Pollution out of control but no one cares – at least few seem to.

Here we are in an extremely fragile area in terms of environment.  Areas that receive normal rain get washed off regularly.  The water caused the growth of things that eat, breakdown or remove pollution.  You know the old saying – or maybe not if you didn’t work or study in Environment but it says “Dilutions is the Solution to Pollution”.  Actually that was usually said in a sarcastic way but in reality that is how it really works.  Anything in concentration is a bad thing when the concentration exceeds the natural ability to absorb it.

Here with almost no rain, no real soil, no vegetation, and no care for the environment it can appear to be a disaster.

Road side dumping

People live in this dump!!!

There are laws and rules on waste control, air pollution, etc.  None seem to be enforced as the country is just trying to grow and survive.  They have not evolved to a point that they need to worry about the disaster they are creating for themselves.  Survival tends to overrule the greater good (save the environment).  I have not made any studies on this but on a per capita basis (in the desert) the pollution is far worse than anything Al Gore can come up with in the civilized world.  On the other hand the “dilution” capability is so great that it goes nearly un-noticed to the outside world.  The following pictures – taken from space shows the area I am in (red arrow).

The light shown in the dark is not from a huge city in the middle of no where.  It is caused from the consistent burning of very huge flames (flares) associated with the wasteful burning of oil, gas or waste.  There are some refineries here but most of the flares are located with oil wells being flared to test, clean, blow out, etc. so they can produce more oil…

The ever present well flare for cleaning

The smoke on the Horizon is constant and shifting with the wind…”

If you look in the distance in the above picture it appears to be clouds out there – NOPE!… just more of the smoke like up close…what is burned is the oil based crude that is too difficult to refine down to something useable or is too cheap to do anything with.

I will probably make more entries on this as I have more than a few pictures of things that are seldom seen by the “do-gooders”, living the golden life, complaining that everyone else is causing the problem.

Life is harsh and yet fragile out here.