The cocktail of gasses that we refer to as air is the first and fundamental element of life. In pure survival terms we can last about four minutes without air and then we are done. It is our first priority. It is a vital part of the self-sustaining chemical reaction that constitutes the human body. And yet, we take it for granted.

Air surrounds us and our planet and we tend to think of it as being big, but it's not. It is a surprisingly thin bubble enveloping our world. If you imagine Earth as the size of tennis ball then the atmosphere would only be 0.05mm thick around it. The atmosphere is about 62 miles thick but the bit at the bottom where we can happily breathe without any problems is only around 3 miles thick - that’s 0.0024 mm of our tennis- ball atmosphere!

It is incredible how thin and fragile that inhabitable zone is. We really should look after it a bit better. Air connects all people and all living things or, more accurately, Oxygen connects all living things. It is a closed circuit. You breathe the same oxygen that every organism that ever lived did and the same oxygen that fish extract from water. In fact, until approximately 3.8 billion years ago, there was no oxygen in the atmosphere, it was all created by photosynthesis, by microorganisms in water.

Air regulates temperature around the globe, it is part of the purification and transportation of water and it protects us from cosmic and solar radiation. The properties of air facilitate sound, scent, flight and pollination, it fills the sails of ships and turns turbines, it creates the waves and moves the trees and grasses.

Air shapes the great sand-dunes of the deserts and clears the dead leaves off the trees. You will continuously breathe air at a rate of about 11 million breaths a year from the moment you are born until the very moment you die. If that is not enough reason to celebrate our atmosphere then it is also incredibly beautiful. Because of the way that Oxygen and Nitrogen scatter light, it is our air that makes the Earth appear blue from space and also what makes our oceans look blue. The refractive properties of the air give rise to spectacular sunrises and sunsets and the array of colours that are created as the Sun's angle changes.

So next time you take a breath maybe give a little more thought to the wonder of it, take the time to feel the cooling breeze on your skin or the thrill of the wind in your face.
We can’t avoid interacting with air, let’s enjoy it!