Every Breath You Take
Exploring the Science of Our Changing Atmosphere
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
A leading authority in the field takes readers on a fascinating and surprising journey through the atmosphere—from our lungs to outer space—that will leave readers breathless.
With seven million early deaths each year linked to air pollution, air quality is headline news around the world. But even though we breathe in and out every few seconds, few of us really know what’s in the air all around us. In Every Breath You Take, air quality specialist—and full-time breather—Dr. Mark Broom connects the dots from the atmosphere on distant planets to the holes in the ozone layer to the particles in our lungs.
How do we measure air pollution and what on earth is an odor panel? Why are property prices higher upwind of cities? And will our grandchildren inherit an atmosphere worth breathing? With keen insights on the atmospheric effects of climate change, industrial air pollution, and urbanization in the twenty-first century, Every Breath You Take combines the latest scientific research with Mark’s personal stories to answer these questions and many more in a readable and surprising journey through the atmosphere.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
With this illuminating volume, debut author Broomfield, an air-quality specialist at an environmental consulting firm, brings readers on a "theoretical journey through the atmosphere" in accessible and sometimes wry prose. He begins outside the solar system, with one of the first Earth-like planets discovered to have an atmosphere, and works his way back toward Earth. He explains how Jupiter and Saturn are "pretty much gas all the way down or putting it another way...100% atmosphere" and that Mars has its own snow, "though not the watery stuff that we're familiar with, but flakes of solid carbon dioxide." To explain differences in air pressure and oxygen levels, Broomfield recalls travels to the Himalayas, where, at nearly 17,000 feet above sea level, he found himself "breathing hard when engaged in strenuous activities such as doing up a shoelace or standing still." What most readers will likely find particularly relevant are Broomfield's chapters on air pollution and mortality. He focuses on China and India, whose coal-dependent industries have, in recent decades, made air quality in both countries abysmal. He also gives reminders of how bad smog used to be and occasionally still is in Western cities like Los Angeles and London. Broomfield's helpful look at the air up there, thanks to its breezy tone and solid insights, will make the links between pollution and health both tangible and intriguing to a general audience.
