When you were a kid, I’m sure you have stepped out while the sun was setting. Your young, bright eyes were dazzled by the flurry of colors swirling in the sky, and the magnificent shades of pink decorating the clouds. This scene, for most people, resembles one of two things: roasting marshmallows or cotton candy. Either way, it looks beautifully delectable, and we would certainly delight in sampling a whiff (even in our imagination). Indeed, it never hurts to have some childlike fantasies when one sees such a serene sight, but we must acknowledge the things that a childlike innocence shields from us.
First, let’s consider. If clouds were gigantic swabs of cotton candy, then the reality is that there would be a few hundred pounds of sugar sailing around in our atmosphere. Strange, isn’t it?
Let’s continue considering the other alternative: marshmallows. If clouds were floating pillows of marshmallow, then there would be egg whites, corn syrup, gelatin, possibly some mallow root, and, of course, sugar waiting to rain on an unsuspecting human.
Neither of these sounds all that bad, huh? Well, time to return to reality.
Clouds, as we all should know, are just a collection of water vapor that evaporated from Earth. Most people would stop there. Not to say they’re wrong. There aren’t that many more components in a cloud, which is all the more worrying. To find out what we are forgetting, let’s retrace our steps back to the cloud’s origin: the earth and humans.
As I have stated before, clouds are just water vapors that escaped from Earth (and a few other things), but what else are we sending up there?
Smog emission from almost all transportation; chemicals from industrial, manufacturing, or mining sites; fumes from landfills/waste treatment facilities; agricultural and city areas; burning of fossil fuels in homes or factories.
There are more, but these provide a sufficient image of the amount of pollution people nonchalantly generate. Now, think of all that and a few other things mixed into a toxic concoction hovering just above our heads. Clouds don’t sound so nice all of a sudden, do they?
We are so reliant on these functions that creating pollution becomes almost inevitable in exchange for living comfortably.
Pollution is a scary thing. It is everywhere, we see it and hear about it, but what do we do about it?
A careless action here and there is exactly what plagues the fluffy puffs of innocence we once admired. The buildup of everything other than water in our clouds is the result of human carelessness. Sooner or later, we will face the repercussions of our actions. What goes up must come down: those toxins will return, maybe raining back down on us in the form of acid rain or a choking haze.
The clouds never did anything to us. The Earth has done nothing to us, but what are we doing to them?
Do the right thing, save a cloud, and save this Earth.
