My daughter Britt sent me an interesting photo. Shot by National Geographic.

It is No. 4 in this group of photos.

What strikes me as interesting about this is …

–That’s what Dubai looks like from the top of the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa, which stands 2,717 feet, and opened earlier this year. Makes you feel a bit … vertiginous, yes? Seems as if it shouldn’t have been shot from a blimp, not from something connected to the planet, albeit half a mile below.

–The rest of the photo gives someone at least an idea of what the UAE looks like. It is desert, a bit of which has been reclaimed from waste at great effort. The pale gray and bleached white to the right … those are very typical colors of this country, including Abu Dhabi, where we live.

–The blue there, man-made lakes, show how persistent the country has been in obtaining water from the Gulf. Nearly every drop of fresh water here comes from desalination, at significant cost and significant environmental impact. In a way, a display of that much surface water (and it has to evaporate, tons, every day of the summer) shows the wealth of the city and the country.

Thanks Britt.