Frazer (what a guy) of Dad’s Army fame frequently said “we’re all doomed”? Timing was everything. It was always funny and only ever a funny moment. Seriously, being fatalistic ignores the ingenuity of humans to find solutions to apparently insurmountable problems.

Problem: insurmountable. First solution: head in the sand – sand particles in your airways and you’re used as a place to park bikes which in future may be the only means of transport since there are no emissions from bikes – except when the bike is pushed too hard into your rear end. Second solution then: hide under the duvet and overdose on carbon dioxide. Problem does not go away.  How do we deal with it?

To a great extent we make our own future, both as individuals and collectively, through selfishness and collaboration. That may seem at odds with selflessness. They’re not if we set goals that we all own and then set our individual goals to match the collective goals.

The industrial revolution started a chain of events that changed the world and created much good along with mountains of waste – on the ground, in the ground, under the ground, and in the oceans and the atmosphere. Forms of pollution, excess carbon dioxide and a host of unpleasant side effects. Side effects – are they the cost of development – not acceptable unless we are told about it and can have a say.

A goal to improve the air we breathe seems sensible, achievable and in the best interests of everyone and our planet.

The Egyptians and the Romans, they were concerned about air quality when large communities were becoming sick through living in environments tainted by the waste excreted by so many people living in close proximity. Perhaps they had scientific research studies, debates, arguments with politicians and leaders, budget constraints and the sway of the well-to-do against the needs of the not so well off. Ultimately whatever the debates they found solutions by creating waste management systems – sewers. They had the balls and made baths. They stopped polluting the rivers and lakes. They had a plan.

Our plan should be to change the atmosphere to make it sustainable – not by 2030 or by 2050 but right now. Do it by offering good alternatives that don’t favour me over you or vice versa.

The air we breathe in is a vital ingredient to good health and dealing with the air we breathe out is equally important. Our future is bright if we engage and make choices that don’t have the corrosive side effects of throwing rubbish into a neighbour’s field or wood.

So, do we clean up the air? Of course we should, as well as making sure that the contaminating dirt and bugs – particulates / pathogens / viruses – are then cleaned in a sustainable way and not put into a bin liner and secretly disposed of as “household rubbish’.

Remember the smoke-filled room in the earlier blog – those occupants couldn’t see the other side of the room let alone see Monty Python’s ‘the bright side of life’.

We used to hear a lot about the ozone layer and how deodorants were on the one hand, or under both arms, adding to the problem. Well, it’s got a bit bigger than your, mine or all our neighbours arm pits. If all the humans stopped breathing for 24 hours every week we might, perhaps, just might alleviate the problem of carbon dioxide overload if we did that for the next 20 years. A 6 day week followed by a dead day. Yes of course that’s a daft idea but illustrates the scale of the problem we face.

The future can be anything we make it or don’t make it – the Egyptians and Romans were creators of imaginative solutions and so we must take our cues from those civilisations and not from the marauders who took and gave little in return.

Envirotec has been hard at work creating energy efficient, very long-lasting, high-quality products for over 50 years. The products are serviceable and refurbishable so they fulfil governments latest move to create longer lasting products that retain their embedded carbon. We have been doing this since day 1. Not particularly business-like but peculiar that we care, and always have, about the future and the environment.