First of all, i would like to welcome you to this Category that is called Earth. Here, we will post “earthly matters”, such us new climate phenomena.
Today i will write about Smoke in Buenos Aires, the capital city of Argentina, placed in South America (for those who do not know where it is).
A week ago, Buenos aires was submerged in smoke that started with rural fires. Farmers routinely use fires to clear land for new plantings and to remove scrub, but this time it burned out of control. It is in fact, the first time that such phenomena takes place. The air was unbreathable, throats and eyes got irritated and weather did not help. The urban landspace was covered into a great veil of smoke causing some traffic accident taking the life of a few. It was said by authorities that smoke was not toxic, but for those who made it through this chaos, it seemed like it as it is dangerous for health and air-pollution. In addition, many people declared having headaches and nose bleeding.
Why did this happen? We are still not sure. However, there was a power struggle between government and the nation’s powerful farming industry recently produced by an increasement of the witholding tax that ended in a three-week strike called by the media “the rich piqueteers”, owners of the land.
Anyway, only rain will help us get rid of smoke and breath purer air again and that is not happening untill two days from now according to weather report.
This is a picture of Buenos Aires downtown last Friday 18/04.
I find sevral things fascinating about this matter.
First that the very name of Buenos Aires means “Good Airs”
Somehow this element in that particular place is quite a bit out of balance and that “not-so-good-air” supports the spreading of fire, - another element gotten out of balance. Now you hope for rain wich is water, to level it up, and all this happened because the earth needed a renewal (which is why the field burning started essencially.) So it seems that one element getting out of balance creates a chainreaction until it all comes back to balance again. Elements seem to support each other that way.
I think the important element to note here is that it all starts with the fact that the earth is thisty for a renewal process, and hat old routines (like in this case setting it on fire) dont seem to be a good enough solution anymore.
Not so long ago Clara told me about another phenomena connected to air in Buenos Aires, some unusual hurricane if I remember well. Another Air issue in the Good-Air-city :)
For a slightly different matter the idea of burning down the old to create fertile ground for something new to unfold is a pretty current topic if you look around in the world…