It's the end of the world!
Trip Start
Jan 10, 2007
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42
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Trip End
Jul 03, 2007
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Monday, April 2, 2007
Do you know where I just was? I'll tell you.
I was trapped under the overhang of the colonade in front of our school as the sky sent sheet after white sheet of torrential downpour. I came outside to do an art project having to do with looking at chairs through windows. In the two hours I sat there sketching, I witnessed the weather shift from sunny and muggy, to fierce winds, lightning and thunder, and finally downpour.
Okay, geography lesson. The Arabian climate has always been hot, and dry. Even in humid places along the coast (like Dubai) rainfall is meager, and restricted to the winter months (December thru February). We're in April now, and the Arabs refer to this as the summer--that is, no rainfall.
In an earlier entry, I have already made mention of the fact that, even during the winter, thunderstorms are unheard of in this area. So, why is it that we just had a severe thunderstorm in April?
WAIT--that's not all. There was hail. This is an unheard of phenomenon here. An Emirati girl in my class was so excited by this that she began recording it on her digital camera. The Arabs said to themselves, "It's snowing!" *
Anyway, I know some of you, my American friends and family, don't want to believe we're altering the climate. I don't want to believe it--it's horrible! But this really is happening, not just to Arabs half the world away, but all over the planet. This is part of a global pattern which I have witnessed in every country I've been in in the past five years.
Now we depend on the status quo to sustain ourselves as human beings; if we change weather patterns (which basically means water distribution), disease, warfare, and famine are going to result. Large scale. Too many people are going to suffer from this--that includes YOU. Please, please, please be aware of how much is at stake here, and let's just take care of this wonderful planet we were entrusted to share with one another.
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* "Snow"--this is what I was talking about earlier--Europeans can't distinguish between types of sandstorms, and Arabs can't distinguish between snow, sleet, hail, and freezing rain! Looks like they'll have to learn.
