Hong Kong Smog

I know I've shown you these photos before but let me show them to you again.

Here in HK you can seldom go out into the street for a ciggie - you can no longer smoke in public buildings - without nasty spitty passersby saying things like "It's you smokers who cause HK's terrible smog." 

Apart from being a truly self-righteous, self-important remark that makes me long to whack the speaker across the back of his/her pointy little head, it's so wrong and so stupid.  AND I have proof:

A few years back we had a week of very heavy rain that, when it cleared, gave HK the most beautiful deep blue skies.

 An actual untouched photo out my window, 

the morning the rain stopped.

 Just compare it with what the skies more normally look like:

Our view today.

You can see for yourself what a difference it was to wake up that morning to such lovely skies so you can hardly blame me for immediately racing up to The Peak to get shots of HK.

And here's the first one I took when I arrived that morning:

And here's the last photo I took two hours later:

And here's the actual shot of the smog arriving:

As you can see from this shot the smog is arriving from the direction of the Pearl River Delta up in Mainland China.

Satellite image.

I did not take this photo.

Naturally.

See the Pearl River Delta at the bottom left of this satellite image? See the island of HK down there right at the bottom? Now particularly notice the urban density along the banks of the Pearl River. Those are factories and THAT'S where the smog is coming from!

Smokers cause HK's terrible smog?  Pshaw and bah humbug! It's those factories up there in Mainland China that pump in that foul air we breathe and we poor humble smokers who have nothing to do with it that are getting the blame.