Mark Broomfield - Every Breath you Take: Exploring the Science of Our Changing Atmosphere

EVERY BREATH YOU TAKE

Pegasus Books, Ltd.

148 West 37th Street, 13th Floor

New York, NY 10018

Copyright 2019 by Mark Broomfield

First Pegasus Books hardcover edition October 2020

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review in a newspaper, magazine, or electronic publication; nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other, without written permission from the publisher.

ISBN: 978-1-64313-334-8

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-64313-398-0

Jacket design by Faceout Studio, Spencer Fuller

Jacket image by Stocksy

Distributed by Simon & Schuster

www.pegasusbooks.com

To Emma

This is a book about a journey. Not a metaphorical journey, but not a real journey either: its a theoretical journey through the atmosphere. And not just our friendly local atmosphere here on Earth, either: were going to start outside the solar system, and take in some pretty bizarre and uncongenial atmospheres on our way to the outer reaches of our own planetary comfort blanket here on Earth. An atmosphere, as I hardly need to tell you, is the envelope of gases surrounding the Earth or another planet, the pervading tone or mood of a place, situation, or creative work. As a paid-up atmospheric scientist, Im very much writing about literal atmospheres rather than pervading tones, so if you were hoping for a book about the mood of a place, situation or creative work, tuck this book under your arm, and head off to the Literary Criticism department to see if you cant pick up a buy one get one free bargain.

Welcome aboard! Our first stop will be Exoplanet GJ 1132 b the exo means that its outside the solar system, the GJ 1132 bit is the catchy name of the star it orbits around, and b means its the first of GJ 1132 as planets to be discovered (the star itself is assigned the letter a). As I write, there are four thousand confirmed planets outside the solar system, and our friend GJ 1132 b is just a tiny bit more welcoming than the other 3,999 because its the first Earth-like planet weve found with an atmosphere. Well, strictly speaking, its the second. But before we get to the atmosphere that we live and breathe here on SUNb, well take the time to stop off at some of the other atmospheres in our solar system.

To be honest, the other atmospheres in our solar system are not very congenial: most of our neighbouring planets have thin, icy atmospheres, even colder than the atmosphere when youve just accidentally used your exs name to refer to your partner. It was an accident! But well take a look at them nevertheless, and also drop in on Venus to see what global warming looks like when it properly takes hold.

And then we get to the fascinating, essential, fragile comfort blanket surrounding the Earth. From the outer reaches of the ionosphere, down through the thermosphere, the mesosphere and the stratosphere, well finally rock up at the place that we call home: the troposphere. Never heard of it? Dont worry, its just the bottom few kilometres of the atmosphere, where we spend our lives, except when on international jet travel, so youve been breathing it for a long time (and even when flying, youre still breathing recycled troposphere). Within the troposphere, theres a journey to be had: from global pollution and climate issues through to regional and urban air pollution, and right down to the local effects of air pollution. Dust, smells, and the effect that air pollution has on the price of your house. Want to find out how to save 14% on the price of a house with a simple wave of a magic postcode? Read on.

Like Sellar and Yeatmans classic 1066 And All That, this book contains two memorable numbers: if you forget everything else you read here, hold on to these. The first number, as I may have mentioned, is that air pollution is responsible for 14% of your house price. And the second number is that air pollution is responsible for seven million early deaths every year. Im not sure which of those two numbers is the more memorable, but I do know which is the most shocking. Because now, after years of living in the shadow of the big kid on the block, climate change, air pollution is at last beginning to get the attention it deserves as we begin to grasp the magnitude of all those millions of unnecessary deaths.

What, you might ask, is an early death? Thats a good question, and the short answer is that we dont exactly know Spoiler alert, but everyone dies eventually, and so the result of environmental influences on health like air pollution is not to increase the rate of deaths per person (its already 100%), but to shorten our life expectancy. We can describe this in a number of different ways. One way is to estimate the number of early deaths thought to occur each year here in the UK, its about forty thousand, and worldwide, its about seven million. Another approach is to look at the overall effect on life expectancy: in the UK, air pollution reduces everyones life expectancy by six months, on average. What we dont know is whether everyone experiences a comparable shortening of life, or whether the effects are even more dramatic in a smaller number of people. And we certainly dont know who all the people are who are dying early from too much air pollution every year. You might well suspect that the health of someone in your family has been affected by air pollution, and you might well be right, but no doctor has put air pollution as a cause of death on a death certificate. To be fair, thats mainly because death certificates record the conditions affecting individuals rather than speculating about possible external causes but even if they did speculate, we cant identify individual deaths caused by poor air quality. That may be about to change, but for now, we just know that pollution, on average, makes people, on average, die a bit earlier.

And its a really big deal. Globally, air pollution causes more early deaths every year than passive smoking, and obesity, and water pollution. Put together. Maybe obesity and passive smoking are more shocking, because they are both more tangible and more avoidable. The deep fried Mars Bar from the chippy on the corner, and a packet of fags from the paper shop next door are both real, physical objects, and we can choose to indulge in them, or to spare our arteries and our families from their long-term effects. In contrast, water and air pollution are not so easy to visualise. And theres a limit to what we as individuals can do to mitigate or avoid them. Thats the thing about environmental problems: they are almost entirely caused by other people, and they quite often manifest themselves as a small risk or small effect on many people that you cant really spot at an individual level. But it turns out that air pollution is even more important than obesity, passive smoking and other A-list causes of early death. Every few seconds, you have to take a breath: you dont have much choice about what you breathe, and the air goes deep into your body where its needed to keep you alive, but might also do you a little bit of harm.