To breathe easily, we need clean air.

(This is the first installment of a 2-part blog. The second installment will be released tomorrow.)

Dear Fellow Earthlings, If we stopped using fossil fuels, we could all breathe easier. Just ask the people of Jiangsu province in China. 20 years ago, when bicycles filled the streets of the cities in Jiangsu, air pollution was not so serious. But now that those bicycles have been replaced by petroleum burning automobiles, the air is full of particulates from those vehicles as well as from the burning of fossil fuels for other purposes. Even healthy people in Jiangsu province are suffering. As for the very young and the very old, the filthy air is contributing to death totals among them. Particle matter (PM) smaller than 2.5 microns in diameter (PM2.5) is small enough that it can enter our bloodstreams -- and end up getting caught in our lungs. If enough of this PM gets into a person (through smoking, for example -- or because kee happens to live in places like Jiangsu province), then kerm lungs will be damaged. This damage can lead to sickness and even death. Minimum standards for air quality, established by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are: 1) 35 micrograms* per cubic meter (µg/m3) of air (µg/m3) for a 24-hour or daily average and 2) 15 µg/m3 of air for a long-term standard (annual) average).

*A microgram is a unit of weight. There are a million micrograms in a gram.

When I visited Iran back in 1980, the air was clean and the stars could be seen at night. Now, I learn that the Iranian city of Zabol has the most polluted air in the world, according the the World Health Organization (WHO). Zabol's figures are very high: 217 µg/m3 of PM2.5 -- an amount 20 times higher than what the WHO considers safe to breathe. The probable cause for the huge drop in air quality in Zabol over the past few years is the increase in air pollution due to global warming attributed to the drying out of wetlands in Iraq, the nation just to the west of Iran. The dust resulting from this is then sent on its way from prevailing west-to-east winds coming into Iraq from Saudi Arabia.

This dismaying commentary continues in installment 2 of this blog, which you will see tomorrow.

In the meantime, go to the internet and find out how many micrograms per cubic meter the particle matter (PM) count is where YOU live! Steve Walker Earthsaver and Jingles Creator