This was taken from my crib at about 6:15 yesterday morning. Click to enlarge.
Chicago, early morning
August 29, 2012 • 5:35 am
Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
How long have been sleeping again in a crib, sir?
Ahhh, something to calm me down after the last post, which got me riled first thing in the morning.
Chicago has great potential to sport vertical gardens. 🙂
Yes, but then we’d need Dayo!
It looks like a large amount of smog in the city. I can’t fathom how people continually live in such a polluted environment.
I don’t know what Chicago air quality is like, but haze (water vapor) can often look like smog, and this is ostensibly the rainy season, and Chicago is right on the lake, so I wouldn’t immediately jump to the air pollution conclusion.
In normal day-to-day life urban air pollution doesn’t register on the consciousness. Noise pollution is more annoying, and a lot of that in people’s immediate environment comes from things like climate control and computers…and radio and TV. If it weren’t for the A/C that just came on, the loudest thing around me right now would be the sound of my keyboard, followed by the hard drive in my iMac, followed by the refrigerator in the kitchen (which Consumer Reports rated as one of the quietest on the market). Other than that, it’s rare for me to hear sounds that I’m not myself making from whatever I’m doing at the moment. This is all the result of conscious effort on my part, and in start contrast to how most people I know live their lives.
There’re some wonderful advantages to living in rural environments, but cities have their advantages, too — namely, easy access to almost anything you might want to do, see, buy, whatever.
Cheers,
b&
I guess you may be correct on this occasion. If the night was fairly cool and still then you could expect a little mist/haze in the morning.
I would imagine there is still a fair amount of air pollution around the clock in such a big city however but maybe you get used to it after a time so you don’t notice it very much.
Lots of conditions can create haze. High-altitude haze is common around daytime summertime thunderstorm activity, for example; if you’re in an airliner, it might look like a thick dark smoggy layer not far below your cruising altitude.
…and, of course, it can also be smog, but generally only in basin-type metropolitan areas. Mexico City is probably the worst, Los Angeles is notorious but nowhere near as bad as it used to be, and Phoenix certainly has its problems.
I’m sure Chicago has its air quality problems, but I’d expect it to be average or better as far as big cities go (all that wind), and generally not especially visible.
b&
Yeah Ben was right, that was haze, not smog. It burned off shortly after I took this photo.