Earth Viewed From Space

Pretty pictures for sure. Think about this as you watch. The thickness of Earth's "usable" atmosphere...you know...the stuff we breathe...the layer that protects us from solar radiation...the layer that holds the rain delivering clouds...and our thermal blanket...

has been described as the same relative thickness, as the paint on a billiard ball.

So ...do "we" affect our atmosphere...Yes
Do events on the other side of the planet eventually and directly affect everyone else on the planet...Yes

When you watch the video...it's pretty easy to see that the emissions of volcanoes, forest fires, smoke stacks from industry and energy production, and the such ...all go into the atmospheric blender.

Or...try this thought exercise. If you had a gallon of purified water, and added...with an eyedropper...a tiny drop of gasoline, say 1/10 of 1% of the total volume....would you drink it?...maybe/maybe not. How about this...would you give it to your kids?

What if you took that same gallon of water ( the only one you have...can't get another one ) and stirred in some coal plant emissions and automotive exhaust, a pinch of industrial manufacturing waste water, and just to get the right finish, just a sprinkle of human feces. Stir and mix thoroughly. Grand total still approx 2/10 of 1% of the total...would you feed it to your kids?
 And if you kept adding just teeny tiny amounts everyday, when would it actually be considered unfit to even use to water plants?
Just questions. Where is the limit..the line in the sand? I don't have the answer...but I would have to guess the there is such a limit out there somewhere.So the next question is...do we run as fast as we can to get there...?

Here is an old photo of the Woodfibre Pulp Mill, shot from the top of the Squamish Chief. The mill has been closed since the spring of 2006. How do you think the emissions affected the people who worked there?...pretty much swimming in the mists of pulp mill emissions. Did it affect the population of Squamish? Did the emissions drift on the wind down to Vancouver? In the same area, not that many years ago, just down  Howe Sound, the copper mine at Brittania ( closed 1974 )was dumping their tailings off of barges, into Howe Sound and pretty much killed most of the life there until only recently. An expensive government sponsored clean up plan ( 100 million dollars over 20 yrs ) has managed to control the run-off from the abandoned mine. A waste water plant treats the toxic heavy metal laden water before it flows into the sound. The good news is....it really didn't take that long for things to heal up...once the activities were halted....and the remedial actions are taken.