Thursday, February 28, 2019

What are we all breathing in.

On Monday I went to Dublin Airport to catch a flight to London. I was thinking about not thinking about the fact that I was taking a flight, the carbon emissions of that flight, the contribution to climate change. I did not succeed. I didn’t find a solution that enabled me to feel fully ok. Because there isn’t one. I stood at the bus stop, in the city, cars and lorries and trucks barreling past, and I wondered, what are we all breathing in.

There was a sign at the bus stop saying there had been an incident in the Port Tunnel and to expect delays. The bus driver didn’t know what had happened, or even that it had happened. I wondered what kind of incident it was. I imagined being inside the tunnel, under the water, when an ‘incident’ occurred, how frightening that might be, what might be happening, a fire, a crash. And if we were to be stuck in that tunnel for some time, I wondered, what would we all be breathing in.

I got a bus – not electric – to the airport, where I walked quite a long distance through the terminal, to get on another bus – not electric – which took me to another terminal-that-isn’t-a-terminal, the South Gates of the airport, where I got off the bus, went outside and then inside into another small building, exiting which would eventually allow me to get on the plane. I went out the gate, onto a small ramp outside the not-terminal, on the tarmac. Some of the other passengers and I stood for quite a long time on this ramp, in the sweltering sunshine of a February afternoon. I thought about how strange it was that it was so hot. I had taken off my coat and my hoodie, and I stood outside in just a t-shirt, in the afternoon, in February, in Dublin. I was still too hot. We stood outside for maybe 10 minutes, as planes taxiied back and forth on the tarmac ahead of us, using their jet fuel, unnecessarily, to move around very slowly and not fly. And buses and trucks and the weird little vehicles that only exist at airports drove back and forth. And I wondered, what are we all breathing in, standing here, on the tarmac, outside, at this airport, beside these planes and vehicles, for 10 minutes, in the sunshine, in Dublin, in February.

And then they let us walk across the tarmac and around the plane and up the stairs and onto the plane. The climate change contributing plane.

When we touched down in London it was still hot. Very hot. In fact it was the hottest February day, and the hottest winter day, ever recorded in the UK. Until the next day. Which was hotter.

On Monday temperatures reached 20.6C in Wales and exceeded 20C for the first time ever in winter, a season that according to the UK Met Office includes December, January and February. On Tuesday the record was immediately broken when temperatures in London reached 21.2C. It was, again, the hottest winter day on record. It was definitely hot. And I walked around in the heat, in February, in London, and I wondered, what are we all breathing in.

On Tuesday I had picked up the magazine Time Out London and now I read that the levels of nitrogen dioxide in the air in parts of London had exceeded the EU's legal annual threshold. The air was "illegally toxic" over the whole of Zone 1, the centre of the city, where I was. Nitrogen dioxide is mainly caused by vehicles and is very harmful to humans. And I wondered, what are we all breathing in.

I lay in a bed that had only the previous day been put together, from Ikea. And I could smell and taste that new Ikea furniture, taste the wood particulates that had been released into the air, the sawdusty-gluey-chemical smell, that who-knows-what dust which was all around me, as I slept. Ikea boast, weirdly, that 1 in 8 Europeans are conceived on an Ikea bed. That is a lot of beds. That is a lot of Europeans. This was a comfortable bed. I slept ok. And I wondered, what are we all breathing in.

On Wednesday, I got an automated text message on my phone warning me that there was moderate air pollution in London that day. I walked around, and I got on the Tube and went underground in warm, fast-moving trains, and I walked through tunnels, and I lounged in the park, and I sat in offices and meeting rooms, and I wondered, what are we all breathing in.

One of these days, in the heat, in the toxic air, amid the cars and planes, I read that an iceberg twice the size of New York City was about to break away from Antarctica. It will be at least 660 square miles in size. Because, greenhouse gas emissions. Because, climate change. And I wondered, what are we all breathing in.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home