Quotes: The American President on Pollution

“You look at our air and our water and it’s right now at a record clean. But when you look at China and you look at parts of Asia and you look at South America, and when you look at many other places in this world, including Russia, including many other places, the air is incredibly dirty, and when you’re talking about an atmosphere, oceans are very small. And it blows over and it sails over. I mean we take thousands of tons of garbage off our beaches all the time that comes over from Asia. It just flows right down the Pacific. It flows and we say, ‘Where does this come from?’ And it takes many people, to start off with.”

From an interview with Donald Trump in The Washington Post.

Quotes: Lake Baikal

“As usual, the strictness of our laws is compensated by the fact that following them is optional. Money is being allocated but it gets stolen.”

• Buryatia-based ecologist Sergei Shapkhayev on efforts to clean up Siberia’s Lake Baikal, from the article World’s deepest lake in peril, scientists warn via Agence France Presse.

Photos: At top you can see the Trans-Siberian railroad hugging the shore in the center of the photo. Second, the eastern shore of Lake Baikal framed by a sailboat. Behind the camera is Irkutsk Oblast and the mountains straight ahead are in the Buryat Republic. Bottom two photos: Listvyanka, the main lakeside tourist town near Irkutsk. Click ’em to enlarge.

Read Crossing Lake Baikal here, from Common Sense and Whiskey, the book.