Government agencies, corporations, and environmental groups continually tout how clean and pristine the environment is. Most of my students know that clean water is anything but clean thanks to our microscopy exercises in lab. I frequently gross them out either because I am able to show them things they'd rather not see or tell them stories of things I have seen in other classes. Until now, I haven't broached the subject of the air.
What we call fresh air really isn't that clean. The atmosphere is actually full of waste exuded from both the earth and all the life forms that live thereon. Each time you anally or orally discharge, you release waste gases either from our own metabolism or as metabolic byproducts of organisms living inside you, symbiotic or pathogenic. That mulch pile out back is a cesspool of toxic gases. Even plants belch millions of liters of toxic gases into the air. It's not just us or our industrial activities. Fissures in the rock and volcanic tubes are the sights at which toxic fumes escape from lower rock strata into the air around us.
The bright side of this is perspective. Fortunately for us, we are beneficients of physiological discongruities and other organisms in the air that save us from suffocation and death. What is a waste for one organism is necessary for life of another. We trade carbon dioxide waste for oxygen waste from plants, and certain strains of bacteria and other fauna convert nitrogenous, sulfurous, and carbon wastes into things that are mostly harmless.
Still, I argue with the premise that the environment is 'clean and pristine'. Even in the highest lakes to which I have hiked, we have taken water purification mechanisms to prevent giardia, amoeba, bacilli, or other organochemical toxins from hurting us in the wilderness. Like JRR Tolkien reminds us, "It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to." You never know what dangers lurk unseen.
If you appreciate 'clean' water and air, thank plants. They do far more for us than government ever could.
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