Moscow Looks Like Sauron's Kingdom
by Michael Graham Richard, Gatineau, Canada on 02.11.08
Fans of the movies Lord of the Ring will immediately notice the similarities between the photo above and Sauron's kingdom. The picture above was taken by Alexander Petrenko and Andrew Maple wrote a little piece in English about Moscow's environmental problems.
"Today Moscow has nearly 3,000,000 cars. Gray-brown noxious haze of smog covers the streets filled with jam-packed traffic, which blows out tons of unhealthy exhaust fumes of carbon monoxide and other harmful chemicals. Additionally there are 12 huge heat power stations, 53 district heating stations and 3,000 industrial enterprises still operating within the city borders. As a result concentrations of harmful substances often exceed maximum allowable by 10-20 times." ::Sauron's Kingdom - Moscow, via reddit. ::Seeking Oil, Russia Claims North Pole, ::Russia's New Environmentalist? The Kremlin
It is not the unique problem. Other factors that people can think about when they are wondering is global warming real are the natural causes. Natural causes include the changes in the earth’s position and the things like explosions that come from the sun, which warm the atmosphere.
One thing to keep in mind, at least SOME of those "smoke stacks" are probably just steam. Sure, that picture is ugly, but don't flip out every time you see a billowing white plume, it isn't all pollution.
Now if they did something about the other 98%, might not be so bad.
CanCar,
You should call the NASA climate scientists immediately. They'll be so relieved, though a little embarrassed that they didn't think about the sun. One would have thought that NASA would have had some people that knew about things like the earth's orbit and the sun. Glad you set us straight.
Maybe you should go to work there and teach them about the solar system.
Umm, NASA has a paper about solar related warming on Mars. Google it! Yeah, the sun is causing Mars to warm, but on Earth it's man made 100% with no help from the sun...
JC, yes, you are right - this is just a steam from the chimneys. But think of what creates this steam - oil and gas. There is still need for oxygen to burn it.
JC, you should have a look at this:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/06/4_stages_denial.php
RhapsodyInGlue,
haven't you read about the differential warming of the troposhere and the stratosphere, which actually shows that the sun is NOT responsible? Not to mention, why aren't other planets warming as well, given that the sun is supposed to be warming Mars? Finally, what do you think of the paper by Harries and colleages showing that outgoing IR radiation from earth is being absorbed at greater rates by C02 and other long-lived GHG? See that paper here:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v410/n6826/abs/410355a0.html