Life Without Pure Air to Breathe
Have you ever given a moment in your life to think on this question. ‘ Life without pure air to breathe?’ How will life become then? Well, pause there and hold your breath till you cannot any more! How do you feel? Now imagine if the future was to be so? Scary huh!
Where does the air come from?
Okay..ever wondered about this question before? It’s not like earth was flourishing with what you have now. Let me take you back to some early science classes (Which I predict you have forgotten). Earth is full of air, mostly Nitrogen and then oxygen and a little of other stuff. For now, I am going to stick to oxygen. We are aware oxygen is mostly given by plants through a natural process called photosynthesis. But 2 billion years earlier how did this happen? Have you heard of cyanobacteria? You may want to read more about these micro bacteria if you are interested. So anyways, getting back, Cyanobacteria released oxygen into the atmosphere through the process of photosynthesis. As the oxygen in the atmosphere increased, the carbon dioxide decreased, consumed by the photosynthetic cyanobacteria. The bacteria is still there on earth and scientists are now creating them in labs to use them to put it on other planets too. Huh!
How long will this supply of oxygen remain?
As long as there are plants and trees around us, we can call ourselves safe. How many of you have seen all these sci-fi movies? Wall-E? This movie in particular is disturbing to me. Imagine life being controlled by machines and then eventually a handful remain on a ship and some robots go searching for plants on various planets!
So there was an article I came across (https://biology.stackexchange.com) where an individual calculated the oxygen will be available for approx. 3.71lac years more. I am sure the next thing you think of is ‘I will live and die so many times by then!’
Alternate ways to breathe?
We have already seen the miracles the oxygen cylinders do when people go scuba diving, skydiving or high altitude climbing. But many saw the rush of these cylinders in the pandemic! Industrial oxygen was made in a way that could be used in hospitals too. People will eventually find ways to solve any problem, that is how humans are.
Why do we take things for granted! Why can’t we keep our greenery alive forever for the future generations to come! If we are thinking of moving to Mars to search for alternate planets that humans can dwell in, what guarantee is there that Mars won’t become what earth will be soon, lifeless!
So food for thought again…A life without pure air to breathe sounds hypothetical, but not false. How much do you value the air that you breathe, that is free at the moment? There was a time I thought I would never pay for water as it is available in abundance. But today I pay a hefty amount for that 20ltrs can of water for drinking and still thank my stars at least I am getting water. Now I don’t want to think of paying for air to breathe in the future?? Do you? I will continue to support the cause of planting more trees and stop axing the available trees!
