exceeds natural sources, says Sergey Nizkorodov, a chemist at the University of California, Irvine.
Prospero, J.M. et al. (2002): Environmental characterization of global sources of atmospheric soil dust identified with the nimbus 7 total ozone mapping spectrometer (TOMS)
absorbing aerosol product, Rev. Geophys.
Some common sources for fumes
include aerosol products such as hairsprays, perfumes and air fresheners, insecticidal fumigants, overheated cookware, automobile exhausts, tobacco or other forms of smoke, glues and paints.
In addition, birds have unique respiratory tracts that are especially vulnerable to inhaled particles and fumes
from aerosol products, tobacco products, certain glues, paints, and air fresheners.
In September 1974, a Harvard atmospheric scientist told a New York Times journalist that hairspray and
other aerosol products were damaging the Earth's ozone layer.
Making matters worse are the common things that damage our lungs, and we are exposed to most of these every day: scented products, candles, cleaning agents, chlorine via bathing & swimming, the off - gassing of items such as carpets and plastic items, formaldehyde, flame retardant, dust, paint, solvents, pollen, pesticides,
aerosol products, air fresheners, and airborne microorganisms... oh my!