Take care with Air

Think about air quality, seat belts, crash helmets, face masks and water filters. What do they all have in common?

Adults tell children not to drink water from anywhere else except the tap, a bottle, or a water filter. Not from puddles, ponds, lakes and rivers. Not old water that may be dirty or contaminated. Older parents remember the scourge of Polio. Going way back, ale and wine was safer to drink because water was not treated and would in all likelihood contain faecal matter.

Until recently little thought was given to the air we breathe. Except for specialists in that field…Air.

Lots of talk about air quality in city streets and the harmful effects of air pollution. CO2 levels, exhaust emissions and brake dust particles. There is a balance between miles per gallon (fuel efficiency), saving money, global warming and personal health. Back to conscious consumption.

Think about black death the bubonic plague and not washing hands before surgical procedures. It wasn’t an obvious disconnect of thought until it became blindingly obvious. Unclean hands transmitted diseases.

When soldiers did battle with swords, they didn’t think it was cissy to use a shield. Was a health and safety executive committee or an act of parliament necessary for a law to be passed to make carrying shields mandatory? It just made sense not to sacrifice life unnecessarily. How many deaths were there before the invention of shields?

Shields of a different kind are in common use. All kinds of safety devices are used to protect players from injury in all manner of sports. Throughout commerce, industry and health care, safe procedures and safety devices are deployed to protect against and prevent infection which when all is said and done it is a form of injury.

Getting the connection in the first sentence?

We breathe air to stay alive. No thought (unconscious consumption) about what we breathe in or breathe out. What we breathe out is not the same air we breathe in; is it transformed or could it be transmogrified? It contains a different mix of gasses plus human additive. We carry germs and possibly viruses that might and do transfer to the air we breathe out. And the same process is happening to people within close proximity or not so close proximity. If air moves throughout a building contaminants are carried, invisibly, from room to room. How? Human traffic and air conditioning systems.

Does it make sense to try to clean the air before we draw breath?

Think more about what you breathe and read the next blog.