A link on the CNN website lead me to a couple of must see videos. Both are by vbs.tv. The first is on the most polluted city on Earth. Linfen, China.

You may not know it but about 1% of all air pollution in the United States is estimated to originate in China. It takes a lot of coal to make the electricity to run the factories that make all that stuff you see in Wal Mart and Best Buy and Ikea. The Asian Brown Cloud is HUGE.

The next video is also by VBS. It’s about the great garbage dump in the Pacific Gyre. The gyre is where ocean currents in the Pacific spiral together. It forms because of a semi permanent high pressure area that sits over the North Pacific. The clockwise flow of winds around this high blow across the water and induce the currents. Just like in the air, the moving water gets turned to the right (left) in the Northern (Southern) Hemisphere by the Coriolis affect.

Other gyres exist in the Atlantic as well.

This video is over an hour long, but well worth watching. (Warning for strong language)

Something to think about the next time the person at the supermarket says: “Paper or plastic?”

Dan