Natural connection

Yavez told me at breakfast that the air pollution that we are experiencing is not actually caused by an inversion, which makes it more intense sometimes, but that it is a persistent state of air from mid-October to March. He said that it was worse this year because of the high price of natural gas has left residents of Konya no choice but to burn lignit or soft coal.

With the weather in the 50s on Monday, the air seemed to clear some. But with the return of the cold yesterday, the smoke again became thick. It is unusual for it to be so warm and it is generally recognized that the temperate weather is due to global warming.

I told Yavez about the harvesting of natural gas in the Upper Delaware River valley and had a fleeting thought about whether bringing that gas to the surface would in any way help with the pollution here. But in thinking it through, I thought about how it was not the availability of gas but rather the price of it that was making the Turkish people turn to a cheaper fuel.

Today is Rumi’s death day or his “wedding night with Allah” and the city has been slowly filling with pilgrims from all over, although there is a high concentration of people from Iran.

I spoke with Chewin a sociologist from Iran. He said there are real problems with post-modernity and the values of consumption that came to the forefront in the modern era. He said that the mosques in Iran are not thriving and that people are generally dissatisfied with the state-imposed religious rules. He believes that the people will find a way to bring harmony to our world and that for his country, they have to take a look at the intellectual concepts from 500 years ago.

“In my country,” he said, “500 years is not a long time.”