I grew up in a copper mining town in Arizona, and this reminds me very much of the smokestacks that dominated my small hometown. There were days when the taste of sulphur permeated the air so badly that I hated to swallow. The air quality of Jeddah is usually always bad, due to a combination of these smokestacks, construction dust, and the lack of rain that would normally be cleansing. Compounding the normal pollution problems are the seasonal sandstorms which send scores of people with breathing difficulties to the hospital. The atmosphere in our area of town almost always looks like a brown haze instead of blue skies.
3 comments:
A different kind of view. I have never had to deal with sand in the air like that, so it's out of my experience.
That's too bad. We lived for a while in the White Mountains of Arizona and we occasionally go to Phoenix and pass through towns where the copper smelters were. And they did stink up the air. I had a job offer when I graduated from college at the copper smelter in Silver City, New Mexico. I went on the interview, and it was like "Are you kidding me?" I would never work here. My guide and I were the only ones not wearing gas masks when we toured the smelter.
Oi, bummer in both your towns.
We depend heavily on desalination. The point you make here, Susie, makes me go now to research how bad the impact from our smoke stacks is on the environment.
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