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It comes as a big suprise to many people when they
finally realize that the U.S. isn't the big pollution villian of the world that
we've been made up to be. In fact, we've cleaned up our act so well
that our clean air and lands are beginning to suck in the pollution from all
over the world. Somewhere out there on the vast internet, tucked away in
some corner of the small Pro-U.S. portion, there's a satellite map of the plumes
of greenhouse gasses and particulates as they eminate from all over the
world. The U.S. has no visible plume in this chart (in fact, our skies
appear as a dark hole of lesser pollution than the background),nor does most of
Europe but huge plumes flow out of the third world making up for any benefit we
may have created.
Here in Florida we have been contending with the
dust from Africa. Like your China haze, it flies in on the trade winds way
up high. A thin yellow veil that obscures more than it should in
starlight. During the day it's a yellowish brown haze, at night it's
a star diffusing sky darkening schmutz that ruins your work. It falls as a
fine grit on cars left out in the night dew and sometimes you can actually
smell it. It's usually worse during hurricane season but it seems to be
coming in early this year. When it's here, it's much worse than Mt.
Penatubo's ash ever was.
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