I remember a few years ago when there was a massive forest fire in Canada which was so bad you could actually smell smoke all the way down in Boston and all it did was make people think about the last time they had gone camping. People were not nearly impressed enough by smoke making it a couple hundred miles and even a couple years later when an Icelandic volcano erupted and caused havoc with travel plans all over Europe people weren't nearly impressed enough with the distance the ash was covering. That is why I feel like we should all be paying more attention to the story currently taking place in San Antonio. Apparently, they are currently dealing with an influx of dust from the Sahara Desert, where the windy season has blown tiny sand particles roughly 15,000 feet into the air and the jet stream has dropped them on the other side of the world. Normally people wouldn't have noticed except the dust is so fine it is getting into people's lungs and causing breathing issues for people who already have preexisting conditions like asthma. What is even more amazing is that this apparently happens all the time, so why am I just hearing about this now? Seriously, go look at a map of where the Sahara Desert is and then contrast that with San Antonio. How come people aren't making a bigger deal about this? I assume part of it is because it's Texas and really, what's a little more sand going to do to that state, but just remember this next time the news rushes out to cover some old piece of wood washing up on a local beach - while we're all looking down there is no telling what is going on above us.
Sunday, August 11, 2013
Dust In The Wind
Nothing gets more attention from human beings than an object showing up in a place where we don't think it belongs. Honestly, it is like every person on the planet has a touch of OCD because each week on the news I see at least one story about some thing from one side of the planet washing up on a beach thousands of miles away and it is treated like the most amazing thing in history. In the weeks after the tsunami in Japan objects sucked away by the water were showing up on beaches up and down the West Coast and from the media coverage you would have thought aliens had landed. But if you think about it is not that impressive. After all, while it may be a large distance to cover there is pretty much nothing but open ocean between the two locations and if the tides are right you can make excellent time going from one side of the planet to the other. Plus, when you live on the water things can wash up all the time. What actually warrants such attention is when random things manage to make their way inland with a far less reasonable explanation, which is why I believe the more impressive method of random transportation occurs when things travel a great distance through the atmosphere. The journey is much harder through the air because if you get even one patch of air resistance the object in question will lose its momentum, come crashing down and its journey will be over. That means at no point can nature take a break.
I remember a few years ago when there was a massive forest fire in Canada which was so bad you could actually smell smoke all the way down in Boston and all it did was make people think about the last time they had gone camping. People were not nearly impressed enough by smoke making it a couple hundred miles and even a couple years later when an Icelandic volcano erupted and caused havoc with travel plans all over Europe people weren't nearly impressed enough with the distance the ash was covering. That is why I feel like we should all be paying more attention to the story currently taking place in San Antonio. Apparently, they are currently dealing with an influx of dust from the Sahara Desert, where the windy season has blown tiny sand particles roughly 15,000 feet into the air and the jet stream has dropped them on the other side of the world. Normally people wouldn't have noticed except the dust is so fine it is getting into people's lungs and causing breathing issues for people who already have preexisting conditions like asthma. What is even more amazing is that this apparently happens all the time, so why am I just hearing about this now? Seriously, go look at a map of where the Sahara Desert is and then contrast that with San Antonio. How come people aren't making a bigger deal about this? I assume part of it is because it's Texas and really, what's a little more sand going to do to that state, but just remember this next time the news rushes out to cover some old piece of wood washing up on a local beach - while we're all looking down there is no telling what is going on above us.
I remember a few years ago when there was a massive forest fire in Canada which was so bad you could actually smell smoke all the way down in Boston and all it did was make people think about the last time they had gone camping. People were not nearly impressed enough by smoke making it a couple hundred miles and even a couple years later when an Icelandic volcano erupted and caused havoc with travel plans all over Europe people weren't nearly impressed enough with the distance the ash was covering. That is why I feel like we should all be paying more attention to the story currently taking place in San Antonio. Apparently, they are currently dealing with an influx of dust from the Sahara Desert, where the windy season has blown tiny sand particles roughly 15,000 feet into the air and the jet stream has dropped them on the other side of the world. Normally people wouldn't have noticed except the dust is so fine it is getting into people's lungs and causing breathing issues for people who already have preexisting conditions like asthma. What is even more amazing is that this apparently happens all the time, so why am I just hearing about this now? Seriously, go look at a map of where the Sahara Desert is and then contrast that with San Antonio. How come people aren't making a bigger deal about this? I assume part of it is because it's Texas and really, what's a little more sand going to do to that state, but just remember this next time the news rushes out to cover some old piece of wood washing up on a local beach - while we're all looking down there is no telling what is going on above us.
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