Cities: The Most Polluted, The Cleanest, The Greenest

May 25, 2008-May 31, 2008

This post is 2 days delayed...:)

Linfen (临汾), a prefecture-level city in Shanxi province, China is asserted as the most polluted city in the world. This assertion was based on a study conducted by the Blacksmith Institute, an NYC based organization supporting pollution-related environmental projects. The said study states that Linfen’s atmosphere contains very large accumulations of coal dust and other particulates coming from automobile and industrial emissions. About 3,000,000 people are potentially affected by this pollution.

The world’s cleanest city, according to Mercer Human Resource Consulting, is Calgary. Found in the province of Alberta in Canada, Calgary was ranked #1 (among the other 215 candidate cities) based on the following criteria:

• Quality and availability of hospital and medical supplies
• Levels of air pollution and infectious diseases
• Efficiency of waste removal and sewage systems
• Water potability
• Presence of harmful animals and insects

Reykjavík, the capital and largest city in Iceland is deemed as the world’s greenest city. It was chosen as such based on the impressive strides it has undertaken towards eco-friendliness and the aid it extended to millions of its residents to live better and have greener lives. Reykjavík was followed by the city of Portland in Oregon and the Brazilian city of Curitiba.

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Islands: The Largest, The Smallest, The Most Remote

May 11, 2008-May 17, 2008

Greenland (Kalaallit Nunaat) is the largest island in the world. It covers an area of 2,166,086 square kilometers or 836,109 square miles. It is nearly thrice as large as New Guinea, the world’s second largest island. Greenland is found between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans. It is a self-governing province of the Kingdom of Denmark.

According to the Guinness Book of Records, the world’s smallest island is none other than the Bishop Rock. Bishop Rock is literally a small rock with an uninhabited 45-meter tall lighthouse on it. It lies at the westernmost portion of the Isles of Scilly in the United Kingdom along with the other 1,040 islands. It has an area of only about 2 acres, a size comparable to the summer’s pasturage of at least one sheep.

Bouvet Island is the most remote or most isolated island in the world. It is an uninhabited sub-Antarctic volcanic island found in the South Atlantic Ocean which is a dependency of Norway. The nearest land from it is the uninhabited Queen Maud Land in Antarctica, over 1,600 kilometers (994 miles) away to the south. On the other hand, the nearest populated land from Bouvet Island is Tristan da Cunha (a dependency of the British overseas territory of Saint Helena), 2,260 kilometers (1,404 miles) away and South Africa, 2,580 km (1,603 miles) away.

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