Smelling, hearing, seeing

• what do you smell? Fresh air? More likely you smell something people have made: car exhaust, factory stinks or smoke from someone's cigarette. Perhaps you've never smelt real fresh air: the sweet smell of damp earth, the scent of pine trees or of the sea. These are the breath of our planet.
  
  
• what do you hear? Birdsong? Nothing? More likely you hear the roar of traffic on a nearby road, an airliner overhead, someone's TV or radio. Perhaps you've never been lucky enough to hear the gentle sounds of wild places: grasshoppers chirping, birds singing, the wind sighing gently in the trees, the burble of a little stream. Or just the deep stillness of a night when there's no wind to make any sound. Everyone should be able to hear these sounds. They are the voice of our planet.
  
  
• what do you see? More houses, factories, apartment blocks, streets, cars, buses and stuff. Perhaps you've never been to a place where everything you can see is natural with no sign of anything people have made: mountains, forests, coasts, rivers, lakes, wilderness. These are the real world; they are what remains of our natural planet and they belong to all of us. And if you live in a big city with lights everywhere at night, you've probably never seen the myriads of stars and the Milky Way which make the wonder of the night sky.
  
  

So what did you see, smell and hear?

Almost certainly some pollution... Probably lots of it.

home		back to home page		forward to What is pollution? Muck, stink and poison