WELCOME!
The man kind is connected trough pollution, the earth is small.com will try to observe it.
The means and tools are simple: camera & high spot overlooking your city - picture and post your experience in the forum.
People pollute the planet all over, it is a nus-product of our civilization and comfortable living. But we have to be aware of it, and implement it in our conscience for the future generations. When you spend some time on the Google Earth, and observe the smallness of the earth - you will be struck how fragile our planet is. We are pumping to much pollutant into the atmosphere, rivers, oceans and land. Of course this is a well known fact now, but still lets visualize it.
I will start with the Belgrade/Serbia pollution.
It is enormous, sometimes it looks like a scifi movie. It is not only our pollution, it is mixed pollution from many more countries, which floats with air to us and from us somewhere to your little place.
This is a panoramic picture of AVALA mountain, a Belgrade district. Avala is 511 meters high, this is pictured from the top.
It is a 200 degrees panorama east to west + 20 degrees
The massive pollution is obvious.
Now take a closer look into the little sun that i draw...a 100% magnification of the same picture
This little chimneys that you can notice are the the TermoElectrical complex `Nikola Tesla A&B`, Obrenovac. They Make a third of a Serbias electrisity need. Serbia has around 9 million people.
They are lost in global Serbias dimming. Frightening.
I took the photo of the same plants with my canon a630 on the longest zoom, which comes around 135mm on 35mm equivalent. They are some 40km away, and the scene is like from terminator movie.
The mountain that you can see in behind is Cer mountain (~80km away), and just sloping from it you are in Bosnia.
amazing!
Now lets come to my home city Belgrade.
It is a city of roughly 1.3 million people. But since economic structure due to our incompetent governments is very bad for two decades, people here drive old cars, with old old engines. New car with some environmental standard is only for our politicians, since they are the only one that have money in Serbia
In the summer months when there is no breeze in the city, the pollution is remarkable, and really makes you put the finger on the head and rethink our comfortable habits.
Here is the panoramic picture of Belgrade.
It does not look so dramatic, but think of our lungs, are they really made to breath this kind of air 24/7.
Cheery on the top is this picture of down town Belgrade, imagine your self on vacation here
It was taken during my trip to Croatia, and all the way pollution was there, i continued to Slovenia, and it was there. Slovenia is very affected by Italy industrial valley which is nicely seen in this NASA picture.
I forgot what kind of pollution it was measured, but no difference. It is only to show how configuration of terrain shapes the visible smog. And how huge it is. When you compare NASA picture with Google Earth you can see the landscape pattern, how smog is trapped in the mountain regions and where it flows.
I will post my Croatia, Slovenia experience.
Now if you have seen this picture, lets put it in the perspective
The next image is taken from Dunav Tisa river mouth, and overlooks Belgrade smog. it is some 40Km away.
You can see the brow bowl of smog in the tree line. a nice touristic attraction. Come to seal your lungs. Some 1.5 million people lives in it. Including Me. I cant stop to think how our body is adaptable. I bet that if you put some ancient man he would die in this smog, maybe.
looks tasty.
how much drinking water we have?
a nice view over beautiful remains of glaciers, the north America, and the drinking lakes & smog.
This is a NASA astronaut picture and the NASA caption.
http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_rec.php?id=1519
A brief overview of pollution around me.
Please post yours experience and photos, lets communicate and implement the knowledge of smallness and fragility of our planet
