Blue Sky Mining

While I was doing Yoga in the back yard poolside just after Christmas, I snapped this photo as I reflected back at how during the three years I visited China ('99-01) I never once saw a clear blue sky in that country.  Here in Phoenix, where we have abundant sunshine - as well as abundant desert wind blown dust and 4 or so million cars driving around - we still have beautiful blue skies over-head.  Some days, sure, there's temperature inversions and the snog near the horizon is pretty thick, but over head, one can still see BLUE, not gray, or haze, or overwhelming pollution.

When I am in a transcontinental flight, up around 35K or 39K feet, I always try and spot "the horizon" to see if it is distinguishable.  So far, in the US and in Europe, I've been able to "find it" most of the time.  In China, if you were below the clouds of smog, you could never tell where the ground was, much less the horizon, and if you were above the clouds (like on a Hong Kong to Chengdu flight), the amount of sunlight being reflected back up was blinding, causing air travelers to reflexively wince and immediately close their window shades. 

I hope the new Republican Congress majority doesn't roll back the hard fought environmental legislation that helps to keep the skies in America blue, and "relatively" free of smog - compared to our Chinese counterparts.