I've been seeing smoky pictures of big cities on TV, and now on our own institute. I seem to remember a time when our cities frequently looked like that, not every day, but sometimes when the weather was just right for it. In those days, some of the smog generated by our cities would blow over to more remote regions hundreds of miles away, causing the locals to complain about it. They said that it was causing "acid rain" that was poisoning their pristine woods and waters. I read about a small lake in the Upper Peninsula that was pronounced "dead" by some visiting scientists because of it. Unlike those scientists, the reporter who wrote the article interviewed some of the locals who told him that the lake had always been like that. Indeed, they called it "No Fish Lake" and liked to swim in it because the water was so clean, no fish, no turtles, and no weeds or algae. They didn't know about the acid, which apparently was not strong enough to adversely affect those who swam in it. Now it wasn't called "No Fish Lake" on the maps, it was just what the locals had called it for as far back as anybody could remember.
We have been having our share of the Canadian smoke, but it has mostly stayed in high enough in the atmosphere to remain a minor annoyance. Yesterday, though, the whole state of Michigan was under an air quality alert. They said that old people and people with respiratory problems (that's me) should stay indoors, but I was out in it for an hour or so and didn't notice any ill effects. I suppose that I have developed an immunity from all those years of smoking. You think?
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